Even with falling hardware prices, the expense and yet to be finalised format war rages on with DVD writing technology deterring many a consumer. DVD+R/RW appear to be making headway gradually with both format flexibility and hardware integration into next generation platforms.
Home component DVD players and DVD-ROMS have varying degrees of playback compatibility, so it's best to consult the manufacturer and know your intended purpose of your burning DVDs before tackling the market trying to find a suitable model.
The DVD+R/RW format allows for re-authoring of disks to make minor or complex changes to content without the need for re-burning and without losing compatibility, saving time and effort. This file exchanging is possible because of 'Lossless Linking' technology which allows you to add and remove menus, chapter stops or content without the need to re-burn the entire disk.
Confirmed to have Mt. Rainier (EasyWrite) MRW packet writing software present in the next Windows release codenamed 'Longhorn', the +R/RW format will be effectively used as a giant floppy disk and will let users take advantage of drag and drop file editing, file moving, random access file writing with built in background process defect management checking, taking strain off the operating system.
Writing a single contiguous 3.5GB file to a 4.7GB DVD+R disk at 2.4x burn speed took around 18 and a half minutes, not bad going given the Mitsubishi A1's (<I>May 2003, page 43</I>) 24 minute burn for 4.7GB. Coming in below $500 the Ricoh is reasonably priced for a burner of this calibre. Our test DVD+RW burn was slower, posting 27 minutes 23 seconds for the same 3.5GB at 2.4x.
CD-R speeds were slightly better, burning a single 600MB file at 24x speed coming out at a hair's breath under five minutes, reasonable for even a standalone CD-RW device.
For business back-up or home archiving purposes, speed may not be the biggest determining factor when shopping around for a DVD writer as generally you'll shell out substantially more money for a faster drive. At under $500 it's hard to go past this drive, and although it's not the fastest available, it offers plenty of playback compatibility for home DVD players and DVD-ROMs with +R/RW format and would be ideal for budding home-movie makers looking to archive home footage or for large file distribution.