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EVD - High Definition DVDs from China (MERGED THREAD) (1 Viewer)

Andrew_K

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http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc...ent_276124.htm

Nation to issue EVD standard
( 2003-10-28 09:18) (China Daily)




The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) will issue the industrial standard for the home-developed EVD (enhanced versatile disc), a next-generation disc format that will hopefully replace the currently popular DVD (digital versatile disc), in November.

The launching of such a standard signals that China, for the first time, establishes what is expected to help domestic disc player manufacturers shake off their previous dependence on foreign technologies in production, experts said.

"As far as I know, the MII will issue the standard next month," said Zhang Yijun, deputy chief engineer of the Shanghai-based SVA Group.

"We are quite confident in the next-generation digital disc technology, where we will possess our own intellectual property," he said.

While being chosen as a testing base for the EVD technology, SVA has been actively involved in the development of some core components in the new technology, according to Zhang.

SVA is part of a fledgling Chinese digital disc technology alliance - initiated by the MII - that involves more than 10 domestic enterprises and research institutions in the industry, including a majority of China's disc player producers.

Operating under a corporate entity called the Beijing E-World Digital Technology Co Ltd, the alliance has been engaged in EVD technology development since 1999.

While the national standard of EVDs is in the near future, the new disc format is currently under the scrutiny of related global industry organizations before it will be accepted as an international technical standard, Zhang said.

He revealed that a large amount of homemade EVD chips are now available as core parts of EVD players that are expected to supply the domestic market from next year.

EVD player prices will be set around 2,000 yuan (US$240), compared with around 700 yuan (US$85) for the average cost of a domestic DVD player.

Talks with domestic and overseas filmmakers and other video programme producers are under way regarding the market supplies of programmes stored in the EVD format, Zhang said.

Players powered by EVD technology are expected to offer as much as five times the quality of image definition compared with DVD players that dominate the market at present, and that is EVD's biggest advantage over DVD technology, according to experts.

As it gradually matures, the technology will enable EVD players to become a platform with various multimedia functions in the future.

In that respect, EVDs will hopefully turn out to be a next-generation digital disc format choice for domestic manufacturers, whose products account for up to 70 per cent of the world market.

China produced over 30 million DVD players in 2002 - almost doubling the figure in 2001 - and nearly 20 million units were exported last year.

For those manufacturers, the domestic DVD player market has, after six years of growth, entered a bottleneck where many competitors have to resort to price wars to take on their rivals. Even worse is that they have to pay hefty sums in royalties each year for the foreign technology patent applied in their products.

The appearance of EVDs is regarded by some as a challenge to the "Blue Ray," a next-generation disc technology, which is being jointly developed by a number of global electronics companies like Sony, Samsung and Philips.

"It (EVD technology) is a landmark achievement for us... we believe it will find its position on the domestic market," said Ding Kangyuan, vice-director of Disc Industry Promotion Committee of China (DICC) under the China Audio Industries Association (CAIA).

Ding attributed predicted market acceptance to the quickly growing domestic high-end colour TV market, especially in the high definition television (HDTV) segment, which calls for complementary disc-playing equipment like EVDs.

Ding predicted that Blue Ray technology will not form its large-scale application within the next three years. If the software sources of EVDs or video programmes stored in the EVD format can be guaranteed, the players will very likely first enter the high-end domestic market segment where consumers can afford costly display products like HDTV.

A number of DICC member companies, mainly current domestic DVD player producers, have been paying close attention to the EVD technology's progress, according to Ding.

"After all, it's our own technology," he said.

Analysts, however, have pointed out that it is hard to say whether EVD technology will be quickly accepted on a global basis, even though it may find its niche in the vast Chinese market.

And as future EVD players are supposed to be compatible in terms of functions to current DVD players, domestic manufacturers will still have to pay royalties on DVD technology patents owned by foreign firms.
 

Lawrence X

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Very interesting. It should at least put pressure on Hollywood to come up with some kind of Hi Def answer. It probably won't work out like the Chinese hope, however, remembering how the Japanese tried to enforce their own PC hardware and standards in the 80's and ended up totally missing the boat on the worldwide PC revolution.

