Hitachi announced on Monday that it has developed a drive that can read and write several formats for recordable and rewritable DVD discs, as well as for recordable and rewritable CDs.
The GMA-4020B drive will support DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM formats and will begin shipping in January of next year. Pricing will be determined by retailers, according to a company release from Tokyo.
With most of the DVD rewritable formats supported by the drive, Hitachi is in a good position to trump rivals with an all-in-one drive while at the same time pushing aside an emerging format, DVD+RW, which has had some trouble getting off the ground.
With the drive, consumers will be able to record video onto a disc and play it on a typical home DVD player. With the recordable and rewritable discs, consumers will be able to erase and record again on the same disc.
The Hitachi drive will help to ease the standards free-for-all in the market for DVD drives, where competing formats and incompatibilities have slowed what industry insiders had anticipated would be an explosive market.
News source: CNet News
