Taiwan-based IC design house Mediatek recently released samples of DVD chipsets supporting both of the rival DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW formats. A handful of local optical storage drive makers have begun testing the chips for drives scheduled to launch next year.

Michael Gong, general manager of Lite-On IT�s optical disc drive business unit, said the company is likely to sample a DVD dual drive in January. However, he said although the device will be a hit among consumers, the company will still make rewritable DVD drives supporting only one format to avoid royalty fees from both camps. Gong said the company prefers the DVD+RW format, developed by DVD+RW Alliance, as it is supported by PC industry heavyweights such as Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Microsoft.

The success of Mediatek�s DVD dual chip is highly welcome news for Taiwanese drive makers as the chip will be cheaper than imported ones from Japan or Europe, a local company said. After commercially launching the DVD dual chipsets, Mediatek is likely to incorporate the DVD-RAM format into the dual chips, sources added.

At present, Sony is the only company that sells DVD dual drives. The DRU-500A and the DRX-500UL support 2.4x DVD+R/RW, 2x DVD-RW, 4x DVD-R and 8x DVD ROM, and are priced at about US$300 and US$410, respectively.