Panasonic Breaks DVD Compatibility Barrier With Industry's First Combination DVD-RAM/R Drive

Provides All-In-One Solution For Giga-Capacity Write-Once And Rewritable Storage, Maximum Cross-Device Disc Exchange/Playback

25-Apr-01

Panasonic has announced the industryís first combination DVD-RAM/R drive - a major breakthrough in DVD storage flexibility and media interchangeability. In addition to reading from and writing to both DVD-RAM (rewritable) and DVD-R (write-once) discs, the multifunction drive provides all of the functionality of the DVD Forum specifications for DVD-RAM and DVD-R General, including maximum compatibility with DVD video players, recorders and DVD-ROM drives. With the drive, Panasonic delivers on its promise to provide a single, interchangeable solution for home video, personal computing, and business storage/archiving as well as development and testing of master DVDs. Panasonic is demonstrating the drive at the NAB convention this week.Panasonic's new DVD-RAM/R solution is scheduled to begin shipping to OEM customers and channel partners in the second quarter of this year. Aggressively priced, the drives will have an MSRP under $1,000. The versatile new drive leverages Panasonic's 15 years of experience in high density, phase change-type recording/reading technology and builds on its nearly three-year track record of delivering highly reliable rewritable DVD drives and media with hard disk-like random access. By switching between 650 nanometer (nm) and 780 nm wavelength lasers and one objective lens, the Panasonic combination drive offers the widest range of media interchangeability currently available. With the ability to write to and read from general-purpose 4.7GB DVD-R discs and 4.7GB/9.4GB DVD-RAM discs, the multifunction drive provides the familiarity of CD-R/RW. The difference is, DVD provides at least seven times the capacity of a CD, plus video and audio capabilities that cannot be matched by CD formats. Other features, such as the ability to play back DVD video, DVD-ROM and DVD-R discs, and 24x CD read performance make the drive exceptionally cost-effective.  Using 4.7GB DVD-R General media, the Panasonic DVD-RAM/R drive provides a transfer rate of up to 11.08 Mbps, which is equivalent to about nine times the transfer rate of CD-ROM 1x speed. The 22.16 Mbps transfer rate for 4.7GB DVD-RAM translates to an 18x CD data rate. Seek times are 75 ms for DVD-RAM and 65 ms DVD-R, DVD-ROM and CD media. ""Our new DVD-RAM/R drive provides businesses and consumers, as well as game title and content developers with the best of both worlds,"" said Tamotsu Matsuo, Deputy Director, Technology Center of AVC Network Business Group, AVC Company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. ""For the first time, they can have an all-in-one DVD storage solution that provides the security of write-once and the flexibility of rewritable. A single drive can be used for high capacity, removable storage, personal computing and home movies, corporate and professional video authoring/editing, low-cost distribution, backup, archiving, and video playback.""The write-once DVD-R General technology, incorporated in Panasonic's new drive, will provide businesses, banks, insurance companies, law firms, medical facilities and government agencies with the security they need for recording and archiving volumes of information that cannot be altered. In addition, because DVD-R discs can be played back by the existing installed base of most DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives in use throughout the world today, content can be recorded, removed from the drive and shared with others. Often described as the bridge between business and home applications, DVD-RAM combines the ease of use and random access of a hard drive with more than 100,000 write/rewrite cycles and ultra-reliability. With the random access capabilities, users have almost instant access to any file or a specific video frame for editing and playback. The rewritability and random access of DVD-RAM also makes it an excellent storage device for backup and fast recovery.By offering both rewritable DVD and DVD-R technologies, the Panasonic DVD-RAM/R drive will have broad appeal among consumers, businesses and professionals who want the ideal DVD solution for applications ranging from home movie authoring and editing to PC data storage and image archiving. For more information about the Panasonic DVD-RAM/R OEM drive and DVD media, visit www.panasonic.com/oemdvd-ram.

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