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Media Entertainment Technology

China To Develop Its Own DVD Format 313

Posted by Zonk from the another-contender dept.
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an MSNBC story covering a move by the Chinese entertainment industry to create their own DVD standard, the second such announcement in two years. From the article: "If successful, the move could add a new wrinkle to the battle between HD DVD and the competing Blu-ray Disc formats over which will become the dominant new DVD standard. The official Xinhua News Agency said the new standard will be based on but incompatible with HD DVD, which is being promoted by Toshiba Corp. and Universal Studios, as well as Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., the leading suppliers of chips and software for most of the world's personal computers."
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China To Develop Its Own DVD Format More

China To Develop Its Own DVD Format

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  • Don't pin your hopes on their first format (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:12PM (#13741783)
    Because an hour later, they'll have a new one.
    • I honestly don't understand what China thinks it will accomplish. You don't become an economic juggernaut by taking steps to cut yourself off from the rest of the world. If China wants the economic benefits of creating standards rather than just using them, they need to create a standard that the rest of the world will adopt. That way *they* can control the standard and ensure its success.

      Instead they're merely making an incompatible version of someone else's standard. Something which they have no real economic power to force. They can force it politically, but that would simply piss off "The People of China" that much more when they can't import any foreign entertainment. (Certainly, a big import/export for any first world country.)

      The only thing I can say is that it's probably again about control. They aren't looking at the economic implications, they're looking at preventing ideas like "freedom", "democracy", and "Dallas" [wikipedia.org] (I'm only half-way joking here) from being imported.
      • Are you aware there's more than a billion people living in China? That is one big market. Yes, they can afford to cut themselves off.
        • Are you aware there's more than a billion people living in China?

          Uh huh. Because entertainment exports have always been consistent with the size of the country, right?

          Putting that aside, China needs food and a lot of it. As I understand the problem, a large portion of their land is unfarmable, and they've made poor use of the farmable land they have. As a result, they will always need to maintain imports of commodities.

          The problem is that if they cut themselves off they will have an import/export deficit.

          • Re:Don't pin your hopes on their first format (Score:4, Informative)

            by Dot.Com.CEO ( 624226 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @03:45PM (#13742580)
            I am sorry but your understanding of macroeconomics is limited at best. China is growing at a rate of 7-12% a year and projections make it seem that until 2025 it will be the world's largest economy by far. If I may say so, if you want to have such a strong opinion on China (I remember you had another post I commented only yesterday and you also seem to go on about it on your blog) read a bit on it. I suggest the Economist's analysis here [economist.com].

            I am sorry to say your anti-Chinese rhetoric is absurdly naive, as it is. No offence.

      • by creating differing standards... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zogger ( 617870 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @03:32PM (#13742473) Homepage Journal
        ...they gain amazing market leverage. They aren't cutting themselves off, they are guaranteeing profits and not even have to even think about exporting cash. Explanation: they have the industrial capacity to still EXPORT any and all formats,in any quantity, anywhere, to anyone, so they don't care about "formats" except it's a market. But, who will want to try and make a chinese standard disk and try to import it INTO china and expect to make a profit? Answer, no one. See, they cover their humongous domestic market, plus the rest of the planet. Win/Win for them, and guaranted to most always keep their rapidly expanding internal markets domesticaly driven. Yes, they import, and they mostly import machine tools to go ahead and setup more factories to build stuff, when it comes to durable goods, that or prototypes they can either license legally and clone or just heck with it, clone anyway. It's only taken them 25 or so years to go from a marginal player with a huge population to the worlds leading manufacturing nation, and all the indicators say this will continue until they are also the highest GDP.

        They are long term strategic thinkers, they don't fool much with this quarters profit mentality. That's why they are out there signing 20 year energy deals or outright buying up the sources, along with strategic minerals.
        • They aren't cutting themselves off, they are guaranteeing profits and not even have to even think about exporting cash.

          Hardly. They have to force the producers of movies to support the Chinese format. And why would anyone support the Chinese format when everyone in China already has DVD or BluRay players? The government could force the market to only sell players that handled their format, but that would only serve to create a massive black market.

          Explanation: they have the industrial capacity to still EXPO

      • Re:Don't pin your hopes on their first format (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @03:46PM (#13742586)
        "You don't become an economic juggernaut by taking steps to cut yourself off from the rest of the world. "

        Of what use is a standard developed in Japan or the United States when DVD players are still manufactured in China anyway? China has the power to put this new standard onto store shelves around the world, and the debate between content publishers and technology companies will seem moot when the consumers themselves are presented an option that is cheaper than both competitors (because there's no obnoxious licensing fees).

        Both flavors of Western(-esque) corporations may want to use a format that lets them enact DRM or region control, but ultimately they will have to sell on a format that people will buy, or no format at all.

