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Pioneer is leading a radical shift in the optical storage market, broadening its support for DVD rewritable standards, with consumers coming out the winner.

The company's sixth-generation rewritable DVD drive, the DVR-AO6 makes its debut this week with support for both the "dash" and "plus" DVD formats. That is, it will handle the DVD Forum standard format DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, as well as +R and +RW discs.

Scheduled to ship in June priced at $329, the DVR-A06 marks a change in direction for Pioneer, one of the top makers of DVD burners. Until now, the vendor has been a staunch advocate of the DVD-R and DVD-RW formats. With this release, Pioneer aims to widen its appeal to prospective DVD users who are otherwise mystified by the cacophony of competing--and incompatible--DVD formats of recent years.

Simpler Choice

"We're doing it to eliminate user confusion," says Andy Parsons, senior vice president of the business solutions division of Pioneer USA. "We have listened to what the market is saying, and I'm seeing the market going in the direction of multiple formats."

A dual-format drive presents a clear advantage for consumers, Parsons says. "This way, users don't have to take a risk, or a perceived risk, by selecting the wrong format" and possibly the wrong drive.

Of course, Pioneer expects to win, too. "We hope that this strategy of supporting multiple formats will help grow the market," Parsons says. People who may have been confused by the formats and delayed purchasing drives may now take the leap, he adds.

Supporting both formats does come at a premium, however. At $329, the A06 will cost about $30 more than the suggested retail price of its predecessor, the DVD-R/RW DVR-A05; although the older drive can be found for as little as $250 through online retailers. But Parsons isn't concerned the higher price will constrain sales; he says the added functionality and the perceived safety of supporting both formats will carry the price hike.

"There's a premium people are willing to pay for the dual-format drive," Parsons says. He notes how Sony's drive has maintained its price at $350 with little fluctuation--something virtually unheard of in the increasingly competitive optical drive market.

Pioneer will continue selling the DVR-A05, likely with a price drop after the dual-format A06 ships, Parsons says.

Comparable Specs

Like Pioneer's A05, the A06's software bundle will include Pinnacle InstantWrite packet-writing software, which provides the Quick Format utility as well as Quick Grow, which enables you to use a DVD-RW disc as if it were a multisession CD.

The DVR-A06's specs generally compare favorably to those of Sony's competing DRU-510A; Sony was the first company to market with a dual-format DVD burner last fall. The DVR-A06 features 4X write-once speeds for both DVD-R and DVD+R, and 2X DVD-RW write speeds. However, it lags slightly on its support for DVD+RW (2.4X, compared with the Sony's 4X +RW) and CD-RW (16X/10X CD-/RW compared with Sony's 24X/12X).

But that distinction is minor, especially considering that Sony is the only dual-format drive on the market to support 4X DVD+RW. Other drives on the market are based on NEC's ND1300A drive, which also supports just 2.4X DVD+RW.

The decision to leave out 4X +RW stems from the newness of the format and the lack of media support for the format at this time, says Pioneer's Parsons.

"4X is not something we could depend on," Parsons says. "4X is so new and so untested that we didn't want to stretch it. Being our first [dual-format] drive, we wanted to get it right." Parsons expects the jump to 4X +RW will require a change to the hardware, and not just the drive's firmware.

But he thinks write speeds won't be what sells the product.

"The main purpose is not to exceed the speed limit; it's to have the convenience of supporting multiple formats," Parsons says.

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