How fast will DVD writers get??

[bpopman]

I am a newbie looking at getting a DVD writer and am just wondering if DVD writers will be as quick as cd writers i.e. 52x24x52x..

Is there a limit or will it just sort of proceed like CD writers did?

And If it will be as quick as CD writers, what sort of time horizon would we be looking at for the top speed?

I started with a 4x4x24 cd writer and was quickly lapped about a year after.


Thanks

[NightWing]

16x is the top end limit.

[bpopman]

Why is 16x the top end??

[tgm4883]

i believe that it is because if the disc was to spin any faster in the drive, it would break apart. You are burning alot more data on a dvd, but compared to a cd, a dvd running at 16x will burn about the same distance as a cd running at 52x

[MOVIEGEEK]

Yes RPM will be about the same(11,000RPM) but throughput will be alot higher for DVD:
CD 52x=7800KB/s
DVD 16x=22160KB/s

[tgm4883]

Yes RPM will be about the same(11,000RPM) but throughput will be alot higher for DVD:
CD 52x=7800KB/s
DVD 16x=22160KB/s

Yea, thats what I was trying to say, there is a lot more data in the same amount of space

[lordsmurf]

As fast as the technology will allow. But you've got RPM and balance to consider, as it relates to accurate laser use. 4x was pushing it. 8x is pushing really hard. I don't foresee 16x anytime in the near future.

Also understand the disc starts out at one speed (1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, whatver), and it 4x or 8x or whatever, by the end of the burn. The outside spins faster than the inside. When this starts to happen, you're beginning to hits the limits of the burn speed barrier.

Notice that a 16x CD-R is about 5 minutes, while a 52x CD-R is about 3 minutes. It's only 52x in a lab, when the disc is burning the final piece of data.

A 4x DVD-R drive actually tops out at about 4.3x by the end of the burn.

[tompika]

8xDVD+R and 4xDVD+RW has been reality for months.
Next spring it will be at 12x and in a year at 16x.

8xDVD-R is supposed to be out by now but they have difficulties
so it wont happen this year.

[NightWing]

Add to that the double layer tech and it going to be a fun next year.

[rhegedus]

They'll get as fast as people can afford.

Two of the top three commented DVD media are x4, so people are willing to pay for the speed. I haven't seen any x8 media so I don't know what the prices are, but I bet that they cost more in relation to x4 media than x4 was to x2 media a year ago.

And as someone said, with the dual-layer media supposed to be coming out next year, I can't see much reason to push further than x8 with the media we have now.

[bpopman]

Does "dual-layer media" mean that you will be able to burn on bothe side of the dvd-r+/-?? And if so will todays dvd writers support the new media?

Thanks

[tompika]

Two of the top three commented DVD media are x4, so people are willing to pay for the speed. I haven't seen any x8 media.

Plextor, Nutech write 4xmedias in 8minutes, Sony, ASUS, Nec 8xDVD+R burners on the way

Here is one, more exist though...

Does "dual-layer media" mean that you will be able to burn on bothe side of the dvd-r+/-?? And if so will todays dvd writers support the new media?

Mixing dual-layer with dual-sided?

[rhegedus]

That's not what I said.............

I haven't seen any x8 media, but I don't doubt they exist.

[energy80s]

Remember that x1 DVD is actually the same as x9 CDR, so a 4 speed DVD drive is actually writing at the equivilant speed of a x36 CDR, so a x8 DVDR would be the same as a x72 CDR. Is it any wonder that the discs are warm coming out of the burner!!

[NightWing]

Does "dual-layer media" mean that you will be able to burn on bothe side of the dvd-r+/-?? And if so will todays dvd writers support the new media?

Thanks

If the tech works then you can burn about 8.4gb instead of the 4.7gb on one side. Both Philips and I think Sony has releas they have done this in the lab and we may see it next year.

[poopsmith]

My Predictons on how fast DVD Writers will get:

2004: 8.4x
2006: 10.2x
2008: 11.4x
2009: 11.9x
2010: 12.5x
2011: 13x
2014: 14x
2015: 14.5x
2016: 15x
2018: 15.4x
2020: 16x

[rhegedus]

Hmmmmmmm..........

Everything else in the computer world seems to double in capabilities or size every couple of years (cpu speed, ram etc). I think DVDR will be the same.

