With prices dropping to about US$100 (£63), demand for DVD+RW burners will double this year, stated Philips’s Strategic Alliance manager Dr Frans C Bos in an interview on February 20.

The DVD+RW Alliance announced late Monday that Microsoft had joined its ranks, adding that the software giant will also have a seat on its policy-setting team with representatives from Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha. The DVD+RW Alliance is a group of companies that promotes and develops the DVD+RW format.

Not be outdone by the music industry's lawsuit against Bertelsmann, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is also adding to the media piracy soap opera with its latest trick of recruiting informants in Asia to give them leads into the organised DVD rackets that operate on the continent.

Here a quick round up of industry news. The shortage of DVD-R has resulted in price increases, which are expected to continue over the next couple of months. However there is light at the end of the tunnel as one UK wholesaler told us “there is a lot of other high quality DVD-R which is as good as the major brands destined to land in Europe in the next few weeks”.

Choice 1x / 2x DVD-R : This disc is manufactured for Choice by a Ritek subsidiary.

Princo 4x DVD-R: another high quality disc. Which is just being made available in Europe. This disc is distributed both by Datawrite and also under the “Ice White“ brand name.

Nanya 2x DVD: Nanya are relative newcomers to the DVD-R market. But we hear that White Label media have signed a European exclusive contract with them. Expect top see this product on the shelf’s within the next few months.

Prodisc: Prodisc have two new products on the market they have a new 2-speed disc, which is based on a Prodisc id (this disc works at 2x on the A05). They also expect to launch a 4x disc within the next month. Both products are to be distributed by Datasafe Media Ltd.

Bulkpaq 4x: Bulkpaq have done it again. This month they launched a 2.4 speed DVD+R and next month they propose to top that by launching a 4 speed DVD-R.

Philips (, Intel, and Silicon Image today demonstrated the world's first DVD+R/RW data drive with integrated Serial ATA interface onboard at the Intel booth. The demonstration utilizes Intel's next-generation performance desktop chipset with integrated Serial ATA and a Philips DVD+R/RW drive using a Silicon Image SATALink(TM) SiI 3611 device bridge chip.

According to the Japanese-language Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, Toshiba is launching HDD/DVD player/recorders in the US and UK. It launched versions of these products in Japan last year. Toshiba will release the RD-XS30 HDD/DVD player/recorder in the UK in April. This HDD/DVD player/recorder, which Toshiba claims to be the thinnest DVD player in the market at 78mm, features a built-in 60GB HDD for recording. The company launched the same model in Japan last November. Toshiba projects selling 1,000 RD-XS30s in the first month of release and up to 10,000 units per month this summer in the UK. The device allows users to dub data/recordings from HDD to DVD-R, DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW discs.

A VAT reduction on CDs could boost the struggling recorded music industry in Europe, according to research. A report, compiled on behalf of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, questioned consumers in five countries about their music spending habits. It found that 60% of people over the age of 16 would buy more CDs if they were made cheaper.

Ahead Software people are busy staying ahead. Just recently they released a network enabled version of their Nero product family. Now they are targeting corporate customers and programmers.

The DVD RW drive market is poised to explode this year. Offering large storage capacity and proliferation of digital media, this young market offers a great deal of potential. Not unlike other young markets, however, the DVD RW drive market faces steep obstacles to realize its full capacity. The DVD RW drive market must not only combat the ongoing format war and high price points, but also it must educate a fairly ignorant consumer base to realize its full potential. Once these three obstacles are dealt with, the DVD RW drive market will phase out its predecessor, the CD RW drive market.

Oponents of Hollywood's drive to strengthen copyright law are mounting a new strategy: Require anything that has antipiracy technology built in to be clearly labeled and let consumers decide at the cash register.

Software maker Roxio is set to release a new version of its market-leading Easy CD Creator application, for the first time combining tools for burning CDs and DVDs.

Ahead Software has published a Release Candidate version of their upcoming NeroNET software. NeroNET is a client / servers software that gives IP network users access to recordable drives. So it efficiently shares a drive for a number of workstations and makes physically centralized burning possible.

According to Ritek, recordable DVD discs are in short supply. Both Ritek and CMC Magnetics are planning to transfer part of their CD-R discs production lines to recordable DVD disc manufacturing.

Manufacturers looking for a higher-capacity recordable DVD format will want to mark Feb. 17 on their calendars. The nine companies promoting Blu-ray Disc technology--a next-generation recordable DVD format using blue-violet lasers--announced Thursday that licensing will begin Feb. 17. Blu-ray Disc technology allows for 27GB storage capacities on a single-sided 12cm disc. DVDs hold 4.7GB of data. Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson are known as the "Blu-ray Disc Founders" and have been pursuing a broad acceptance of the format.

Samsung Electronics (Q.SSE), a world-class maker of optical drives, introduced a 52x CD-RW drive last week and has now completed development of the world's first 52x RW-DVD combination unit (model: SW-352).

A tip that leads to a conviction could mean a $10,000 (£6175) prize. Offering a whole new take on Customer Appreciation Day, 321 Studios announced the reward for tips leading to the conviction of anyone using its DVD-copying software for piracy.

BenQ, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, and Philips of the Netherlands have announced a joint venture to design, develop and sell computer CD and DVD disk drives.

With the release of two new models, Toshiba has lowered its prices on DVD-burning notebooks to nearly $2,000 (£1,235). The company have launched a pair of Satellite notebooks that include its mobile DVD-RW drive.

Just a quick reminder about our monthly newsletter. Anyone who joins before the 31st of March will be entered into a prize draw to win a Pioneer A05 and 200 4 speedDatawrite.DVD Discs. Details of how to join our mailing list are on the left hand side of our homepage.

This competition has been sponsered by Datawrite.The new brand name for Datasafe Media.

Tom's Hardware have done a quick run down of 6 DVD burners - the burners tested were:

Philips DVDRW228(DVD+R/ RW)
Pioneer DVR-A05 (DVD-R/ RW)
Ricoh MP5125A (DVD+R/ RW)
Sony DRU120A (DVD+R/ RW)
TEAC DV-W50E (DVD-R/ RW)
Sony DRU-500A (DVD-R/ RW and DVD+R/ RW)
Conclusion :
You will notice that all the burners in the tests are pretty much equal. Though some models did better in some tests, the differences are minimal for both read and write. We can't even distinguish by price, since the recommended price for each of them is around $300. But we can differentiate two categories of use."
Click Here for the full review.