Lower royalty fees strengthens HD-DVD position.

The tenth DVD Conference in Asia, an annual meeting of the DVD Forum organized by the Opto-Electronics Systems & Laboratories (OES) of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), was held in Taipei on April 12, with an agenda focusing on progress of standard specifications, licensing, certifications and market outlook of HD-DVD, a next-generation blue-laser DVD format developed by Toshiba and NEC. Although final desicions have not been made yet, Taiwanese manufacturers will support the HD-DVD first, without however rejecting any other rival format.

Twenty-one companies, including three Taiwanese makers; Ritek, Prodisc Technology and CyberLink, exhibited HD-DVD optical discs, optical disc drives and related materials and equipment at the conference.

The OES was elected to be a member of the DVD Forum?s steering committee in 1998, according to OES deputy director Der-ray Huang.

OES is currently negotiating cooperation with Lite-On IT and BenQ, the top two makers of optical disc drives in Taiwan, about OEM production of DVD-ROM drives, Combo drives and DVD burners with built-in FVD, Huang said.