Philips Electronics has launched the world’s first 16X DVD writer, which can burn a disc in less than six minutes. Dell will be the first customer for the new DVD burner, Reuters reported last week.
Philips said it planned to produce 600,000 of the devices every month. Computer makers will pay between $97 to $109 per DVD writer when buying in large quantities.
The product, which can record two layers providing up to 8.5 GB or four hours of DVD quality video, will be a mainstream feature in personal computers by the end of 2004, Philips said. Until now, 8X burners were considered the fastest available.
DVDs were designed to store film and video. With the advent of digital video cameras and still cameras, consumers are increasingly editing their videos on their personal computer, and then burning them to a DVD for storage or for sending to other people.
