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October 05, 2005

DVD FORMAT WAR JUST GOT HOTTER

In a world where two DVD formats fight for supremacy, one format comes from somewhere no one expected: China.

Yes - forget about your Blu-Ray and your HD-DVD squabbling...China has announced that it will develop its own high definition, fancy, new DVD format in an effort to "shake off their previous dependence on foreign technologies." And, of course, to shake off their royalty payments to foreign companies.

Snicker if you will, but with 2/3 of the world's DVD players bearing the "Made in China" stamp, you too may soon be familiar with the EVD (Enhanced Video Disc) format.

October 5, 2005 at 02:15 PM in News | Permalink

Comments

Sorry, but this is ooooold ... EVD players have been on the Chinese market for quite a while now, and they are a bit of a flop - apparently due to much higher prices and a lack of software - read movies. The players originally came with 5 EVDs included (the biggest one being the director's cut of Hero when it wasn't available elsewhere).

Steve

Posted by: Steve | Oct 6, 2005 1:15:25 PM

That's weird - maybe they're rejiggering the format? Because folks have been picking up on the EVD press release all over the place for the past week.

Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Oct 6, 2005 1:52:23 PM

I don't know why there would be so much excitement about it right now. Players appeared in 2003, as far as I remember, and sceptical reports in Chinese media appeared already in 2004, see e.g. http://www.china.org.cn/english/BAT/38936.htm and http://english.people.com.cn/200401/10/eng20040110_132291.shtml . The link you posted is already 1.5 years old as well.

I can look up some technical details, but essentially an EVD is physically a DVD, but with a different encoding & resolutions and a different logical structure.

Subsequently, Taiwan announced their own FVD format ...

Posted by: Steve | Oct 7, 2005 12:03:46 AM

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