CD Freaks presents Philips DVDRW885 Dual layer DVD-writer review

I don't know why any company would bother releasing a drive that doesn't support DVD-R/RW. The practice of doing this is over 2 years old.

But there again there is no necessity for the DVD-RRW format to exist... Although the format war was in many respects a non-event in the end, I guess this was because the manufacturers got cold feet and supported both formats because of the Betamax debacle all those years ago. The minus format has always seemed to be a bit of a breeding ground for very cheap and dodgy media, but that's not to say the plus format is without it's offenders. As for a single format drive, well it obviously limits consumer choice, but both myself and all my friends have always found the minus format less compatible and poorer quality than the plus. So on that basis a plus only drive would infact be fine with me... All my players read plus discs perfectly, and those players range in price from £60 all the way through to £1600 (in its day), and the most expensive machine is a model that won't even read CD-RRWs. It dates back to the days before all these machines played every type of format under the sun.

I agree, the world has a lot to thank Phillips for, CD Audio, and DVD PlusR(W). Its just as well that Phillips will do very well from royalties, their DVD Burners have such a low market penetration. You could look for weeks and not find a Phillips burner on a shelf anywhere. DVD minus format isn't going to go away for some time yet.

Thank gooness for word processors and cut and paste. You can take one review, paste in the appropriate pictures, and lo and behold you have a whole new review. Tor you should be able to churn a new review out each week with minimal effort.

This is dirty business, very dirty business. I can't believe what I'm seeing in a review from Tor. Sensible readers will take all of this with a very large grain of salt. Everybody sing the sponsors song: "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"

I have no clue what you are implying here but Philips is not a sponsor of our website. We take no money from any hardware/software/media manufacturer to change results or 'forget' results. All our reviews are done with great care and are as objective as possible when written by a normal human being. Every sponsor you see has agreed with us that their sponsorship does not give the right to change reviewing results and this is stated in a sponsorship contract. We take great care in this as our readerbase is the most important to us. They have made our site to what it is today and they deserve the best information we can possibly give. We can only thank our sponsors for making life easier for us by providing us with e.g. media, software etc. to make reviewing less expensive. And of course in return we make sure that their name is clearly visible.
[edited by DoMiN8ToR on 29.06.2004 17:11]

Why not try to make a review for yourself? Yes - copy and paste works nice, but I still have to: 1: test all discs, you could count more than 30 mins in testing time per DVD- disc (write: ~8min, K-Probe ~15min, Reading tests ~15min + saving and rezising the image). 30 mins x ~20 discs = 10hrs. 2: Reading tests takes about 3 hours including everything. Writing introduction - looking at programs bundled, features, taking images and resizing images etc takes about 2 hours 3: CD-R writing/testing takes roughly 2 hrs 4: packet writing tests etc takes about a hr 5: Advanced tests takes DAMN long time - remember that copy protected discs takes long time to read and that I use both cloneCD and Blindwrite! Usually between 10-30 hrs total time depending on writer. 6: +about 3 hrs for uploading images/review. Total effective time per review is over 50 hrs. And NO I'm NOT paid by cdfreaks or anyone else involved in these reviews (manufacturers, media suppliers etc). And YES I do work 7:30 to 15:30 + one hr drive each way = I have only a very little time for personal stuff - including reviewing. I also sell DVD-Media + own 25% of a Norwegian media company + work a bit at the farm, this means there is almost no time for reviewing...... I can't see what your problem is?

Philips are too arrogant in this area. They pretend the - format doesn't exist because they were involved in the + concept. Even Pioneer who started the - concept at least now have dual format burners and have had for some time. Well, it's Philips loss I'm afraid. Pioneer marches on and Philips won't sell any hardware doing things like this. As for the dodgy media, the reason there might be more dodgy media is for the simple fact that more companies produce -R so there is more likelihood of some dodgy media showing up. The -R is still more popular despite what the poll on this site says. Now might be the time Gristy to admit you voted for +R about 500 times :P

yup, and their arrogance will keep lots of people that like the -R format from buying this drive...

According to the review they will support -R in a firmware update later this year....

Sony & Philips (Philips meaning BenQ too, because of their agreement) - both proponents of the DVD+ formats - want to strangle the DVD-R(W) format, it seems. Even a few months with no DVD- firmware around the world means a lot more + discs sold due to the sheer numbers of drives going out by these companies, and a lot more royalties going to Philips & Sony on media, and it means gaining the edge in the 'format wars' by undermining their competitors. They also count on a heap of users not being savvy with their hardware, and therefore never upgrading the firmware. They supported dual formats while the market demanded it, but now they can selectively drop it, it seems. At least for a few months, while promising an 'upgrade' in a while, for those still concerned about running both formats and worried about buying a drive that doesn't do both. Interesting tactics at play here, I think. Then again, I could be reading TOO much into it, but it does sound awfully suss. What's the hold up? Technical barriers? I doubt it...

There are alot of people who get confused by both standards and therefore will only buy one that supports both for fear of buying the wrong kind of disc. Philips are also losing marketshare from these folks. At least Sony support both formats without any need for firmare upgrades.