bit-tech.net

Chinese release 'HD-DVD Killer'

Published on 7th December 2006 by Brett Thomas

China's EVD failed once, but now it may get the attention to actually rival the DVD successors.

The format wars have been probably one of the most unexciting battles in recent history. Not only do we not have a clear winner, but both sides are vying for the crown of a technology that is not well understood by the market, not readily available, and frankly not even really supported. So hey, why not add one more name into the ring? That's exactly what China is hoping for with its EVD technology.

If you think you've seen that acronym before, you may not be mistaken. EVD, or Enhanced Versatile Disc, is not entirely a new concept. The format was created back in 2003 for Chinese producers to use DVD-like technology, without paying the royalty and license fees to brand their media as DVD. On paper, it's been much the same concept as DVD, though it's not really taken off.

Of course, that was until recently, when a London firm by the name of New-Media Enterprises developed a way to use the EVD setup to store HD-DVD amounts of storage. The method was discovered when the company attempted to create its own format, the VMD (Versatile Multi-layer Disc). The beauty of the system is that it still uses the same red laser that a DVD player would, meaning the drives and players could be incredibly cheap in comparison to either of the other formats.

In order to promote the technology as a genuine way forward, over twenty different consumer electronics manufacturers released a whopping 54 players yesterday. Though it's no guarantee of success, the list of companies is pretty impressive - even the owner of the fabled RCA brand is on board.

Apparently, the EVD dark horse will not go out quietly. And as consumers, if we can get cheaper storage that's got just as much space for high-def content as HD-DVD, that's a pretty good thing. The only question is, is it too late to enter the competition now?

Tell us your thoughts in our forums.

39 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Redbeaver 7th December 2006, 15:23

cheap is good.

and if regular dvd can play these EVDs... then its the true HD/BlueR killer...

Chuff_72 7th December 2006, 15:33

An EVD won't work on a regular player, they just use the same red laser tech, which means the players will, in theory, be as cheap as current DVD machines.

Also don't expect to be picking one up anytime soon as the opposition from worldwide big business will put a stop to anyone trying to bring the tech out of China, they've already invested too much in stupid over-complex and expensive new storage *cough*bluray*cough*.

Springs 7th December 2006, 15:34

i like it... tho they never really said how much space it would have on each disk.. but it would still mean a new player to read tho

LoneArchon 7th December 2006, 15:36

I don't think it is to late for this format to take off. In many was it is ahead of the next gen format by using a red laser that has been in production quite some time now. This format could bring HD-DVD/Blu Ray Quailty movie to the consumers at the price of standard DVD. This technology does have big chance since both HD-DVD/Blu Ray have not hit mainstream quite yet with the player still very expensive and the movie also being expensive. The only hold up I see is major film distributors signing on and using this format

mikeuk2004 7th December 2006, 16:19

The Hif Def fight has a new contendor. 3 formats, who will win. You decide :).

Another reason not to go out and but a HD DVD player or Blue Ray just yet. And another reason to stick with DVD for a few more years. :)

mmorgue 7th December 2006, 16:26

Oh good, another "new" technology involving large plastic discs that spin in clunky mechanisms...

Matkubicki 7th December 2006, 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmorgue
Oh good, another "new" technology involving large plastic discs that spin in clunky mechanisms...

QFT

There must be a better way of doing things, hard disks, floppys, cd's blur-ray all the same basic idea, about time we had a change!!

Tyinsar 7th December 2006, 17:03

Quote:

is it too late to enter the competition now?

Since the "competition" up until now has mostly involved PR campaigns I'd say no - come on in.

If it's cheaper, comes without an extra licensing fee, and is otherwise as reliable I'd say bring it on!!

airchie 7th December 2006, 17:07

lol,

I think this is great news.
I think it might just succeed if Blu-Ray and HD-DVD concentrate and fighting each other.

Either way it may force a break in the current stalemate... :)

sinizterguy 7th December 2006, 17:29

Bloody hell, just bought my first HD-DVD, dont particularly want it dead.

Hopefully, there will be dual format HD-DVD and BD players in the near future.

I dont see the EVD thingy being very successful unless studio support for the other formats break down.

J-Pepper 7th December 2006, 18:02

there is a little info here already, as it was being discussed in SD; EVD is really only a really a Chinese only thing at the moment. Unless it really does take off worldwide, it'll probably stay Chinese only.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=125075

trailblazer 7th December 2006, 18:41

Sounds like some heavyweights are taking this seriously, that means market outlets worldwide and investment. Could be that the chinese will become the new japanese in economic and industrial terms.

DXR_13KE 7th December 2006, 19:45

lets see if this format survives...... 2 cents say it will. :p

Breach 7th December 2006, 20:09

Yeah, given that HD-DVD and Blu Ray have had one of the most disapointing launches in recent tech history, there is plenty of room for another to roll in and kill off the other two. If EVDs are cheap, they will win. Historically the cheaper tech always wins even if the other technology is superior.

There is also the stark fact that HD DVD and Blu ray have left the end consumers clueless and confused, unsure which to pick they pick nothing. The clear benefit of the new formats unknown and expensive. Why would anyone pay all the money to upgrade when the content is no better currently than regular DVDs?

