LETTERS.The story "Plays Can Pay, TV Banks on It" is really great. Thanks for taking such care with details and for intelligent, well-rounded reporting. It's nice to find a reporter who "gets it." Lisa Batchelder Channel 13/PBS, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY Just a little note to thank you for your efforts during the L.A. Screenings. Mercedes Alvarez, Cinar, Montreal, Canada I work with Pioneer, a company mentioned in a small article titled "Is Rewritable Better?" in the May 2001 issue of VideoAge. There are a few misconceptions that I would like to clear up. This article is mixing up set-top box The cable TV box that sits on "top" of the TV "set," although it is often located several feet away in an equipment rack. The set-top box descrambles the premium channels and provides a tuner for the higher cable numbers that very old TVs did not support. products with computer drives. Computer drives with DVD-RW (DVD-Read Write) A rewritable (re-recordable) DVD disc for both movies and data from the DVD Forum. Also called "DVD Dash RW" and "DVD Minus RW," DVD-RW uses phase change recording. The media hold 4.7GB per side and can be rewritten 1,000 times. have only recently shipped, so the statement that Pioneer hasn't been selling RW products successfully is not exactly accurate. Pioneer plans to ship 1 million drives this fiscal year. In reference to DVD-RW, 37,000 is the number of set-top video recorders sold in Japan, including DVR-1000 and DVR-2000. This does not include computer drives. This recorder hasn't even been shipped to North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. yet. To clarify its history, recordable DVD See DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM. came before DVD-RW Pioneer officially shipped DVD-R (DVD-Recordable) A write-once (read only) DVD disc for both movies and data endorsed by the DVD Forum. DVD-Rs are often called "DVD Dash Rs" or "DVD Minus Rs" to distinguish them from the competing "Plus R" format (see DVD+R). in early 1998 and a second generation of them was shipped in mid-1999. Pioneer is the chair company of the working group 6 of the DVD Forum, which is where the -R and -W specs were written. Matsushita is the second company to ship a working DVD-R drive, but they have not done so in any significant quantity yet. The other misleading point is low selling numbers. The set-top box with DVD-R/RW functionality has been priced at $2,500 since its introduction into the market. It is not fair to judge the technology based on how many units have sold. It will take time, but as the price decreases, sales will increase. Amy Mattern The T&O Group |
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