<storage> (DVD) An optical storage medium with improved capacity and bandwidth over the Compact Disc. DVD, like CD, is initally marketed for entertainment. It will be available for computer users in late 1996.
As an entertainment product DVD will be used for full length movies with up to 133 minutes of high quality video (MPEG-2 format) and audio.
The first DVD drives for computers will be read-only drives ("DVD-ROM"). These will provide over 7 times the storage capacity of CD-ROM (4.7GBytes). DVD-ROM drives will read existing CD-ROMs and music CDs and will be compatible with installed sound and video boards. Additionally, the DVD-ROM drive will read DVD movie titles using an advanced (MPEG-2) video board, required to decode the high resolution video format.
DVD-ROM drives will ultimately be available from many manufacturers. The first drives, using a single-layer disc of 4.7GB, will be available during the second half of 1996 from several manufacturers including Toshiba, Philips, Sony and Hitachi. In 1997, dual-layer discs are expected to increase the disc capacity to 8.5GB. Double-sided, dual-layer discs will eventually increase the capacity to 17GB.
Write-once DVD-R ("recordable") drives will record a 3.9GB DVD-R disc that can be read on a DVD-ROM drive. The first DVD-R drive is expected by mid 1997.
By the end of 1997, the rewritable DVD-RAM (by false analogy with random access memory) drive will become available. DVD-RAM drives will read and write to a 2.6GB DVD-RAM disc, read and write-once to a 3.9GB DVD-R disc, and read a 4.7GB/8.5GB DVD-ROM disc. Also, it is expected that a DVD-RAM disc will be readable on both the DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives.
(17 Nov 1996)