[SOSAGES]

"The 16X DVD+R specification was sent to manufacturers at the beginning of June, officials said Monday. When 16X DVD burners begin shipping, the DVD+R and DVD-R camps will have topped out on the obvious means to improve optical storage performance: CD and DVD read, write, and rewrite speeds.

"16X speeds are at pretty much the physical limit," said Greg Standiford, a product engineer within the optical devices division at Hewlett-Packard, who said the limiting factor is the polycarbonate material used to form the disc: spinning it faster may crack it, he said.

"My understanding is also that when 16X comes out in the future it's as fast as we can go," added Scott LeFevre, product general manager for branded products at Iomega Corp.

Manufacturers may be able to tweak the rewrite speeds to improve them slightly and charge higher prices, LeFevre said. "But when 16X CD-RWs were announced a couple people announced 56X (CD-ROM read) speeds and the rest of us rolled our eyes and said 'Give us a break,'" LeFevre added. "

getting faster and faster isnt always great when what you have is fine - leave that for the next format