CDRLabs.com

I was just going over the news section and saw the article about the new Philips chipset(DVD+R) capable of burning at 8x . Of course we shouldn't expect this anytime soon as media is really catching up slowly in the dvd burning industry. However, I think that as CD-RWs reach their max. speed limits more and more manufacturers will move towards DVD burners.
The other news was about Lite-On expecting to sell 40 million optical drives next year.
As Ian points out that they are the world's largest makers of DVD-ROMs and CD-RWs, why haven't they started in the field of DVD burning?? Lite-On is the first to come out with fastest drives and firmwares in the CD-RW industry. Sooner or later they'll be producing their DVD R/RW. Whats going to be interesting is what format they chose (hopefully they start with dual formats ).
What do u guys guys think about all this??

There was a news article a few weeks back where there is a shortage of some component needed to produce DVD writers. Lite-On and a few other Taiwanese drive manufacturers were going to hold off until these parts were more abundant.

The three largest CD-RW and DVD-ROM drive makers are:

LiteOn (Taiwan)
LG (South Korea)
Samsung (South Korea)

None of them has started any volume production of DVD writers of any format as far as I know.

The three largest DVDRW drive makers are:

Pioneer (Japan: DVD-RW/DVD-R)
Ricoh (Japan: DVD+RW/DVD+R)
Panasonic (Japan: DVD-RAM/DVD-Multi)

Not surprisingly, LiteOn, LG, Samsung, Pioneer, Ricoh, and Panasonic, they ALL have factories in mainland China.

Yamaha and Mitsumi support DVD+RW.
LG and Samsung support DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD-Multi (in other words, what DVD Forum promotes.)
Plextor, LiteOn, and many others, I don't know.
AOpen, BenQ (Acer), and some other Taiwanese makers: DVD+RW.
Sony, Sanyo, NEC, and many others: both (including IO Data, Cy'Qve, and other OEM brands.)