Format War in DVD Recording Leaves Compatibility Out

DVD players are far superior to VCRs by every measure but one: recording.

VCRs do it, DVD players don’t. As a result, DVD players might be great for watching a rented movie, but they’re no help when it comes to recording one off the air.

A number of manufacturers are trying to fill that void with a new line of DVD recorders. Units that fit into a PC cost $400 or more, and stand-alone models sell for more than $800.

But they’re fighting the same format war that consumer-electronics companies waged over recordable video, offering consumers multiple recording and re- recording standards that don’t work with each other.

It’s even worse than the videotape battle that forced consumers to bet on VHS or Beta, because there are two flavors of recording and three flavors of re-recording. And whereas VHS and Beta offered a clear choice--in essence, longer recording time versus better picture quality--the difference between two of the re-recordable DVD formats are so technical and minute that only an engineer could fully understand them.

The one sure thing is that none of the DVD recording formats are compatible with every DVD player on the market and in consumers’ homes. That problem is expected to diminish over time for some--but not all--formats.

The roots of the dispute lie in the contentious history of the basic standard for DVD discs. Unlike CD technology, which was created and controlled by Sony and Philips, a large group of manufacturers collectively created the initial DVD standard in the mid-1990s. Two manufacturers split into two camps on recording, ultimately yielding five mutually exclusive formats: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW.

DVD-R and DVD+R are “write once” formats, like CD-R, meaning the discs can’t be erased and re-recorded. The others are rewritable.

To understand the difference between the discs, you need to know a bit about how DVD works.

Like a turntable, a DVD player reads information off spinning, grooved discs. Instead of using a needle, though, a DVD player’s optical pickup bounces light off the disc with a laser to read marks burned into the grooves.

The first recorders on the market were Panasonic’s DVD-RAM units, which made their debut in 1998. Those discs are fundamentally different from packaged DVDs, requiring a special pickup to read marks in and between the grooves. As a result, a standard DVD player won’t recognize a DVD-RAM disc.

The main advantage to DVD-RAM discs is that they can be erased and rewritten 100,000 times, compared with about 1,000 rewrites for competing formats. The big disadvantage is that they require specialized hardware found in few DVD players.

To address that compatibility problem, Sony, Philips, Hewlett-Packard and a handful of other companies developed DVD+RW, while Pioneer and others back DVD-RW. These devices produce rewritable discs that mimic dual-layer (or high-capacity) DVDs, a format that all standard DVD players are supposed to be able to read.

As it turns out, however, even these discs baffle some DVD players, said Andy Parsons, a senior vice president at Pioneer. Many older DVD players weren’t programmed to read the dual-layer discs. Others think rewritable discs should have two layers of programming, and spit them out when they don’t find one. The most common problem is that the players don’t recognize the identification codes burned into DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs.

All of those issues are solved easily by tweaking the software in a DVD player, Parsons said. That’s why the vast majority of new DVD players are expected to read DVD-RWs and DVD+RWs. Today, though, only 60% to 70% of all DVD players can read those discs, some executives estimate.

So what’s the difference between the two? It’s mainly variations in how the laser finds specific pieces of data on the disc, how they manage defects and how they replace data. These issues may be significant in some professional applications, Parsons said, but not for consumers who want to record home movies or TV shows.

The DVD-RW camp also backs DVD-R for “write once” recording. The advantage here is that DVD-R discs are compatible with an even higher percentage of DVD video players, posing problems mainly for older players that are puzzled by the lower reflectivity of the discs. Another plus is that the discs, like CD-R discs, are less expensive than their rewritable counterparts. Blank DVDs cost $5 to $13, depending on the format.

Naturally, the DVD+RW camp backs a competing format, DVD+R. No products are on the market yet, though, because the DVD+R standard isn’t expected to be finished until next year.

The format scrum could take years to resolve. In the meantime, Panasonic and other members of the DVD-RAM camp are developing DVD Multi drives that can record DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, while Sony has promised a recorder capable of both DVD-RW and DVD+RW.

*

Jon Healey covers the convergence of entertainment and technology. He can be reached at jon.healey @latimes.com.