Almost every new computer has a CD - R, burner most likely due to Napster and other free online music distributors that at one time or another were out on the internet. Customers were down loading free music and burning their own CDs' on line. So now that Napster does not offer free music downloads what are you going to use your CD - R, burner for? I do not think that it is now out dating itself to buy a computer with a CD - R, burner with it. First of all with the increase size of hard drives it is getting harder to do complete back ups.

A CD - R, is still one of the cheapest forms of back up cause each disc is under a dollar and their shelf life is said to be at least ten years. Second of all with the increase of fire wire or IEEE CD - R, save and play back Avi or QuickTime and Mpeg movies. Also with the introduction of Fire Wire and USB CD - R, and
CD - RW have been able to write / burn and play back very fast. So fast that a 16x CD - R / 10x CD - RW / 40x Play back, is very common now.

Prices three years ago were four times higher than they are today. Not only does it cost less to own a fast CD - R / CD - RW but manufactures are offering rebates to encourage consumers to buy their products. You can buy SCSI, Fire Wire, and, USB connectable units which all work well.

Sony, Compaq, HP, and Dell have announce that they will be following Apples lead by offering DVD writers in their computers. We will be seeing these computer emerging around Christmas of this year. The DVD writer will be the same one presently offered by Apple and is manufactured by Pioneer. The DVD writer in the Apple presently will burn a DVD at a 2x speed and will read at 6x. These same writers will write to CD - R at 8x and CD - RW at 4x and playback at 24x. It is almost looking at those beginning days when burners wrote at a snails pace. I'm hoping that by Christmas Pioneer will have a faster DVD writer, but we will have to wait and see.

One promise that Apple makes and we will likely see is a large price drop in writable DVD. When more computers offer DVD writers we will see large drops in the price of a single writable DVD .

DVD can store up to 11 GB of information. At the present manufactures are offering use writer that can store up to 9.4 GB on a single DVD disc. You can store 4.7 GB on one side of the DVD disc than flip it over and write another 4.7 GB of data to that side. DVDs store more information than on a CD. Since they hold much more data they are much better suited to be used for storing video and even greater quality music. That is why present movies are offered in a DVD format.

The DVD is a much better way to store your information. There is a lot of good software for writing to a DVD. You can use friendlier menu systems for finding your information stored on them. If you have had the opportunity to see a movie DVD with an interactive menu you will know what I mean. A menu that can have a moving movie playing in a box. Click on the movie to go to that part of the DVD to see more. It is a much better system for storing Movie media. But like all things the DVD is better used for movement media. The CD is still good for storing text and Avi or Mpeg or Movie files that are under 650 MB.

Like I have said before the consumer benefits from the computer manufacture wanting you to buy their products. Those computers that hid the market around Christmas with DVD writers will sell the best. Why cause the cost of the computer will not go up by much and you will still be able to create CD with the same burner. More back ups to less disc means less storage problems with regular CDs
Five (5 ) DVDs' will hold the content of 48 CDs', now all we need to see is Pioneer and other companies speed up the writing speeds from 2x to 16 x where the CD - RW burners are now. If you are looking for a CD - R writer / burner and if you can wait till Christmas you will be able to include DVDs' to your burn / write list.