As revealed weeks ago the Datasafe Media + r / +RW discs go on sale from Monday. The disc are identical to the current market leader, but as discovered by our Taiwanese moles the distribution price for the disc will be under half the price of other leading brands. Datasafe Media will be marketing this disc under their new premium Pan-European brand – Datawrite For a picture of the disc please click .here

Philips hopes to ignite production of DVD players featuring its write-once, rewriteable format by releasing a reference design that will help manufacturers build DVD+R/DVD+RW recorders in time for the Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas next January.

After speaking friends in the states. The Sony +R-R dvd recorder has problems finilizing dvds.
Many end users have returened the drive Citing it as "unfit for the purpose it was purchased"
Sony have refused to comment on the situation.
This has resulted in NEC delaying the release date on their multi format drive

Tony Anderson

Thanks to killa_m at dvdwriters.co.uk we have a comprehensive review of one of the most anticipated peices of kit this year: the new Pioneer A05 DVD Writer.

Click for the review.

Sony and NEC are promising to end the DVD format wars with new recordable drives, potentially ushering in a new era for video recording and storage.

The first multi-format DVD recorders are set to arrive on retailers' shelves, potentially bridging a gap that has kept DVD recording from becoming a reality for most computer users.

TOKYO - DVD-R/RW (DVD recordable/rewritable) drives are getting faster. Several hardware makers are unveiling drives that write DVD-R discs at up to 4X normal playback speed, and DVD-RW discs at 2X speed. However, the industry is currently watching how the market trend goes, since the drives are still relatively expensive and not many compatible discs are available, yet.

While it has not announced official results, Ritek said its third-quarter performance was not strong and gross profit margins may stand in the single digits, the company’s CEO said.

Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 18, 2002 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., Ltd., today announced the launch of the world's first 4x DVD+R disc for data use. The new product will be available at selected retail outlets in Japan from early December."Our new DVD+R disc is compatible with a majority of DVD systems," said Shigeru Tamura, chief information officer at Mitsubishi Chemical Media. "The disc is DVD+ standard, which may well become the standard for the industry, given the fact that a number of large PC makers in Europe and the United States have already committed to the DVD+ format."

The new DVD+R disc is based on Mitsubishi Chemical Media's proprietary DYN-AZO technology, which produces recording layer with an improved power margin and greater sensitivity that assures stable yet faster recording. This recording layer improvement enabled the company to develop the 4x discs. With DYN-AZO, Mitsubishi Chemical Media achieved 4x speed recording of the same quality as 2.4x speeds. When recording at such high speeds, the disc must be a shape flat to minimize errors. The company uses the precision molding technology it proved with production of high-speed CD-R and CD-RW discs to make sure the new DVD+R 4x discs are shape flat."These new products will broaden our lineup," said Tamura, "and help us meet a wider range of consumer needs. Besides regular discs and packs, we'll offer inkjet printable discs as well."The new products will be available as single discs, in five-disc packs, and in five-packs containing black, white, orange, blue, and green discs.Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., Ltd., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.

A so-called warez CD/DVD dealer in Burwell, United Kingdom, is currently being quizzed after an undercover operation to clamp down on CD piracy. The 30-year-old man sold pirated CDs and DVDs on the internet. His computers and discs were seized during a raid in his house.
The man is alleged to have run an illegal internet-based CD copying business. He was released on bail while investigations continue. The operation was run by city council trading standard officers - who made number of test purchases before the raid.

Nick Kounoupias, of the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Anti-Piracy Unit, said that in operations of this kind, perpetrators e-mail potential customers a master library of available CDs - with music, film, games and software titles on offer. They are then copied on to disc and sent by post to the customer.

Following on from our story on the Fujitsu notebook with the integrated DVD Writer we just recieved this press release from Toshiba about their DVD-RW notebook solution: Satellite(TM) 5200-P0E.

The Satellite 5200 offers the ultimate in high-performance gaming andoutstanding graphic-display capabilities. It comes with a Lifestyle Bay for
additional flexibility and multimedia capabilities and can accept a second hard disk drive, second battery pack bridge, media adapter or second optical media drive for added performance and customized flexibility. Through an additional battery pack bridge, the Satellite 5200 can provide more than five extra hours of battery life and power supply to enable faster performance especially for the system's DVD-R/RW multi-function drive.

The Satellite 5200 features multimedia capabilities including an Intel(R)Pentium(R) 4 2.0GHz-M processor, NVIDIA(R) GeForce4(TM) 460 Go graphics processing unit and 64MB of DDR memory, and up to 100GB hard disk drive (HDD).This model also includes an infrared remote control, multi-functional C-Pad with calculator, calendar, and signature functions, blue backlight LCD CD display and powerful sound system featuring Harman Kardon(R) speakers with a built-in subwoofer.

