DVD: One Layer or Two?

Joe Wilcox | March 15, 2004, 08:36 PM

I've been mulling over Philips forthcoming DVDRW885K, a 16x DVD+R drive capable of burning 8.5GB of data on double-layer discs. The technology will overcome one of the biggest barriers facing consumers working with video on computers: Space.

Right now, it's pretty tough to fit two hours of reasonable quality video on a DVD. Owners of Windows Media Center PCs know this limitation well. My daughter wanted to burn Sonic X episodes to DVD but found that three half-hour episodes wouldn't fit on a DVD, wasting 1.5GB of space. I smacked into a similar limitation after recording SciFi's Battlestar Galactica remake. Greater capacity would be a boon to Media Center enthusiasts interested in burning all those recorded shows to DVD. The greater issue is how many Media Center owners would be interested in burning TV programs to DVD in the first. I have some idea, but no numbers to share today.

My larger concern is what greater capacity means for piracy. I know of at least one person, who shall remain nameless, that found some (what I consider) hacker utility for copying DVDs to a hard disk. The program even grabs the encryption mechanism. The only thing preventing him burning movies to DVD is capacity (Right now, I think he archives movies he rents to several beefy hard drives). I don't approve of this kind of the theft. My question: How many more guys are there out there like him?

Increasing capacity to 8.5GB means that crooks could rent Hollywood-produced high-capacity DVDs and capture the content. I worry that a few thieves might spoil a potentially useful technology for the masses. As DVD technology advances, content providers and hardware manufacturers may need to sort out the sticky protection issue. Limited broadband penetration has created a natural barrier to online sharing of pirated video content. But, as DVD capacity increases, so does the likelihood that early piracy will take place on discs, like with music and copying CDs.

Speaking of music, I look forward to recording more of my music collection (converted from CDs I own or purchased legal tunes from online stores) to DVDs. Right now, backing up my music library requires three DVDs. I could reduce that to two DVDs: one high and another low capacity.