Gradius and NIL from forum.firmware-flash.com have worked together very hard to produce a firmware upgrade for the pioneer A03 enabling it to write to Traxdata at 2 speed. Click to go to download page.

Panasonic has begun shipping its new $999.99 DMR-HS2 DVD/hard disc recorder to US retailers. The new model is Panasonic's first DVD-RAM and DVD-R recorder coupled with a built-in hard drive, which, the company claims, offers "great flexibility and compatibility," including features such as "Time Slip" and "Chasing Playback." Those features allow users to program the unit to record a show and then to watch it from the beginning, even as the show is being recorded.

Gradius over at the firmware forum has managed to crack Pioneer's 1.68 firmware for A03 / 103 drives to allow the unauthorised burning of Ritek disks at 2x speed.
"Okay, today I succefully test Ritek @ 2x on A03/103 drive, and... works perfectly.
Of course, I have hacked my v1.68 (RPC-1) firmware in order to do this one possible.
I burned a DVD-Video with 4436MB in 28:45 (mm:ss) using Nero 5.5.9.9.

Unfortunaly I don't have any CMC media here, if someone need CMC (aka CMC00RG200) support, let me know. I'll post this firmware (Ritek @ 2x on A03/103) asap.
Of course, since we are using the firmware as binary form, and not the source one, I was forced to delete another media on the table, in this case was TDKG02000000. The possibility to buy a TDK media in my case is near to "it will never happen".

I do tests with a DVD-ROM DRD-8160B (LG 16x) and a PlayStation 2 (us v4) and was 100% okay on both."

The firmware forums.

Our Japanese correspondent who is visiting the Ceatac show in Japan provided us the following snippets and exclusive preview images.

NEC UK today announced the launch of the , the world’s first DVD drive able to write both DVD-R and DVD+R media at 4x speed.Available through NEC UK’s distribution channel, the ND-1100A provides a complete solution for data backup, storage and distribution – from sharing films and music to archiving a massive 4.7 Gb/s of content on one DVD disk alone.

CMC Magnetics, announced Taiwan’s first Philips-certified DVD+RW disc with a 4.7GB memory capacity on October 2, estimated that the by the end of the year DVD drive demand would surge and the price of a DVD+RW drive would drop to US$200 from US$380 at present."

Faced with sluggish economic conditions and the battle among DVD drive standards, several Taiwanese optical storage device makers have decided to take a wait-and-see attitude towards launching rewritable DVD optical drives.

NEC have finally managed to put the correct specs for their ND-1100 DVD+-R/RW drive on their website. They where orignally claiming that the write speed for DVD-R was 2x where as it is actually 4x :) correct specs have now been posted on the NEC website. The drive which will have a UK street price of £189.99 should be available by mid November.

Roxio, provider of the best selling digital media software in the world, announced today the availability of Easy CD Creator 5.3 Platinum. The upgrade adds new DVD capabilities, such as support for data burning on DVD+R and DVD+RW drives and drive-specific support enhancements.....

LG Electronics have announced a new writer (GMA-4020B)which writes DVD-R at 2X, DVD-RW at 1X, CD-R at up to 12X, and CD-RW at up to 8X--and also writes DVD-RAM discs at 1X (0.5X with data verify activated). The more popular DVD-RW drives lack this last talent. The GMA-4020B is a minor boon for people who have DVD-RAM video recorders or use the format for backup, but it offers no relief to average buyers, who are more likely to be concerned with choosing between drives supporting the DVD Forum's DVD-RW/-R standard and models supporting the DVD+RW Alliance's DVD+RW/+R standard.

LG says the drive will ship with BHA Software's B's Recorder Gold 5 Basic for mastering, B's Clip for packet writing, and B's DVD for authoring DVD movies, plus a DVD-RAM driver and InterVideo's excellent WinDVD 4 software for DVD movie playback. The drive is reputed to have a street price of £199.99.

A quick roundup of DVD-R media news:

The 2 speed version of the highly rated FWS disc is now on sale street price seems to be around £1.09 per disc. This disc is described by many as the most compatible DVD-R in the world! This is currently the only disc with a dye formulated specifically for UK versions of DVD players.

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The exclusive story we broke about Datasafe Media Limited selling two speed discs as one speed has proven to be true. Our regular contributor flash managed to get his hand on some and here are his comments on the disc.

"Just got my samples of the Datasafe Classic and I am burning at 2x as I post this message......
I have just completed my 2x burns on both my Pioneer A03 & A04 of full disc movies and playback and chapter skip seem flawless, I need to sit down now and watch the movies all the way through, but first impressions are good." Click here for a picture of the disc.

