DVD Forum Approves China’s HD Disc Format
In a move that has me scratching my head, the DVD Forum has approved a new format.
The DVD Forum, the international DVD standard authority, has given Chinese engineers the go-ahead to look into developing a next-generation DVD format which will compete with Sony’s Blu Ray and Toshiba’s HD-DVD standards.
Last month China announced plans to develop its own format in a bid to eliminate the need to pay licensing fees to foreign companies. The DVD Forum has now agreed that a study can be carried out to test the feasibility of a China-only format, according to news network NewsFactor.
Why wouldn’t they work towards eliminating licensing fees in China instead of creating a whole new format? Maybe that’s just my political naivite talking, but I think that a whole new format would just bifurcate the market more. We’ve done so well with a single DVD format. It had looked like we were standardizing on Blu-ray instead of HD DVD, but now the DVD Forum wants to give the world’s largest market a totally separate format. Especially since the format will be based on HD DVD technologies:
According to Lu Da of the government-backed National Disc Engineering Center, the format will offer higher definition, better sound quality and more effective means of combatting piracy than Blu Ray and HD-DVD.
It will also support Audio Video Coding Standard video compression technology, plus MPEG2, MPEG4 and Windows Media Video 9.
So with all these standards in use, how do they avoid paying royalties?
GamesIndustry.biz - DVD Forum approves China’s plans for next-gen DVD format
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November 30th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
Maybe the reason the licensing fees were so high to begin with is due to the fact that movie piracy runs rampant in China and other parts of Asia. I think thats the reason why they probably won’t lower the licensing fees anytime soon.
Who knows? Maybe if China can prove that their discs with superior copyright protection can minimize piracy in that region, the licensing fees will drop in price. The problem is, recent history shows how easy it is to break any incarnation of media copy protection.
November 30th, 2005 at 8:00 pm
I’m quite curious as to what that copy protection is. Blu-ray (and HD DVD to an extent) is being lambasted by consumers who think its copy protection goes much too far. What else can they add?