"...Hewlett-Packard ,Philips Electronics and Ricoh, three of the six CD-ReWritable technology industry leaders supporting the DVD+RW format, today displayed prototype DVD+RW drives during a breakfast event held at Fall COMDEX 2000. DVD+RW supporters MCC/Verbatim, Sony Corporation and Yamaha Corporation also participated in the event.

The gathering marked the first time the DVD+RW format's compatibility was demonstrated in the United States by burning content onto a DVD+RW disc in real-time using a DVD+RW drive installed in a personal computer and then playing that disc using standard ``off-the-shelf'' consumer DVD video players. To further demonstrate the convergence possibilities of the DVD+RW format, another real-time recording was made on a consumer DVD+RW video recorder and played back in both a DVD-ROM drive installed in a personal computer and the consumer DVD video players.

Although critics of DVD+RW have questioned the group's ability to deliver product on the same time schedule as competing formats, the six companies echoed the opinions of industry experts who believe consumer demand for rewritable DVD will begin to grow in late 2001 at about the same time when DVD+RW players, drives and media will be available to consumers. The COMDEX event was part of an ongoing series of DVD+RW initiatives. For more information concerning DVD+RW, interested parties can visit http://www.dvdrw.com..." NULL