Top tech institute throws its weight behind HD-DVD

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院), the nation's top technological research institute, yesterday openly promoted the HD DVD format to be the main format on behalf of Taiwanese firms at a DVD conference held in Taipei.

At the conference attended by representatives from over 21 domestic and international firms, the ITRI vowed to promote the High Definition DVD (HD DVD) format, which the government supports, to be the mainstream in a global format battle between HD DVD and the Blu-ray DVD.

Topics including progress, authorization and marketing strategies of new DVD formats were also brought up during the meeting.

Deputy director of ITRI's Opto-Electronics & Systems Laboratories Huang Teh-rei (黃德瑞) 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 Corp and NEC Corp, whose HD DVD competes with Blu-ray discs developed by Sony Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co's Panasonic.

Supporters of the HD DVD format claims that it can hold up to 25 gigabytes of information, while the Blu-ray discs can store up to 50 gigabytes. Current DVD discs have only about 5-10 gigabytes of capacity.