DVD-RAM recommendations

[Spit]

I'm thinking about buying a Panasonic DVD recorder. The one thing that concerns me is the use of DVD-RAM, which seems to be harder to find and much morel expensive than DVD-RW media. Are there any advantages or disadvantages to DVD-RAM? Any sources with reasonable prices?

[darkelf]

Advantages: If you are careful with the media it will last far longer than the 1,000 rewrite cycles found on DVD+/-RW media. The DVD-RAM spec is rated for 100,000 erase cycles, but those tests are done on media that never leaves it's protective cartridge. At this time I don't think any standalone DVD-RAM capable model uses cartridge format (you have to pull the disc from it's cart, but it should work). Even if you pull the discs from their carts and get only 5% of their rated lifetime, that's *still* 5,000 cycles vs 1,000 for RW. Odds are you can do much better than that.

DVD-RAM does not need any special packet writing software to read/write/erase files from the disk when used in a PC. Win2k and higher treat it as a slow HDD. I suppose this hinges on your need to read your RAM discs on a PC.

New DVD-ROM drives are coming out with RAM read support standard now, so even a plain ROM drive should read your disc in a PC. You would have to inquire further on this forum for verification of the readability of programs recorded on DVD-RAM in a standalone player and their compatibility when used in a PC DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM drive. They should work fine.

DVD-RAM has error-correction built into the format, which you can switch on and off at will for PC-bound drives. I am not aware if this error correction is enabled in the Pan standalone units (I would assume so) and it shouldn't be too taxing on the system since they only record at 1x, and 3x is now the current DVD-RAM write standard for PC drives.

DVD-RAM is well supported in standalone players from Pan (the biggest DVD-RAM pusher out there). You can start watching a program on a disc while you are in the process of recording it (with a delay of course). I'm not sure if you can do this with standard DVD-R discs or RW for that matter, but it is a big plus for RAM.

With care, the media should last much longer than standard +/-RW media. The error correction should help here as well.

So the media is more expensive, but there is a good chance that the media you *do* buy will last much longer than typical RW.

DVD-RAM also makes excellent archival storage, especially when you have a cartridge-capable PC drive.

Hope this helps...

[darkelf]

Just did some checking and I gave you incorrect information. The panasonic standalone models will indeed take the DVD-RAM discs in their cartridge, so no removal is necessary.

Not sure if that was important to you, but needed to stop spread of disinformation.

-elf

[Jukka]

LG burners (GSA4040 and GMA4020) take DVD-RAM without a cartridge (as do the standalone Panasonics).

The main benefit of RAM is the timeslip functionality in a standalone, although I saw somewhere here that Pioneer, etc. are planning this for newer -RW discs (8x??).

Also Pana's have a 'fit to disc' record mode (not sure if +-RW have that - yet),

Jukka

[Spit]

Thanks, both. This information is very helpful.