History 2004: DVD-R for 18 Cents

CD-Rs at 18 cents can easily be found, but DVD-Rs at that price? The best prices we saw at this year’s CeBIT in Hanover were still 45 cents, in quantity.

Yet the anonymous poster shown here was displayed earlier this month, on a post between 2 booths at the Taiwanese computer show Computex Taipei 2004.

After investigating the immediate area, we discovered that Greendisc was the company responsible for the poster. The company is related to another Taiwanese firm, Morex Information Ent. The cheapest of the lot, by Vabadata, are produced in China.

For 20 cents, you can buy media from Hellodisc, which bills itself on its website as a specialist “in the production, manufacturing and sales of materials used in the production of DVD dyes and DVD discs.”

When we asked around, a representative of a better known optical disc maker told us: “It’s C-Grade” (apparently that’s not good!).

Perhaps, but this same person was nevertheless as stunned as we were. We recently received a price list similar offering from Hong Kong manufacturer PhoeniTech: 24 cents per 4X DVD-R for an order of over 80,000, and 9.5 cents for 48X CD-Rs at volumes of more than 200,000 pieces.

Better yet: Star Technology Development wrote us recently in an email: “We are now offering a very special promotion price for our 4x DVD±R at US $0.18. The above mentioned price is for the DVD±R which is very good for the Pioneer writers.”

(Special report from Jacques Kauffmann in Taipei, Taiwan)

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 197 on June 2004 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.