The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) has undertaken a renewed effort to surpass its previous accomplishments in the hope of bringing some clarity to the DVD storage marketplace. I’m of course referring to the existing MultiRead specification for CD and OSTA’s desire to create a new MultiRead 2 specification designed to promote and facilitate compatibility …
Compact, lightweight portable CD-ROM drives that operate on the notebook’s or their own battery power and connect using a standard PCMCIA interface have been available for years. So why haven’t we had portable CD-R/RW drives?
The latest and most outrageous prophecy made for the optical storage market is that 1999 will be the year of CD-ReWritable. But given its restricted functional realities, poor price potential, limited compatibility and existing indifferent market reception it’s hard to believe that anyone would trumpet such great expectations for CD-RW in the coming year.
Some aspire to greatness while others have greatness thrust upon them. Certainly, greatness appears to have been thrust upon CD-R, which started life humbly enough as an expensive prototyping system. Beginning almost in obscurity, it now is poised to be the dominant optical storage technology for the next five years. Where else can so much …
With earth-shattering performance light years beyond anything else currently available, the Smart and Friendly 8X CD Rocket blasts into orbit propelled by the latest and greatest in CD recording technology, Sanyo Electric’s new CRD-R800S CD recorder.
NEC and TEAC have fused Phase-Change Dual (PD) and CD-Recordable into a single hybrid device called Multi CD-R or CD-R Plus. A veritable Swiss Army Knife of optical storage, this new drive can read and rewrite PD media, read CD-ROMs at 20X CAV, and record CDs at double speed.
Isn’t it odd that with all the talk about the importance of DVD drives being able to read CD-Recordable and CD-ReWritable discs, no one has stopped to consider the desirability of DVD devices also being able to write these formats?
Speed of technological change seems inevitable. Sometimes speed gets you where you want to go faster, but sometimes speed kills. Speed in product development and rush to market rather than well considered long-term planning has come on the scene to infect well-ordered CD marketing.
Hitachi, Ltd. announced it will start shipping samples of its double-speed (2x) GD-2000 DVD-ROM drive.
Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation announced that it is expanding its CD-R and CD-RW disc production facilities in Singapore and building a new CD-R factory in Ireland.
Light finally shines at the end of the tunnel for CD-Erasable (CD-E) with formal market delivery anticipated at the November COMDEX exhibition in Las Vegas.