HP throws spanner into DVD format works

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The Inquirer have brought us news about a new twist in the DVD format wars.

At CES, HP announced they had cut a deal with Panasonic to support the other company's DVD formats, so HP will be incorporating DVD-RAM into their next generation desktop computers while Panasonic will tuck DVD+R support into their devices.

Officials from both companies were painting the cross-dressing, er cross-licensing agreement as a boon to consumers who made the mistake of buying earlier generation Panasonic and HP gear without looking at the fine print. Panasonic expects to ship the "read all" drives with their products in April. Of course, Toshiba has been shipping laptops with a DVD "SuperMultiDrive" that supports +R, -R, and –RAM for a number of months, so is this really news?

HP also announced all of its new PCs would immediately support the very cool "Why didn't I think of that?" LightScribe direct disk labeling technology (www.lightscribe.com). LightScribe requires a unique combination of hardware, software, and media. The LightScribe media is double-sided with a laser-etch-able "front" with a stock CD or DVD data "back." Burn your data, flip the disk over to the front/label side, and stick it back in the drive. The laser in the drive directly "burns" any sort of graphical image onto the front of the disk – no fuss, no muss, no sticky labels or perm markers and sloppy handwriting. HP will be the first (but not last) company to deliver LightScribe technology.

LightScribe looks really fun because if you have the proper templates or know a decent graphics artist, you can burn some very cool artwork onto your CD/DVDs, including digital photos (Hm, Eva Glass labels, anyone?). It's all grayscale artwork, so if you want color, you'd be better off sticking with one of the new-wave Epsom inkjet printers that will directly accept and print on CD/DVDs. On the other hand, you don't have to worry about an inkjet label wearing off since the LightScribe "label" is directly burned onto the media.

However, there's some additional LightScribe catches if you read through the FAQ. Consider this statemate, "Our tests indicate that when discs are exposed to indoor lighting, they will last up to nine months with no image degradation once the disc is labeled. If unlabeled discs are stored in a stack or paper sleeve, and kept away from direct sunlight and extreme heat, they will last much longer before labeling." Hmm. UV and direct sunlight exposure are not recommended; to be fair, you don't want to bake your CDs to begin with.

Finally, initial costs of the LightScribe media shipping from Verbatim is around $9 list price for a 10 pack of 52x CD-R. Since stock 52x CD-R material costs around $0.30 a piece, LightScribe is going to cost you a bit more than so-called "normal" media. DVD-R 8x media will be shipping later this quarter and pricing hasn't been announced.

For more info about lightscribe technology please check out This article

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