[bokkasrealm]

My predictions on DVD Writing Speeds:

2004: 12X
2005: 16X
2006: Blue Laser
2007: Dual layer DVD
2008: Dual Layer Blue Laser
2009: The Death of Blue Laser
2010: Terabyte hard drive implants to your cochlea
2011: An inner ear infection
2012: Various STD's
2013: Man and Machine meld together
2014: Machine kills man
2015: Machine goes back to 8-tracks

[Gazorgan]

LMFAo, make this sticky.

M'kay.
-R format has issues with how it wrties/reads data, it will max out at 8x and that will be it's death.
+R format uses a different technique and it could be good up to 16x.

16x is approaching the practical speed of UDMA 100/133 buss speeds. You would need serial ATA to be burning DVD's at 16x. The busses support that speed, but you 120 GB WD drive won't go that fast.

The physical speed of a 16x disk is mind numbing. Any minor imperfection (that means any Princo :P ) Would wobble so bad you couldn't write to it. Wobble is a much biggger issue in writing that reading. Hell, a lot of cheap 1x disks wabble at 4x read speeds. The same problem occurs with CDR's. I have some old 2x CDRW that wobble so bad at 40x the drive takes 30 second sof cycle before it slows down to 2x spped and tries reading, eventually stepping up to 8x, but no faster.

An now the ultimate question: Does it really matter? I mean I'm burning at 4x now....15 minutes. 16x would mean on the order of 4+ minutes. Big Deal, I burn while encoding anyway so it doesn't really matter.

It's like burning CDR's at 24x instead fo 52x, so what, you save 90 seconds.....How many CDR's are you burning at once? It really would only matter to someone duplicating.

[Xesdeeni]

A DVD's 1x is about 3x the spin speed of a CD's 1x. So a 16x DVD is spinning at about the same rate as a 48x CD. [Note that most 52x CD burners don't spin at 52x out of the box. If you want to enable 52x, you have to use a utility they include to do so, and they give you a stern warning that you might be in danger from exploding CDs.]

DVD's pits are about about 1/3 the size of CD's pits.

So a 1x DVD's data transfer is about equivalent to a 9x (3x from spin, 3x from pit density) CD speed.

---

One thing I haven't seen brought up anywhere is whether the first generation of dual-layer DVDs will be able to record at these higher rates. I'm guessing the dual-layer drives will have to slow back down at first.

I'm also not holding my breath that the first dual-layer drives and blank dual-layer DVDs will be priced anywhere near the current drives and blanks. So although they are supposed to be out next year, I suspect most of us won't be buying them for another year or two.

Xesdeeni

[handyguy]

52x cdwriters have special front faceplates because their is a risk the cd may fly out. Some guy made his do 65x & it flew apart.

So, same with dvd writers. Big question is 16x writers would produce reliable writes.

[ofbarea]

Gazorgan wrote:

16x is approaching the practical speed of UDMA 100/133 buss speeds. You would need serial ATA to be burning DVD's at 16x.

Get ready for the future, get firewire 800 today...

[Adder_78]

-R format has issues with how it wrties/reads data, it will max out at 8x and that will be it's death.
+R format uses a different technique and it could be good up to 16x.

Well I dont think so... there is still lots of issues in + format too. The CLV 8X burning etc... Plextor was the only + format manufacturer that was able to produce 8X ZCLV drive to market (only ZCLV). Where was other manufacturers(+)? So there must be some issues in both formats...

[disturbed1]

As fast as the technology will allow. But you've got RPM and balance to consider, as it relates to accurate laser use. 4x was pushing it. 8x is pushing really hard. I don't foresee 16x anytime in the near future.

Also understand the disc starts out at one speed (1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, whatver), and it 4x or 8x or whatever, by the end of the burn. The outside spins faster than the inside. When this starts to happen, you're beginning to hits the limits of the burn speed barrier.

Notice that a 16x CD-R is about 5 minutes, while a 52x CD-R is about 3 minutes. It's only 52x in a lab, when the disc is burning the final piece of data.

A 4x DVD-R drive actually tops out at about 4.3x by the end of the burn.

CD burns at CAV, which starts slow in the beging, then faster at the end.

DVD is CLV, starts at one speed, ends at the same speed. With a constant burning speed.

If your DVDs are starting slow, then speeding up, or the speed dips in the middle, check your Hard Disk subsystem. All of my A05s start at 4.2x, and switch quickly between 4.1x and 4.3x throughout the burn speed. Same with my A03, starts at 1.0x, and switches between 1.0 and 1.1x.

