For those with money to burn, recordable DVD

By PETER GRIFFIN

When DVD players made their debut in late 1996, they were restricted to the domain of film buffs wanting a crystal-clear picture and a reprieve from rewinding videotapes.

My local Video Ezy store had a single shelf devoted to DVD new releases - that has now expanded to an entire wall as the tumbling price of DVD players puts the technology in reach of the masses.

But the VCR has always been lurking in the background, still needed for the crucial task of recording.

That, too, is changing - as long as you have a spare $5000 to spend.

Early next month consumer electronics giant Philips launches the DVDR 1000, a drive that allows you to "write" your own disks, recording everything from the footie on Sky Sport to wedding footage off your camcorder.

The unit comes with a built-in tuner - connect the wires, hit "program" on the screen menu and the Machine should automatically tune in the channels you have set up on your TV.

You can also link up your Sky decoder and plug in a digital or analogue video camera.

From then on you just select the right channel or starting point in your footage and hit record to "burn". Your footage shows up as thumbnail pictures on the menu, which you can then edit and label.

With a capacity of 4.7GB of data on a single-sided DVD disk, the amount of burning you can do depends on the quality of playback you will tolerate.

And you can vary recording quality to save on disk space.

The DVDR 1000 will let you burn an hour of digital mastering-quality recording.

At the other end of the spectrum, a lower-quality, long-play option gives four hours of recording.

But the cost of discarding your videotapes is high. The DVDR 1000 will come in at the top end of the market at $4999, with the rewritable disks selling for $49.95.

Philips' player arrives as fellow DVD Alliance member Hewlett Packard presents its dvd100i drive for the PC market.

Bundled with the drive is a selection of software applications such as MyDVD, which lets you transfer camcorder footage to DVD and then edit it - much like Philips' version can do, but more versatile on the PC, where you can lay soundtracks, transitions and effects.

Using DVD as a backup medium is also expected to take off.

Hewlett Packard has included Simple Backup to manage system recording to DVD, where the equivalent of seven CDs can fit on a single DVD+RW disk.

Best of all, the compatibility of the DVD+RW standard means you can also play audio and video CDs and DVDs burned on PC drives.

The dvd100i drive costs $1799, with disks $39.