Strains of the Betamax/VHS war were recently revived with the introduction of several competing standards for writable DVD drives. Even the names are confusing. There is DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW.   Each of these formats is different and each is incompatible with each other. Until now, most companies backed one or two of these standards. For instance, Apple Computer, Hitachi, NEC, Pioneer, Samsung, and Sharp backed the DVD-RAM and DVD-RW formats while Dell Computer, Phillips, and Hewlett-Packard backed the DVD+RW format.

Although creating and copying DVDs was interesting to many, it was simply not as compelling as taping television programming. So, most consumers have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the format wars to settle down. Amazingly, no one format has really taken over. The DVD-RAM format has weakened, but the DVD-RW and the DVD+RW formats still seem to be battling it out.

Now, however, the popularity of DVDs has skyrocketed. Consumers have been exposed to the benefits of DVDs. Many want to create home movies on DVDs. They want to be able to create DVDs that can hold much more information than CDs. In fact, Gartner, a well-known technology research company, has predicted that by 2005 consumers will purchase 27.6 million DVD recordable drives.

We obviously have a pent-up demand and no clear winner.  Technology created the dilemma, but technology has also come to the rescue! DVD manufacturers, poised to sell millions of recordable DVD drives, have come up with a solution. They are creating DVD drives that will support both formats.

Sony has just released its new DRU510A DVD drive that both reads and writes both DVD-RW and DVD+RW disks. The Sony player also allows you to create DVD-R and DVD+R disks. While the DVD-RW and DVD+RW disks can be written and re-written, the DVD-R and DVD+R disks can only be written to once. Blank write-once DVDs are cheaper and they play on some older DVD players that will not accept DVD-RW and/or DVD+RW disks. Also, some DVD players will only read the + DVDs, while others prefer the – DVDs. The new Sony DVD drive also allows you to create CDs and recordable CDs. So the ability to create all of these different disks on one DVD drive is a big step in the right direction for the consumer. Hitachi and others have similar DVD drives in the works.

Although still a little confusing, this new turn of events makes it possible for the consumer to purchase a writable DVD without worrying about choosing the wrong format and/or being penalized in the future. If you want to add writeable DVD functionality to your current computer, be sure to check out one of the new DVD drives. Hopefully, these new multi-read and multi-write drives will be available in new computers in the near future so everyone can enjoy the fun of creating DVDs without the hassle.