NEW YORK -The DVD+RW Forum members are expected to announce ship dates for rewritable PC drives and home player/recorders on Nov. 14 at Comdex and demonstrate a working prototype DVD+RW PC drive and home movie player/recorder.
Philips, Hewlett-Packard and Ricoh will show working prototypes at Comdex, and at least some of the companies will release their retail plans for the drives, said John Spofford, VP/general manager of HP’s Colorado Personal Storage Solutions.
DVR+RW supporters Sony, Yamaha and Verbatim also will be on hand.
The group held similar meetings at PC Expo last summer and the 1999 Comdex, but this week for the first time in the United States, the companies burn data in real-time using a prototype DVD+RW drive in a PC and then a home player/recorder.
The newly created discs will then be played in an off-the-shelf DVD movie player to show compatibility with the installed base of products, Spofford said.
The DVD+RW consortium would not release pricing or exact shipping information prior to Comdex, but Spofford said the group is not concerned about following DVD-RAM products to market. The rewritable DVD market is not ready to accept the technology, although it will be by late 2001.
Panasonic started shipping a $3,999 DVD-RAM home video player in August. Hitachi and other DVD-RAM supporters also have products ready to go.
These moves are a departure from what Philips and Panasonic reported at Comdex in 1999. At that time Philips said it would first ship a movie player/recorder, while Panasonic said it would concentrate on the PC market.
The DVD+RW is also launching a website to help promote the technology to the industry and consumers. Starting on Nov. 14, www.dvdrw.com will go live, listing technical information on the format.