The first big question is how well will EVD work with the existing 1080i standard? If it's incompatible, they'll have a huge uphill struggle with hardware. Though its not hard to imagine a player with chips that rescale to 1080i.

The biggest question is will they be able to get the rights to Hollywood films to sell in that format? Unlikely. Maybe if they're able to get the vast majority of non-hollywood films it could work, but even then it would be a tough sell.
 

Christ Reynolds

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yeah that article isnt very informative. it basically says "evd is better than dvd, and here are some very basic, non-technical details".

CJ
 

Joseph DeMartino

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Interesting, wonder if this is based on nuclear weapons technology? ;)

5 times the resolution of DVD, eh? So that means at least 2400 lines? More than double the most ambitious HDTV format. Wonder when they're going to start building TVs capable of displaying this miracle format?

Regards,

Joe
 
M

Mark Patrick

Blah... Even if this is true, I doubt I'll be replacing my DVDs. Hah, how 'bout that wonderful Super Video CD. No thanks, I'll pass.
 

Garrett Lundy

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Don't knock the SVCD man.... I need something inexpensive to keep my legally copied episodes of Sealab 2021 on.
 

Michael Reuben

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This thread has been edited to remove various irrelevant posts. Please confine future comments to the technology referenced in the initial post.

And a reminder to all: If there is a problem with a post or thread, please report it to a moderator. There's a handy-dandy "report this post" button on every post, and it works. Trashing the thread or other posters (or replying to same) does not help matters. Thanks for your cooperation.

M.
 

Jean-Michel

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"Players powered by EVD technology are expected to offer as much as five times the quality of image definition...."

Pretty vaguely worded but most people would assume that refers to resolution. If that is indeed what they're talking about (and I haven't a clue what else that particular phrase could mean) it couldn't possibly be true.
 

RobertR

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All you really need to achieve 5 times the resolution is the square root of 5 times the horizontal and vertical resolution. If we assume a standard dvd resolution of 720 x 480, that works out to 1610 x 1073. Without more, er, detail, we don't know what they've acheived.
 

Andrew_K

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Chinese will use VP6 compression technology licensed from the On2 company in their EVD format.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo...8829B25 9A%7D


According to On2:

VP6 is the best video codec on the market today. It offers better image quality and faster decoding performance than Windows Media 9, Real 9, H.264, and QuickTime MPEG-4.

In our internal testing, VP6 beat H.264, Windows Media 9 and Real Networks 9 in PSNR comparisons using the standard set of MPEG-2 test clips. The codec looks better than Windows Media 9, shows far fewer motion artifacts than Windows Media 9, and maintains more texture and detail than Real 9 or H.264.

You can download VP6 codec for testing:

http://www.on2.com/vp6.php3

You may also find some tests showing the performance of VP6 codec in comparison to other compression methods.
 

Brian Kidd

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Actually the On2 site (if I remember correctly) also has a streaming version of SLEEPAWAY CAMP in its VP6 codec. For streaming, it looks miles ahead of anything MS or Real Networks has released. It's quite possible that a high enough bitrate would yield far superior results than MPEG2. MPEG2 just has more backing and use than other codecs. It's kind of like MP3. MP3 is all over the place, but there are far better-sounding and better-compressed formats out there.

Edit: Looks like SLEEPAWAY CAMP isn't there anymore, but there is a full-length independent film that you can watch.
 

Shad R

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I wonder if it will have dolby digit al 5.1, or a different sound format altogether
 

Johnny G

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I started a similar thread about Hi-Vision LD but the thread is purely LD based now.

Can anyone tell me if there are any online retailers shipping EVD players or discs outside China?

I asked Poker Industries but they aren't dealing with them.
 

Robert Franklin

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You can't. They are not out yet. It maybe in the development stage, but no studio here in the US will support it. We are still concerned about the HD version of DVD's; I doubt seriously Hollywood is going to consider dealing with a format that is based in the bootleg capitol of the world.
 

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