Datasafe Media today announced the launch of their new premium range: "Datawrite". Datasafe say that the new brand is the vehicle for quality products which are being targeted primarily at retail outlets for the benefit of discerning customers who demand quality as well as value for money. The first product to be launched is the Datawrite Classic DVD-R which many of you would recognise as the old Datasafe Classic - because it's exactly the same!

A spokesman said that Datawrite products will be more expensive, in line with the quality of the brand, and that only a few of the highest quality Datasafe products would be re-branded as Datawrite. "We expect to eat into the market share of premium brands such as TDK and Verbatim, and convince the customers that premium quality does not have to go with the high prices associated with this end of the market. The balance of the new range will be made up of new premium quality products like the Datawrite DVD+R which have been specially commissioned to be of superior quality, but at a lower price than other top brands names."

When asked if the high quality of the Datawrite products would mean that prices would go up, the spokesman responded, "To be honest we always felt that we were selling Datasafe Classic DVD-R for too low a price." However our sources in the industry tell us that street prices are unlikely to change as resellers will absorb any small price increase on this popular disc in order to compete for market share.

Click for an independant review of the Datawrite Classic DVD-R.

Japan's major personal computer makers will be unveiling new notebook computers at this week's World PC Expo show, which begins on Wednesday in Tokyo. Among the several computers announced by Fujitsu was the FMV-Biblo NB18, which is a multimedia computer that includes a built-in TV tuner and DVD-R/RW drive. Based on an Intel Pentium 4-M processor running at 1.8 GHz, its features include a 15-inch TFT LCD with XGA resolution, 256MB of memory, 60GB hard disk drive, four USB 2.0 ports, and slots for both SD and MemoryStick memory cards. It will cost around $2320. (Approx UK price £1499.99.)

Although the Pioneer A05 wont be available for 5 to 6 weeks due to software issues Pioneer have issued this press release.

Pioneer, the market leader and chief innovator in the field of DVD technology, today launches its latest and fastest DVD-R/RW writer, the DVR-A05. Benefiting from the enhancements of previous generations, the DVR-A05 takes DVD writing to a new level by burning at twice the speed of the DVR-A04 to meet the new industry media standard² of a 4x write speed to DVD-R and 2x to DVD-RW, ahead of competing brands. The writer is also capable of writing CD-R media with a 16x write speed and CD-RW at 8x, combined with a higher read speed of 32x CD-ROM and 6x DVD-ROM.

MEGAN Media Holdings Bhd, the largest manufacturer of compact disc recordables (CD-R) and digital versatile disc recordables (DVD-R) in Malaysia, intends to penetrate third world markets like India, South America and South-East Asia, according to its executive chairman Datuk Dr Mohd Adam Che Harun.

Steps are being taken to curtail the bootleg DVD market that has sprung up on the strength of the Market being flooded with cheap DVD-R by manufacturers such as Bulkpaq and Datasafe.

One of the main way that “pirates“ get new releases is to go into a cinema with a handheld camcorder and record a movie from the big screen.
New releases are available on DVD-R within hours of them being released. There is an interesting article on News.com, which looks at ways of curtailing this practice.

Datasafe Media have have certainly been busy this week. They have launched their highly rated Classic 2x DVD-R.

Yesterday they provided us with samples of a yellow 1x DVD-R and today we received samples of the first ever Ritek manufactured Datasafe DVD-R released in the UK. The disc which has exactly the same characteristics as the Traxdata DVD-R is according to our sources is going to be a fraction of the price of the current Traxdata DVD-R disc.

Initial comparisons of the disc show no differances between the Traxdata and the "new" Datasafe DVD-R.

An update to our story regarding pre-release versions of the Pioneer 105 being in circulation: Our regular contributer Flash has managed to get his hands on a manual from a company that has one of these Pioneer 105.

If you want a look at a manual for the Pioneer 105 in PDF format click here.

An update to our story regarding Datasafe selling 2x discs as 1x speed discs.

Bulkpaq have reacted fiercely to this practise and will next week be launching a highly compatible 2 speed disc at a bargain basement price. The disc, which is already for sale in mainland Europe, has received rave reviews.

Our sources tell us that bulkpaq are planning to annihilate the 2x DVD-R market in the UK with the pricing of these new discs. Check out your local disc retailer next week :)

Click here for a picture of the New Bulkpaq Disc.

Pre release versions of the Pioneer 105 are now being touted around the market. One midlands internet retailer has one for sale on his website for £4999.99 another well known internet retailer is offering customers the chance to win one in a raffle. So if you cant wait for 6 weeks for the official product you know what to do :)

Datasafe Media Ltd have introduced a budget DVD-R disc which will be available for sale from Monday from all retailers. As of yet we have no indication of street price.

Click here for a picture of the New Disc.