DVD-RAM records only 2.6GB per side and requires a caddy, which people have come to hate. It will record a substantial 3.95GB per side, with claimed superior error correction. But this format seems doomed for political reasons if nothing else. Also, the blank disks are twice as expensive, and the drive will reportedly cost a fortune. The big advantage of the Pioneer format is that a recorded disk will play on a vanilla DVD drive.
Details are scant.
What amuses me is that the industry seems to be blaming the glut on a perceived increase in sales for cheap fax machines. This may not be correct. When the idea of the MFP was first discussed over a decade ago, I believed the problem with such an invention was that when one thing went wrong with one aspect of the device, the entire unit would become useless. In fact, this analysis has proved wrong over the long term, when component reliability negated this fear. The desktop space saving alone justified the innovation.