Will Blu-ray RE be as convenient as DVD-RAM?

[sylwiusz]

That's a question that comes to my mind - Will Blue-ray RE be as convenient as DVD-RAM or rather as cumbersome in use as DVD-(+)RW??? Right now DVD-RAM can be used as old floppy disk - you just copy to it or erase any data not needing to use special burning software like you have to do now with -RW and +RW discs. I hope it will be that convenient :-)

[georgir]

that is rather up to microsoft than BD association - and with them kinda purpously opposing it because of sony's involvment, it's a bit doubtfull. but even if they don't, a 3rd party packet writing software will do just as good.
UDF is good enough by now to guarantee perfect compatibility no matter what software different people use on their pcs.

the more important question is how high will be the disc quality, in terms of reliability and write-cicles. dvd-ram had a substantially better reliability than dvd+/-rw (like 100 000 rewrite cycles) so using packet writing wasn't a problem, but if you ever used it on dvd+/-rw you'd know those discs sometimes crapped out pretty fast - especially the poorer makes/brands. hell i've had discs that broke with just 5-6 rewrites despite the claimed 1000.

[Marwin]

What you're describing sounds like "packet writing", which means that the BD-RE would work as a floppy disk that you can copy data to without using a regular burning program. Does Windows XP natively support DVD-RAM packet writing or do you use some 3rd party software? Nero offers a software called InCD which should support packet writing with Blu-ray media according to this press release from IFA 2005.