Adding insult to injury, NEC Corp. unveiled its intention Thursday to begin selling a high-capacity alternative to the rewritable DVD products starting in late 1998.
Size is the main difference.
Sony's unnamed disk will store 3.0 GB per side, while NEC's multimedia video file, or MMVF, disk will hold up to 5.2 GB on each side. The rogue companies will most likely be at a disadvantage. A half a year may be enough to gain an advantage in the market. Yet, the current confusion may act to hold back the market. To avoid being shut out of the market, the rogue companies are making sure that they are supporting the DVD-ROM standards.