Also DVDDecrypter doesn't report the exact writing speed, LightingUK says it's just a best guess, an aproximation of the data throughput.


Companies could use a dual laser burn design. Much like the Kenwood high speed CD readers.

16x will use a ZCLV method also, or they'll have to have a motor spin up first before the burning cycle begins. The 16x diodes have been around for a while now, they're just perfecting the motor structure. Look for both 16x and dual layer DVD by Mid 2004.

[Faustus]

My predictions on DVD Writing Speeds:
2011: An inner ear infection

I might have this now! I'm so darned advanced...

[mikesbytes]

I was wondering if the issue of waiting for the right point to buy a DVD burner was not so much do do with the speed as per Bpopman's origional question, but as to when reliability reached an acceptable levels.

Using the development of the CD burners for example, my first burner was an 8x burner that produced as many coasters as it did successes. When replaced with a 52x burner with all of the latest features, the sucess rate became 100%. The speed difference wasn't really that important.

I want a DVD burner just like everyone else, but I don't want hassels;
- Features, some reviews and comments on the burners talk about missing features that may affect playback on standalone DVD players.
- Format war. Probably not that important now. If you don't know which format, then buy a multi format.
- Media quality. Having to worry about dud media is just another hassel.
- Media price. Getting better.

[gmatov]

here's a question, theoriginal post here was rfeferring to how fast will DVDs get to be, and the answers are more or less coming back as rotational speed.

The "blue ray" laser is supposed to be in pre-release development. Hotter, faster, shorter pits, due to wavelength, closer together, why do we need a dual layer, which just afew months ago, the concensus here was we would never see, it was a pressed disk ability, only.

You put smaller pits closer together, you would get near the data density of a dual layer.

Cheers,

George

[Alan69]

By no means is 16x the upper limit. Have you guys forgotten about the hmm wasn't it Kenwood with the CD drive with a 7 plex pickup? The upper reasonable (not a laser point for every bit on the disc) limit is a line across the disc, entire disc done in one rotation..

And you do see that it'd only take dual focus optics to write to both layers of a 2 layer disc on the same pass? Since most of the disc wobble is overall, not layer to layer thickness, one servo with a fixed optic relationship might even be enough to do it.

Not that it will be done, other advances will likely make these not worth persuing before someone actually got around to doing them. But 16x is a limit only in respect to not working on anything else about the drive arrangement. If they don't have a far better technology from other directions you could still expect to go well beyond 16x writing within a reasonable couple of years or so. They're already around $100 for 4X, if there were no way to do 8X by just speeding things up you could easily make and justify a 2 head drive and do 2 halves of the disc at once for 8X. No doubt someone would do at least a 32X drive if 16X is the max and nothing better is coming.

Alan

[Jester700]

By no means is 16x the upper limit. Have you guys forgotten about the hmm wasn't it Kenwood with the CD drive with a 7 plex pickup? The upper reasonable (not a laser point for every bit on the disc) limit is a line across the disc, entire disc done in one rotation..
Alan

Maybe upper PRACTICAL limit would have been a better term, but IMO it's still valid. Note that even in CDRs NOBODY has used Kenwood's technology; there has not been a single 72x burner. Writing heads weigh more, and as prices fall, tooling up for a proprietary system like that makes less sense. Add to that the fact that the gains are small - does anyone REALLY care about burning a disc in 2 1/2 minutes instead of 5? Yes, IF they don't have to pay substantially extra for it, but they would.

Also, you run into other system limits. At 32x, you're near the theoretical firewire 400 and USB2.0 limits, and probably past real world ability. In fact, you're at 7200RPM hard drive speeds. Not that this couldn't be used by some people, but it shrinks your market somewhat and makes you spend more for customer service to field issues for "less than perfect" systems. People may complain that they bought a 32x firewire burner, and why won't it EVER hit 32x.

So, I think we'll top out at 16x MAX. And then blu-ray arrives.

[bpopman]

Wow, I do love forums and all the knowledge you gain from them....

The whole reason for my question is that I have 2 young children and would like to backup some dvd kids movies but still retain all the original features of the original dvd..

I just don't want to buy a 4x writer today and have a 8x, 12x or 16x come out the next day for a couple of bucks more. When I buy a writer I want it to be the "right" one for my needs and not be functionally obsolete a week later...