Today China released the final specs of its competitor to DVD-Video disc. China calculated the timing of this week's major technological announcement very well. Currently DVD Forum is trying to solve locked situation where it has to choose either HD-DVD which is based on AOD disc, developed by Toshiba and NEC, and BD-ROM, which is based on Blu-Ray disc, developed by various consumer electronics companies, including Sony, Pioneer and Philips.
China's own digital video disc format is called Enhanced Video Disc or EVD. Format uses blue-laser discs, just like AOD and Blu-Ray do, but the exact capacity is not known at the moment. The most interesting part of the disc's specifications is in its video compression method. EVD uses proprietary video codecs developed by American On2 Technologies, called VP5 and VP6 that deliver significantly better video quality with lower bitrate levels than the MPEG-2 used in DVD-Video discs (and in proposed BD-ROM format) does and competes well (and according to various tests, also beats it at least in some cases) against MPEG-4's latest video compression method, called H.264 that proposed HD-DVD plans to use. EVD will be able to use HDTV resolution natively, which should also boost the plans to launch a nationwide HDTV service in China in near future.
China's main motivation in developing its own standard was to avoid royalty payments to American, Japanese and European consumer electronics companies that hold most of the patents involved with DVD-Video discs. However, choosing an American company to deliver the video compression method seems a bit weird against this goal, but according to On2, the deal was relatively cheap for Chinese government anyway. Manufacturers who wish to use EVD in their players have to pay $2 for each player to On2, but On2 doesn't collect any royalties whatsoever from sold EVD discs, which is a huge bonus compared to the current DVD-Video patent situation.
China exported 20 million DVD players in 2002, accounting for more than 70 percent of the world DVD player markets and it is obvious that there's a need to reduce the royalties if possible flowing out of China. Chinese government is currently negotiating about plans to set the EVD as China's national standard for digital videos and movies. However, costs are a problem; EVD players are expected to cost $230 in China and average Chinese DVD player costs only $96 in China.
More information:
Reuters
EE Times
China's main motivation in developing its own standard was to avoid royalty payments to American, Japanese and European consumer electronics companies that hold most of the patents involved with DVD-Video discs. However, choosing an American company to deliver the video compression method seems a bit weird against this goal, but according to On2, the deal was relatively cheap for Chinese government anyway. Manufacturers who wish to use EVD in their players have to pay $2 for each player to On2, but On2 doesn't collect any royalties whatsoever from sold EVD discs, which is a huge bonus compared to the current DVD-Video patent situation.
China exported 20 million DVD players in 2002, accounting for more than 70 percent of the world DVD player markets and it is obvious that there's a need to reduce the royalties if possible flowing out of China. Chinese government is currently negotiating about plans to set the EVD as China's national standard for digital videos and movies. However, costs are a problem; EVD players are expected to cost $230 in China and average Chinese DVD player costs only $96 in China.
More information:
Reuters
EE Times
