Even as the battle of next-generation DVD formats takes shape, the rate at which current-generation DVD burners have been increasing in speed and dropping in price is astonishing—and the trend doesn't appear to be slowing down. The ever-decreasing prices of DVD recorders have made them a common option on most new desktop PCs. Recently, the technology hit another milestone with the DVD+RW Alliance's announcement that it has reached 8X speed recording for 8.5GB double-layer DVD+R DL media. The increased speed will permit the recording of 8.5GB of data in 16 minutes—a big improvement over the 47 minutes that the current 2.4X recording speed requires on most dual-layer DVD recorders today. Drives that support the speed will be out early next year. We certainly appreciate the faster speeds for data backups and for burning home videos on DVD
