Philips is among the first manufacturers to develop a recordable DVD drive that will produce dual-layer DVDs. Commercial DVDs, such as films or music titles, have been available as dual-layer for some time, meaning they can hold 8.5Gb of data, or four hours of video, instead of the standard 4.7Gb, or two hours.

Until now that possibility has been denied to PC users, who have been forced by the limitations of recorders to single layer discs.

Previous attempts at dual-layer devices have ended up tying users to particular recorders, as dual-layer discs burned on one drive would not play on others. The Philips drive is one of the new breed, however, which will burn 8.5Gb discs that are compatible with all players.

Presently, you are limited to writing at 2.4x speed if you are producing a dual-layer disc, although single layer (up to 4.7Gb) discs will burn faster. This model took 50 minutes to burn a full 8.5Gb disc, which seems slow, but when you consider that it has 10 times the capacity of a full CD, it compares well. It burned both a full CD and an ordinary single-layer DVD in a matter of minutes.

The drive will write discs that can be used on all but the most niche DVD players. It will also burn CD-Rs and CD-RWs, and will read all common disc formats except DVD-RAM.

Contact: Philips 0870 900 9070
www.philips.com