China Announces CH-DVD Format

It has been announced that China will have a different next-generation optical disc standard called CH-DVD. It has been developed by the Tsinghua University. CH-DVD is similar to HD-DVD, but uses Chinese intellectual property (IP). The 1080p-capable format will be launched shortly before the Beijing Olympics.

Besides demonstrating that China can now produce advanced technology, there are also millions or billions of dollars at stake, in licensing fees (I would guess $20 or more per player). By having its own format, China will save a ton of money. At least, that’s the plan but it mostly failed with EVD, China’s past attempt at bypassing the DVD format.

How this impact consumer (in the rest of the world)? In the short-term, probably not much: we’re still mainly consuming “western” movies and if that was to change, CH-DVD seems close enough to HD-DVD to allow the market to adapt, if CH-DVD was to become a hit.

Hubert Nguyen
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