Leading manufacturers of optical disc drives (ODDs) in Taiwan will raise the writing speed of DVD+R DL (single-sided double-layer) burners from 2.4x to 4x, perhaps as soon as the first quarter of 2005.

Taiwan makers will also upgrade the writing speed for DVD+RW/-RW from 4x to 8x, the makers noted.

In addition, the DVD Forum recently approved the DVD-R DL format at 4x writing speeds, and makers indicated that more vendors will begin producing 4x DVD Dual (+R/-R) DL burner models.

However, because 8.5GB DVD+R DL discs are expensive, and the additional production costs for drives that support DVD+R DL are quite high, some 16x DVD Dual burner models do not support DVD+R DL, so some vendors may not include DVD-R DL support in their optical drives as well.