One drive to read and write all formats?

14th November - 2001
By Ian Burley

Early next year Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) will start to ship what is likely to be the world’s first CD and DVD recorder drive that can accept all the main DVD and CD recordable standards.

What do we mean by ‘main’? HLDS simply says the drive will support all write-type DVD and CDs recognized by the official DVD Forum. As we understand, that includes CD-R and CD-RW, plus DVD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RAM.

The, as some would describe, ‘maverick’ DVD+RW late-comer platform, championed by Sony, Philip, HP, Ricoh and Yamaha, among others, is apparently not supported by HLDS.

The drive is a conventional ATAPI internal fit product for personal computers. HLDS isn’t mentioning any prices at the moment, but tantalisingly suggests that it will be more affordable than we might have expected.

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