The release of the Sony and Toshiba notebooks could rekindle the format war being fought by supporters of DVD-R/RW and competing DVD+R/RW. Pioneer brought DVD-R/RW drives to market in early 2001, more than six months ahead of DVD+R/RW drives. The upstart quickly garnered momentum for the DVD-RW format, which Apple and Compaq had started shipping in consumer computers. The two top PC manufacturers, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, however, opted for DVD+RW and Microsoft endorsed the standard for future versions of Windows. This support stacked the deck in favor of DVD+RW, say analysts. But once again, the DVD-RW format has leapt ahead. Notebook DVD+RW drives are as much as six months away, manufacturers concede. Toshiba unveiled a notebook drive supporting DVD-RW in September. "This is going to push DVD-RW ahead of DVD+RW," Promisel said. "For the time being, it could help other vendors that backed DVD+RW to at least temporarily switch to DVD-RW." But biggest supporters Dell and HP are willing to sacrifice Christmas sales and hold out for DVD+RW. Representatives for both companies said they would offer notebooks with drives supporting the format sometime early next year. "We decided to go with DVD+RW because of some of the advantages the format offers," a Dell representative said of the company's original decision on the desktop. "We thought it would be confusing for customers to support DVD-RW right now on notebooks so we decided to wait for DVD+RW." But ARS' Sargent wonders if DVD+RW holdouts are making a mistake. "I think it's very interesting that at least three vendors chose to wait for DVD+RW. I'm not sure I would want to be one of the companies deciding not to jump on this wave with the others," he said. Consumers aren't likely to be a casualty of the format war, no matter which side ultimately wins. Unlike the Betamax and VHS wars of the 1980s, where different size tapes could only be played in one type of player, most PCs and many DVD players can read discs created in either format. Software developers have made sure their DVD authoring applications support both applications, too. Still, the scuffle is surprising, analysts say, as there technically is very little difference between the two formats. September talks between DVD-RW and DVD+RW backers ended without a compromise. Sony took the high road by releasing a drive that will write discs using either format. Interestingly, Sony could eventually back both formats on notebooks, too, offering DVD+RW when it's available. "As the technology evolves, and if it makes sense to put it in our notebooks, we should be considering it," Oguchi said. In what analysts describe as an ironic twist, the two early adopters offering DVD drives on the desktop will trail competitors on notebooks. HP quickly dumped DVD-RW from Compaq consumer PCs soon after buying the company. That hitches the former Compaq's Presario notebooks to HP's DVD+RW bandwagon. Apple's problem is more technical. The company's Titanium PowerBook uses a slot-loading optical drive design rather than the more typical tray. Because of this approach, the PowerBook trailed competing PC notebooks and even Apple's own consumer iBook with CD-RW and CD-RW/DVD combo drives. The situation would appear to be the same for DVD recording drives. Greg Joswiak, senior director of Apple's worldwide hardware product marketing, could not estimate when DVD recording drives would be available on the PowerBook. "We'll offer them as soon as the slot-loading drives are available," he said. But Promisel said he hadn't seen any plans from vendors to release a slot-loading DVD drive. With Apple's emphasis on content creation, falling behind in DVD recording on notebooks is a problem. "It's certainly an issue on their PowerBook line," he said. "PowerBook sales have been really suffering and DVD recording could really help." PowerBook sales plunged 38 percent as measured in units and 39 percent in dollars from Apple's third to fourth fiscal quarter, ended 30 September.
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