The first signpost pointing you toward a buying decision is the kind of systems you use. If your company uses mostly Apple machines--or if the companies with which you frequently deal are heavily into Apple computers--your best bet is DVD-RAM. As Apple's supported standard, DVD-RAM is the simplest standard to integrate into a pre-existing Apple environment. This is especially true if the disks you're creating need to work in another Apple environment. DVD-RAM drives are made primarily by Hitachi and Panasonic, and are included in all Apple systems that feature writeable DVD drives. However, you can use DVD-RAM in other systems if your company already has quite a few of them.

Rival Camps

The DVD Forum is the consortium and standards body that created the DVD Video standard used by the disks and drives in your living room. This group also devised the DVD-RW and DVD-R standards.

The DVD Forum's rival--the DVD+RW Alliance--produces a competing rewriteable DVD standard conveniently called DVD+RW. The two groups' opposition is based largely on politics. DVD+RW manufacturers claim their products have greater compatibility with DVD readers (the video components in your home-entertainment system and the DVD-ROM drives in laptops and PCs), while the DVD Forum stands strong behind the fact that DVD-RW has been on the market longer.

But "on the market longer" doesn't carry much weight given that DVD+RW is supported by a larger group of manufacturers. And in a recent announcement, Microsoft sided with DVD+RW, making it one of the official supported standards of Windows for DVD. Although Windows also supports DVD-RAM, this hasn't done much to push the adoption of the largely Apple-only technology.

With the support of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp., Ricoh Co., Philips Electronics, Thomson Electronics (RCA) and Yamaha Corp., the DVD+RW standard isn't likely to fail. But wait, the soup gets thicker: Hewlett-Packard's purchase of Compaq Computer Corp., one of the leading supporters of the DVD-RW format, will likely cause Compaq to cease its support of DVD-RW.

Consider all these elements, and DVD-RW's future looks grim. Some companies, such as Sony Corp., produce both DVD-RW and DVD+RW drives. Sony's philosophy is that regardless of DVD+RW's success, there will be space, albeit limited, for DVD-RW in the market.

Our advice to those who will be purchasing rewriteable DVD technology: If yours is not an Apple shop and you're not already tied to DVD-RW, go with DVD+RW. The key to success is sticking with one technology companywide because DVD disks have spotty read capabilities across technologies. DVD+RW disks, depending on make, model and firmware, only occasionally read DVD-RW disks, and the reverse is also true. This wrinkle is ironic, considering the goal of both standards was to ensure compatibility with DVD-ROM drives.

In the final analysis, however, the rift between the DVD-RW Forum and the DVD+RW Alliance has more to do with

egos than compatibility. Frankly, we feel neither side was considering the general good of the consumer when the original technology split occurred. Both camps deserve a swift kick for the confusion they've caused over what essentially amounts to small technical matters--rotational differences, error checking and compatibility issues.

Just Once

The write-once category includes the established DVD-R standard and the DVD+RW's recently completed DVD+R. Both were designed for maximum compatibility with DVD reader drives on the PC platform and in consumer DVD products. The DVD-R standard is comprised of the G format for general use and the A format for authoring. What's the main difference? The G format doesn't reserve the writeable areas for CSS (Content Scrabbling System, the weak encryption used to make DVDs uncopyable) protection, while the A format is intended for glass mastering of DVDs and testing of preproduction techniques.

Early adopters of the first-generation DVD+RW drives have been raising a ruckus. Apparently, some of these drives, the HP DVD Writer dvd100i in particular, are not upgradable for use with the DVD+R format as promised. For just $100, HP is offering to replace the drive with one that can handle DVD+R. Other vendors, such as Philips, are offering a free firmware upgrades for existing DVD+RW drives to make them compatible with the DVD+R format.

Today, write-once disks, such as DVD+R, cost as much as their more versatile DVD+RW cousins. We expect write-once disk prices to fall considerably. Also, when the price for a DVD-writeable drive drops below $300, we expect the adoption rate to speed up significantly. DVD+RW and DVD-RW drives can both read and write CD-R and CD-RW disks, so DVD-writeable technologies will become a popular option after the cost adjustment.

Blue Light Special

Prepare to see blue in your future--blue lasers, that is. The DVD Forum is creating a technological committee for the specification of blue-laser DVD disks. Initially, nine members of the Forum were working on the spec outside of the committee, but recently the blue-laser standards effort was brought back into the Forum.

Current DVD technology employs red lasers in the 630- to 650-nanometer range. This technique provides 4.7 GB of storage space per side for a disk. With the blue lasers running at about 400 nm, the capacity could be a whopping 27 GB. It's been rumored that blue laser DVD devices could surface as early as 2003; we expect it to be late 2003--at best. We do not recommend delaying DVD purchases to wait for blue laser. The current red-laser technology will be supported for several years after the blue laser's introduction.

Steven J. Schuchart Jr. covers storage and servers for Network Computing. Previously he worked as a network architect for a retail firm, a PC and electronics technician, a computer retail store manager, and a freelance disc jockey. Send your comments on this article to him at sschuchart@nwc.com.