Iomega DVD Drive Covers the Bases

Iomega has announced a “universal” rewritable DVD drive that supports the DVD+RW, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM formats, providing an equitable truce to the format wars.

To date, even Sonys multiple-format DVD drive only supports the DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/DVD-RW formats. Iomega has gone the extra step and included support for the little-used but still available DVD-RAM format for recording video.

The drive, dubbed the Iomega Super DVD All Format 4X, will be shown this week at the CeBIT America show in New York City. The internal drive is expected to retail for a suggested price of $329.95 in retail stores this August across the U.S., and to debut in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia in September.

An external drive is also planned, although Iomega hasnt disclosed the interface that drive will use. Iomegas internal drive uses the ATAPI interface, and officials said there are no plans on the company roadmap to add a Serial ATA interface at this time.

Iomegas drive appears to have ended the format wars that have divided the rewritable DVD market since its inception. Although the struggle has been primarily fought between DVD+RW and DVD-RW, the DVD-RAM format has been used in Japan and by DVD-Video recorders

“As far as why we decided to put out the formats in one drive, a lot of consumers wanted the ability to do video,” said Richard Giannini, a product manager for branded solutions for Iomega.

“Essentially, as long as you pay the royalties to all the groups you can put the formats on one drive,” he said. “As long as they get their money, theyre happy.”

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