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As predicted by us 2 weeks ago there is very little bulkpaq 1 speed generation 3 DVD-R available in the country. We think this may be an artificial shortage created by Bulkpaq to generate demand for the 2 speed version of their disc.

Following on from our story the other day about the NEC 4x DVD burner NEC ND-1100.Znet has some more details on the drive.
Take me to the Znet Article.

Pinnacle Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLE), announced today that it acquired VOB Computersysteme GmbH, a privately held company based in Dortmund, Germany, effective today. VOB Computersysteme GmbH specializes in writable CD and DVD products and technology. The company was acquired for a total purchase price of approximately $7.0 million consisting of $4.0 million in cash and the issuance of $3.0 million worth of Pinnacle Systems common stock. The company will be merged into the Pinnacle Systems Business and Consumer division. Pinnacle Systems acquired all intellectual property, products and software rights, along with all other assets and liabilities of the company and will account for this transaction as a purchase.

Sony have issued us with a press release detailing the launch of 3 Vaio notebooks which have integrated DVD burners..... (here is the release in full)
Three new VAIO® notebook PCs from Sony offer a creative, competitive edge of a versatile, pick-up-and-go workspace with portable DVD burning.
The VAIO PCG-GRX670 and PCG-GRX690 models as well as the configure-to- order PCG-NV200 series are Sony's first notebooks to feature an onboard DVD-RW drive....

Following hundreds of questions on the subject we have added a new category in the reviews section. The section which is called “DVD Films Under DVD-R Limit“ is a List of DVD Films that are under the limit for a DVD-R so therefore can be BackedUP from the original with out the need to re-encode (under 4.38gig).

A little update on the Release date of the Pioneer 105. A leading European distributor tells us the Pioneer 105 release date has now been put back until December. A spokesman for Pioneer refused to comment on the reasons for this or even if this was true :(

Toshiba have pipped Pioneer at the post to Launch an internal notebook drive based on the DVD-RW Standard. The drive ( SD-R6012 slim drive ) has made available to manufacturers who will soon be integrating it in high-end notebooks, allowing consumers to use the portable machines to store data on DVDs and burn home movies. Toshiba also plan to incorporate the drive ina Toshiba branded Hi-end notebook which will be launched in time for Christmas.
The new drive ( SD-R6012 slim drive )supports writing DVD-R/RW at 1X, writing CD-R/RW at 16x/10x, and reads 8X DVD and 24X CD
Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at the Toshiba storage device division, said in a statement "Our new lightweight combination drive brings DVD recording to the mobile world, providing users with a stepping stone to move from CD to DVD technology for creating and storing family photos, files, videos and other memories people don't want to lose."

Toshiba's storage division also announced a similar drive, the SD-R5002, for desktop PCs. The drive is available now for $349 (£208), directly from Toshiba and also at retail, the company said. While the SD-R5002 can be installed into existing desktops, the SD-R6012 drive for notebooks must be designed into a new system.
As well as being available in oem format SD-R5002 desktop drive is also available as an upgrade kit, allowing consumers with existing desktop computers to add DVD recording functionality. The software bundle with the drive allows for Cinema -quality movie viewing and burning of DVDs that contain personal videos and digital still image slide-shows. The complete software bundle includes includes:

-- Cyberlink PowerDVD -- The leading software DVD player
-- Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro -- Integrated personal movie-making solution
-- VOB Instant CD/DVD (InstantDisc, InstantBackup, InstantCopy, InstantWrite, InstantMusic, InstantVideo)

Click for the Toshiba Website.

Further Specifications and Pictures of the NEC ND-1100 DVD+-R/RW drive have now been posted on the NEC website.
Click here for the NEC Website..
The drive which will have a UK street price of £189.99 should be available by mid November.

New technologies have been developed by Hollywood studios and IT pioneers which could potentially turn the DVD player into an interactive device that could play sophisticated games, connect to the internet and exchange e-mail.

There are rumors on the net that suggest that the new firmware that were released for the Pioneer A04 DVD burners isn't what it appears to be.

On the surface you would assume that 1.32 firmware is better than 1.31 and fixed the so called ‘laser freezing bug’. Well the rumors on the net suggest that the ‘laser freezing bug’ (and eventually burning out) was actually fixed with firmware version 1.30.

The firmware revision 1.32 that was released is nothing more than 1.30 with “CMC” & “Ritek” media reduced back to x1 speed (which were upgraded to x2 in version 1.31). Our contacts tell us the reason for the speed reduction was because these companies failed to pay royalties (or some other money dispute).

[ Its easy enough to test this theory by checking if a HS-DVDR (High Speed DVD-R) in a 1.30 drive breaks it :O .]

thanks to by kila_m for this article.