LAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 23, 2001–
Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., the leader in recordable DVD technology, will ship the world’s first combination
DVD/CD recordable drive, the DVR-A03, by the end of May at the MSRP of $995.
Targeted for digital video recording and data archiving applications, the drive will ship with software support for
recording both data and video.
The third generation drive reads and writes four recordable formats including DVD-R (write once for general), 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.
“Pioneer has played a key role in the development of DVD recording technology and was the first to bring DVD-R to DVD
authoring professionals,” said Paul Dempsey, president of Pioneer New Media Technologies.
“Priced under $1,000, the DVR-A03 now delivers both DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW recording to the consumer market for the
first time in a multi-functional drive that can meet all DVD and CD recording needs.”
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 DVR-A03 will come bundled with a 4.7GB “DVD-R for general” disc and software including Sonic Solutions’ MyDVD for
DVD-Video authoring, CyberLink’s PowerDVD 3.0 software DVD player and Prassi Software’s PrimoDVD for recording data
to DVD and CD media.
“In developing DVD-R and DVD-RW technology, compatibility was a major objective,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice
president of product development and technical support, Pioneer New Media Technologies.
“We wanted to bring a product to market that would allow consumers to cost-effectively archive their own video creations onto
DVD discs that could then be played on existing DVD players. With the DVR-A03 we have done that.”
With its low cost and compact design, Pioneer’s DVD-R/RW drive targets digital video editing and archiving as its “killer
application” as well as traditional data and digital image storage applications. Key product specifications for the new drive include
2X recording speed for DVD-R, 1X for DVD-RW, 8X for CD-R, and 4X for CD-RW. Read speeds are 4X for DVD-ROM
and 24X for CD-ROM.
The drive has been named DVR-A03 for the aftermarket. It ships to distributors the end of May 2001 and is expected to hit the
retail channel later this year.
