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A radical shift is underway in the rewritable DVD drive market--and consumers are the winners.

Users can now stop puzzling over competing, incompatible rewritable formats and choose among several drives that support the two most widely compatible ones: DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW. And along with competing dual-format drives come lower prices.

Sony led the way last fall with the first drive to combine both main formats. Now several vendors such as Iomega, Memorex, NEC, Plextor, and TDK are offering dual-format drives; all models are just out or will ship later this summer. Market leader Pioneer notably switches to a dual-format drive after being a staunch advocate of the DVD Forum-endorsed DVD-RW format. And LG Electronics is making a drive that supports the -RW and +RW formats as well as DVD-RAM (favored primarily for backing up and archiving PC data). We tested two shipping units of these second-wave drives, one from Pioneer and the other from TDK.

No Speed Boost

You won't be buying one of the new drives to get more speed. Sony remains the leader on that count with its DRU-510A (see chart). Specs of the Pioneer DVR-A06 and the TDK IndiDVD Dual generally compare well with the DRU-510A's, but both new drives trail Sony's on CD and DVD+RW write speeds.

While the TDK's results are about what we'd expect from a model with those specs, the Pioneer drive took far longer to complete our write tests. Why? The DVR-A06 builds in full support for UDF 2.0 defect management both in its hardware and in software via Software Architects' Write DVD packet-writing package. The software automatically initiates a write-verify cycle. But in ensuring data integrity, you trade off performance.

"With 2X media, it should give you the equivalent of a 1X write," says Andy Parsons, senior vice president of Pioneer USA's business solutions division. He adds that after the first pass, the software will reverify the data only once every ten writes.

There is bad media out there, so if you have very sensitive data, this approach may make sense.

Dual-format support is more expensive. At $329, the DVR-A06 costs about $80 more (street) than its predecessor. And the $299 IndiDVD Dual is about $50 more than TDK's single-format models. But prices on these kinds of drives should drop overall. Both tested drives are cheaper than the $350 Sony; as more drives hit the market, the trend will only continue.

Holdouts

Not every vendor is leaping to dual-format. Toshiba's and HP's next drives will stick with one format only. Dean Sanderson, HP's director of product marketing for DVD, says that in the long term, maintaining multiple formats will be tough and will slow the evolution of the technology.

Vendors must eventually decide which formats to support to keep up in the speed race, says IDC analyst Wolfgang Schlichting. But over the long haul, multiformat drives may be most dominant in the aftermarket, he adds.

And right now, no matter which format you prefer, the harvest of new drives makes rewritable DVD a safer and more attractive investment.

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