Taiwanese disc maker Ritek plans to start mass producing BD-RE discs as well as HD DVD-RW (high definition Re-recordable) discs in the third quarter of this year.

Taiwanese companies including Ritek and rival CMC Magnetics license disc technology from technology developers such as Japan's Mitsubishi Chemicals Media and then use their high production capacity to drive down the cost of each disc and earn as much revenue as possible.

The average cost per disc will remain around $10 in retail outlets, despite production costs of around $5 per disc, said Eric Ai, a Ritek representative. Prices won't likely come down until other mass disc producers in Taiwan win accreditation to make the discs, and ramp up volumes.

Each single-layer BD-RE disc has a capacity of 25GB, while the HD DVD-RW discs can hold around 20GB of data.