Like many, Ill just hug my dvd collection until one of them is on top for good.

Woodstock 7th December 2006, 20:49

The only disadvantage it has against its competitors that i see is that, they both are connected to the console gaming systems, and therefore they can get support from those people who have purchased one...

keith_j_snyder2 7th December 2006, 21:04

I think bringing up a cheaper & efficient media is the success of the consumer...I mean do u really want an incredibly expensive media to be in the market?Big companies will never have a problem in giving us the things we want,but the charge for that & that is the place where everyone has to surrender.If a new thing is in the market then its good.Remember strong competition will give the consumer to breath free....

sinizterguy 7th December 2006, 21:08

It will take off in the Asian markets just as VCDs caught on there and is a lot more popular than DVDs. They are always looking for a cheaper more effective medium to release stuff on.

r4tch3t 7th December 2006, 23:07

I am personally pro-Blu-ray, as it is a new technology instead of hanging on to old technology. If BD wins then inevitably we will see better yields as more are being produced. Don't forget that the blu-ray has the possibility of additional layers and possibly larger capacity layers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Quad-layer (100 GB) discs have been demonstrated. And TDK recently announced that they have created a working experimental Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200 GB of data on a single side, using six 33 GB data layers.

Aankhen 8th December 2006, 00:38

Need more specifics. Capacity? DRM? It's not likely that any major companies would embrace this without major DRM.

speedfreek 8th December 2006, 04:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by r4tch3t
I am personally pro-Blu-ray, as it is a new technology instead of hanging on to old technology. If BD wins then inevitably we will see better yields as more are being produced. Don't forget that the blu-ray has the possibility of additional layers and possibly larger capacity layers.

I like that the most about blu ray but from what I have heard about the players it has a long way to go, it is nice to see some more competition in the arena.

Tyinsar 8th December 2006, 05:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aankhen
Need more specifics. Capacity? DRM? It's not likely that any major companies would embrace this without major DRM.

Good point but most DRM is in the file format and not in the medium on which it is stored.

Duste 8th December 2006, 05:53

No doubt it will become popular if it can perform the same and offer it at a cheaper price.

Stuey 8th December 2006, 06:07

I just have one concern... questionable reliability.

metarinka 8th December 2006, 08:35

If anything wouldn't this technology be a little more reliable, using the tried and true red laser format. anyone have a white paper or any numbers on this format I'm just curious what it's capacity and such is.

My only concern is the physical robustness of the format, if I read correctly blu-ray (or was it HD-DVD) halfed the thickness of the plastic protective layer, not to mention the greater storage density means that scratches will be that much worse (I'll be honest I don't try my cd's and dvd's all that well) Anyone know if they are still using a silver oxide substrate to store the information, those things have a tendency to be sun sensitive and oxidize over the course of 10-20 years, I imagine the effect would be worse with the next gen formats.

and finally will pc games ever come out fully on DVD?

Stuey 8th December 2006, 09:20

A few games have been DVD-only, but for some reason, they're still released in 5 CD bundles despite the fact that the games cost more than a DVD drive. Not to mention they require dedicated graphics cards which cost much more than the price of a DVD drive.

Well, I meant the reliability of the technology if developed solely in China bu Chinese companies. Nobody wants any quality corners being cut in the production of discs that will hold irreplacable photos, just to save a few bucks.

BUT time will tell. If it works, then that's one small step for the free market and one giant leap for B-R & HD-DVD price cuts!

Springs 8th December 2006, 18:37

a lot of games in the uk are becomming DVD only... unless it is a small game or an addon.... i no a lot of games in the US come in both formats.. never really new why....

Aankhen 8th December 2006, 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyinsar
Good point but most DRM is in the file format and not in the medium on which it is stored.

Not quite. Since it's easy, I'll point you to the relevant Wikipedia sections for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Both those formats have DRM built into the format itself, without which they could not have gained the backing of the studios.

Tyinsar 10th December 2006, 06:58

I was thinking along the lines on DRM-ed downloads (iTunes etc.) but I learned something new today (I guess that means I can go to bed now eh) - Thanks ;)

Aman 10th December 2006, 07:21

I think Blu-Ray will win. Capitalism. People don't care about prices if they get better product/service. The price is reasonable and it can hold lots compared to regular DVD's. My only concerned is, Disc's get scratched. UMD was very successful, only if they could team up with Sony and try to implement similar technology.

Generic42 10th December 2006, 07:52

EVD should win, I don't want to go get a new drive for my PC to watch my videos (yep, my screen is almost bigger than the TV...) and "Blu-ray" has bad spelling, I f***ing hate that

Bindibadgi 10th December 2006, 10:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman
I think Blu-Ray will win. Capitalism. People don't care about prices if they get better product/service. The price is reasonable and it can hold lots compared to regular DVD's. My only concerned is, Disc's get scratched. UMD was very successful, only if they could team up with Sony and try to implement similar technology.

