The average quoted price for a 16x speed DVD-ROM drive is currently NT$2,000. The lowest price for a 12x speed drive is between NT$1,550 and NT$1,660 '“ the licensing fee of US$10 already makes up more than 25% of this price. Industry insiders point out that when 12x DVD-ROM drives were going for US$50, companies were still able to pay the fee without too much heartbreak. But now that DVD-ROMs are replacing CD-ROMs as the mainstream optical storage peripheral for PCs, the unit price for a DVD-ROM drive is dropping fast and may be down to US$20 by 2002.

Ten companies in the DVD Forum have created three separate camps for their particular technical contributions. Philips, Sony and Pioneer have grouped together in the 3C camp; Toshiba, Hitachi, Matsushita, JVC, Mitsubishi, and Time Warner are in 6C; and Thomson is in 1C. The complex array of DVD standards and related technology has become quite a problem for manufacturers, who are not only forced to pay fees to 3C, 6C and 1C '“ a total of US$10 '“ but are also pulling money out for the use of other patented technology as well. Many Taiwanese OEMs are also producing DVD-ROM drives for members of the DVD Forum, so they must be very punctilious when it comes to paying the due amount.