China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) launched as challenge to Blu-ray

timesonline.co.uk ^ | July 30, 2009 | Leo Lewis

[smokingfrog]

China has unleashed a new “format war” for control of the high-definition DVD market in an audacious attempt to unseat the Blu-ray disc as the sole global standard.

The launch of the China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) for domestic use is viewed by analysts as a dramatic assertion of the country’s rising technological confidence and they believe that the format could mount a serious challenge to Blu-ray.

China’s gambit comes just 18 months after the Blu-ray Disc consortium — a 100-strong group of technology and media companies led by Sony — declared victory over the similarly sized HD-DVD Forum led by Toshiba. Warner Bros, whose support for Blu-ray was the deciding factor during the 2008 war, has said it will support the new format as the technology finds its feet.

The potential growth of the format in China has already become clear. In just a couple of months since it was launched, the cheaper all-Chinese CBHD players are thought to be outselling Blu-ray players at a rate of about three to one. The discs, priced at 50 yuan (£4.50), set consumers back about a quarter of the cost of a Blu-ray.

Toshiba’s defeat last year followed a marketing showdown, allegations of giant payoffs and dirty tricks and an all-out charm offensive to win the support of the Hollywood studios. The sudden capitulation by HD-DVD cut short what might have been a long and expensive campaign in the VHS/Betamax mould.

But the sudden emergence of the CBHD this year has shattered the peace. Atul Goyal, technology analyst at CLSA, said: “You are looking at a technology that comes with the backing of the Chinese Government and has the power to win the support of the big studios if they sense it is a way to make money in China.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Normally, China would just steal Blu-ray. Why are they bothering?

[BGHater]

‘The discs, priced at 50 yuan (£4.50), set consumers back about a quarter of the cost of a Blu-ray.’

Prices. Flood the market, destroy the competition.

[coloradan]

Are knock-offs already flooding the streets of New York and Los Angeles?

[smokingfrog]

I don’t think they’re going to sell until people can get their hands on a CBHD player. Plus, are you going to have the problem with discs that only play in certain regions?

[Jim from C-Town]

Only Obama has that problem.

[Yossarian]

Normally, China would just steal Blu-ray. Why are they bothering?

Control of the format. It allows China to control what gets released on the format.

This way, the dictators in the Communist Party can help control communications, and even thought.

[MrEdd]

Dunno. They are both clunky, over sized, obsolete technologies with moving parts and too much heat generation.

SDXC cards hold 2 TB.

http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc

[Myrddin]

I own a Toshiba HD-DVD player (1080p capable) and Sony BluRay BDP-S300 and BDP-S350. The Toshiba player has always had firmware and stability issues. I rarely succeeded in playing an HD-DVD movie from start to finish without some kind of lock-up. By comparison, the Sony devices have always worked properly. Firmware upgrades added capability or improved boot-up time. The upgrades were available on the net as CDROM images for the S300 and via my home broadband for the S350. Toshiba only put one firmware update out over the net. It has been applied. It improved boot up time, but did nothing to fix the stability. Toshiba put out a poor quality player. The format deserved to lose in the marketplace.

I really have no interest in buying another disc player. My BluRay collection is substantial. There is no reason to jump ship on something that works well.

[Myrddin]

While shopping at Best Buy last week, I saw a "wmedia" devices for sale for $104. It uses an external USB hard disk or media cards. The device has an HDMI output to drive a 1080p capable display. SDXC on a USB thumb drive might be a viable distribution medium. It would make a fine ad hoc backup tool for a PC as well.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Hmm. Did the same happen with DVD? The creation of a China-specific format? Seems the cat’s out of the bag already.

[max americana]

>Normally, China would just steal Blu-ray. Why are they bothering?

The prices are cutthroat BUT the word “China” on the forefront is the poison pill that no one wants to take. No American wants to tell his other neighbor “hey dude, I’ve got the latest China High Def...” China quality is synonymous to crap.

[jiayouintaibei]

China is only “communist” in the sense that its leaders have free reign to do whatever they want to make a buck off the back of the workers. Although arguably, communism is just a set of government thugs stealing from the people, so whatever.

The only reason this format is (or is going to be popular) is because people only buy pirated Music/Movies. I’m in Taibei, Taiwan right now, and I can buy recent movie releases for 30NT (a little less than a dollar). In China, it’s very similar, except even more overt. From what my Chinese friends told me, it’s 5-10 kuai ($0.80-1.50) for movies on DVD (Hollywood releases and Japan AV pornographic DVDs are most popular). I’m betting this format will cost 10-20 kuai ($1.50-3.00), which should be a decent bargain for the average Chinese. As far as I know, there’s no shortage of middle class Chinese with high definition TVs. They are abundant here in TW, but there is no high def content being broadcast.

[bethybabes69]

The prices are cutthroat BUT the word “China” on the forefront is the poison pill that no one wants to take. No American wants to tell his other neighbor “hey dude, I’ve got the latest China High Def...” China quality is synonymous to crap.

I hear ya, but that's the final hurdle that could destroy manufacturing bases of established Countries.
It used to be the case that people cast a smirk when speaking of Chinese goods, and dare I mention it, people used to do the same for the Japanese stuff back in the 70's. One of the most spoken things in the 80's in Britain when speaking about imported goods was 'It's Jap-Crap', and we all know how the progressive Japanese just kept on keeping on to prove their mustard.
Certainly, here in Britain and Europe, China is increasingly recognised as the manufacturing giant of increasingly popular products.

The big difference is innovation, the Chinese have historically pwned other people's design and made it far more economically, they're starting to innovate now, like Japan did in the 80's

MrEdd is right, disc players are on the slippery slope with the progressive development of Solid State memory, it's obvious where media storage is going, optical media will succumb, the West is clinging onto it due to the [mistaken belief of] the ability to copyprotect some info via disc pressing compared to burning.

China, are they the modern embodiment of free market manufacturing? Where people [albeit allegedly cruelly], and businesses forego the pressures of Government mandates, and jumping through Government hoops over working hours, employment statistics, all that other employment statute, and just get on with the core issues of making and selling things, and ultimately, making money.
Maybe it's the Western World that has more of an issue with Government invasion into business practice than China, are we the 'Commercial Communists'?

One thing I do know, with the metality of the Chinese, if they get a form foothold in manufacturing innovation, they games over, aint nobody gonna fight it back from them, unless people start buying again based on Patriotism.

[boomstick]

They want to encourage domestic development of technology and manufacture of equipment. They did the same thing with 3G wireless telephones — took established technology, made it worse, got the standards body to accept it as another standard, and forced the wireless infrastructure companies to help their local manufacturers produce equipment.

This will probably be more successful. Rampant piracy will render useless our greatest weapon (content).

[norraad]

My old 8-track is more reliable than blu-ray.

[Bogey78O]

Yes, it went nowhere outside of China.

[Bogey78O]

Huh? Blu-ray is generally very reliable.

[anilms]

Most Samsung TVs have USB ports where you can connect a Hard Disk with your media. Even better is the Philips DVD Player (5990) at BestBuy. Priced around $50, you can connect hard disks through the USB port; the hard disks can contain any type of media - DivX, MPEG1 (VCDs), MP3 - you name it and it plays it. It also supports ripping CDs to Hard Disk directly.

[Myrddin]

Thanks for the pointer to the Philips DVD player. They always have some interesting innovations. It's common to find folks hacking their firmware to squeeze extra capability. My Mitsubishi HDTV has USB, but I've never done anything with it. The TV is connected to the BluRay, HD-DVD, Wii and an OTA HDTV converter. The built-in digital tuner is too numb for my local broadcast signals.