Im sorry but what planet do you live on? People will go for price above anything else. That's why VHS beat Betamax despite being technologically inferior. UMDs are the exact opposite of sucessful, like Minidisks.

Otherwise the HD/BR players would have sold out long ago because it's a better product, yet, it hasnt because it's far too expensive and people are content with DVD.

Aman 10th December 2006, 18:55

I think UMD was great invention. If you make a bigger disc holder for the blu-rays, I think it will be very successful. The companies need to stop trying to make the dics hold more and start working on a way to store data without disc's getting scratched. May invent a new method. But for right now, UMD style is very nice.

K.I.T.T. 10th December 2006, 21:57

now this could sound like a chronically stupid idea but bear with me on this.....ok so standard definition DVD video and audio require data to be trasnferred from where its stored at about 8Mb/s (of course it'll vary alot) ok so if we look at that in terms of MB/s it in theory only need 1MB/s transfer speed (call it 1.5MB/s to give us some head room). now thats nothing at all so why not use old flash memory (thats cheap to buy/manufacture and can easily sustain that kind of transfer rate) package it in something resembling a compact flash card (which can easily house 8GB of memory but whose to say it can't get physically bigger to allow for more storage), make the cards read only and well bob's your mother's brother! You have a storage system that should be cheap and you don't have to worry about scratching....i know it would be a DVD and next gen replacement (i have considered the fact that next gen content requires more bandwidth but by my calculations you still aren't in the reigons of the new expensive flash memory) but it solves all the problems, and its more compact than both of them.

feel free to tear my idea to pieces, but it was just an idea and i do realise that it could be more expensive. (but it can't get much worse than £25 for a pack of 5 writeable DVD-9's)

M4RTIN 10th December 2006, 21:59

umd's have one terrible design flaw, the hole in the clear plastic. it means you have to keep the psp games in their boxes and cant just chuck them in a bag when you go out. at least minidiscs had a metal piece to protect the bit of the disc that had to be read

Vash-HT 11th December 2006, 04:07

I read through the wikipedia explanation of it here , and its physically a DVD disc, but uses different codecs than MPEG-2. This might catch on very quick, it even says that successful copies were made using DVD-R's

Bindibadgi 11th December 2006, 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman
I think UMD was great invention. If you make a bigger disc holder for the blu-rays, I think it will be very successful. The companies need to stop trying to make the dics hold more and start working on a way to store data without disc's getting scratched. May invent a new method. But for right now, UMD style is very nice.

But by that argument so was the minidisk. If it was a royalty free application then it might have worked but Sony will be Sony. Watching a video on a teeny tiny screens offers no appeal to me though. A screen has to be at least 7-12" before it's useful in that sense.

Iago 11th December 2006, 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
But by that argument so was the minidisk. If it was a royalty free application then it might have worked but Sony will be Sony. Watching a video on a teeny tiny screens offers no appeal to me though. A screen has to be at least 7-12" before it's useful in that sense.

The problem is not in the UMD itself, nor the PSP's screen (I've watched a couple of movies on it, and while not stellar, it's ok if you are on a trip or something like that)...

It failed because despite what the content providers would love, consumers aren't going to pay twice for the same content in 2 different formats. If I already have the DVD and I want to watch it on my PSP, I'm going to rip it and re-encode it for my PSP, not buy an UMD. And of course, I'm not going to pay more nor even the same for an UMD movie that I can only watch on a PSP when I can simply get the DVD.

No consumer will give a damn about that being illegal nor think that's piracy...I bought the content or the license to the content so the way I watch it is no body's business. Sony failed to realise this with the PSP and that's why UMD movies don't sell.

Blademrk 11th December 2006, 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iago
The problem is not in the UMD itself, nor the PSP's screen (I've watched a couple of movies on it, and while not stellar, it's ok if you are on a trip or something like that)...

It failed because despite what the content providers would love, consumers aren't going to pay twice for the same content in 2 different formats. If I already have the DVD and I want to watch it on my PSP, I'm going to rip it and re-encode it for my PSP, not buy an UMD. And of course, I'm not going to pay more nor even the same for an UMD movie that I can only watch on a PSP when I can simply get the DVD.

...that's why UMD movies don't sell.

Exactly. I've bought a few UMDs, (the first at full price to see what the image quality was like) but usually only when somewhere is selling them off extremely cheap (like around £5).

tbh, I've never had time to look for details on how to convert my dvds to PSP format - it's something I always meant to look into, but never seem to have the time to do.

@Aman
I've got Panasonic DVD-RAM discs which use a caddy to protect the disc when in use (similar to an oversized minidisc). The only downfall is you need a player capable of taking the caddy, and the extra cost of the caddy.

Iago 12th December 2006, 12:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blademrk
tbh, I've never had time to look for details on how to convert my dvds to PSP format - it's something I always meant to look into, but never seem to have the time to do.

Off topic, but latest firmwares (from 2.71 upwards IIRC) allow you to watch .wmv files. If you don't like .wmv, get this:
http://www.pspvideo9.com/

It's free and converts PC video files to PSP compatible video. And pretty easy to use too... Of course, you have first to decode your DVDs to .avi, .mpg or something like that.