Taiwanese companies voice their support for the HD-DVD format

April 14, 2005

The
format war between the HD-DVD format and the Blu-ray Disc format at full speed.
Announcement after announcement is send out to the press and today we can read
that Taiwanese companies have voiced their support for the HD-DVD format. The
main reason for giving their support to the HD-DVD format is
according to the article on Yahoo the lower royalty fees.

Deputy Director of ITRI's Opto-Electronics &
Systems Laboratories Huang Teh-rei said ITRI's participation in developing
the HD DVD format shows Taiwan's aspiration to get on the ground floor of
the international information industry.

Twenty-one firms from around the globe also displayed their latest
DVD-related products at the conference, including HD DVD discs and optical
drives.

Huang said that ITRI hopes successful global adoption of the HD disc
format will benefit Taiwanese optical disc manufacturers by reducing
significant amounts of royalties paid to Toshiba and NEC, whose HD DVD
competes with Blu-ray discs developed by Sony and
Panasonic.

The article
does not mention which Taiwanese companies are involved and if this includes the
likes of BenQ and Lite-On, major manufacturers of optical drives. Discuss
this in our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD
Forum.

Source: Yahoo.com