Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc. has announced the first combination recordable DVD/CD drive for PC use. The third generation drive reads and writes four recordable formats including DVD-R (write once), DVD-RW (re-recordable), CD-R and CD-RW, and offers up to 4.7GB of storage capacity per DVD side. In addition, the new drive is capable of recording DVD-R discs at twice normal speed (2X)—an industry first.

The DVD-R and DVD-RW formats are members of the DVD Forum’s family of DVD specifications. DVD-R is a write-once format that is compatible with most DVD Video players and DVD-ROM drives, and DVD-RW is a re-recordable format that allows users to record, erase and re-record their own DVD discs more than 1,000 times.

‘The driving force behind both DVD-R and DVD-RW has always been compatibility with standard DVD playback systems,’ said Andy Parsons, senior vice president of product development and technical support at Pioneer. ‘We believe that interchangeability between recorders and players is the most important attribute any recordable DVD format can offer, since the ability to use content in various places is the essence of a removable storage medium. And, by supporting multiple recordable DVD and CD formats in a single product, we believe users can now select the most appropriate medium for a given application without cluttering up their computer with several drives.’

The new unit will begin shipping to the OEM market in Q1 2001.