        Personally, with my dissatisfaction with the interests involved in the BluRay vs. HD-DVD debate, I'm very interested to see what the PRC has to offer. The "communists" may finally show us how capitalism is supposed to work.

  • Quality? (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Infidel ( 708655 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:14PM (#13741800)
    Not to sound jingoistic by any means, but 'made in China' and 'quality product' rarely appear in the same paragraph (with the exception of this one...)

    • Re:Quality? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grumpyman ( 849537 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:16PM (#13741825)
      Are you kidding man? You can't compare it with high-end uber-users stuff, but the 'quality' is up to the level that majority of the world uses it. Check out which piece of electronic in your home is not made in China.
      • My stuff is made in Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan...
      • but the 'quality' is up to the level that majority of the world uses it.

        The majority of the world uses it not because it's quality, but because it's much cheaper, and people have been lulled/tricked into not considering quality anymore.

        Check out which piece of electronic in your home is not made in China.

        The answer will always be: "Every piece that lasts more than 2 years"

        • Re:Quality? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by grumpyman ( 849537 )
          The majority of the world uses it not because it's quality, but because it's much cheaper, and people have been lulled/tricked into not considering quality anymore.

          True, but 'much cheaper' or 'chinese made' does not automatically implies 'poor quality'. This is the sweeping statement that the original poster made which I don't agree.

          Moreover, we have to wonder why so much stuff that we use these days are made in China. Different people have different perception on quality, and I won't say that most of

        • Re:Quality? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The answer will always be: "Every piece that lasts more than 2 years"

          Nice racist touch there. Funny thing is, people used to say that about Japanese goods a few decades ago (not to mention Taiwan and Korea). Now look at who makes high-end electronics.

      • My computer was built here by me, teh parts are quite varied. Processor is from Ireland, motherboard from Taiwan of US parts, memory is Germany, disks Malaysia, monitor Japan. My mixer and amp are from the US, speakers Great Britan. My TV is a Japanese maker (Toshiba), but made in the US by dBx. That's probably the extent of the electronics I'd call high-quality. I do have a number of things made in China, but none of it rates up there on my quality scale.

        I personally don't check country of origin for deter

    • I disagree (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:22PM (#13741886)
      China is the only country to make decent DVD players. Their players don't force you to watch commercials, they don't force macrovision on you, and they don't enforce region coding.

    • Re:Quality? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Prophet of Nixon ( 842081 )
      They make splendid steel products, as does Japan. Never get Pakistani steel though, ugh.

      I always find that the most inferior foreign products aren't from any particular country, but are either A) sold in Radio Shack, or B) those things that say 'MADE IN USA' all over the packaging, because the packaging (or the sticker) is, but the product inside could be from anywhere.
      • With a UID such as yours, we really need some JEs of your prophesies. Does Tricky Dick think the Red Sox can come back? Will Saddam be convicted? And just when will Duke Nukem hit stores?
      • They make splendid steel products

        Are you kidding? My god. I wouldn't touch Chinese-made tools with a 30 foot pole... I know numerous people that were seriously injured when a made-in-china drill bit/router bit/saw blade/etc. turned into high-speed flying shrapnel under normal use. I'll pay practically any price to get steel products that were not made in China.

    • Re:Quality? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ced_Ex ( 789138 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:33PM (#13741988)
      Not to sound jingoistic by any means, but 'made in China' and 'quality product' rarely appear in the same paragraph (with the exception of this one...)

      Having friends with factories in China, I can tell you that quality can be adjusted any way you want.

      You want cheap products, they can make it cheap, they skimp on QA to save dollars. However, if you want them to produce high quality goods, they can do that too, just add some extra $$$ to the bottom line and they can make it to whatever quality standard you want.

      It's all about how much you want to spend.

    • Re:Quality? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:46PM (#13742101)
      To move away from the high tech answers you're already getting I bought a student violin this year, made in China, two hundred bucks. Violin, bow and case. I wanted something I could bang around, take camping or to the beach and not worry about overmuch. Should be junk, right?

      It is a better made, and with a little tweaking has turned out to be a better instrument, than my vintage and antique European and American instruments of considerably higher "value." As it plays in it just keeps getting better and better. I'm so impressed I'm planning to add a cello of the same model to my collection.

      At a gig a friend asked if he could try it. When he picked it up and started to play his first comment was, "Niiiiiiiice bow!"

      Perhaps you have to be a violin player to understand the ramifications of that comment.

      It was not too long ago, in historical terms, that China and Japan were known as the source of the finest handmade items in the world. Europeans didn't risk their necks and their investments going all the way to China for junk. Made in China was not merely a mark of something being exotic, but a mark of quality absolutely unobtainable from anywhere else. Quality that you could see and feel.

      Japan spent about a century getting beat up. They got over it. China spent about two centuries getting beat up, and beat up rather worse. They're finally starting to get over it.

      It's a biiiiiiiiig frickin' dragon that's awakening; and it wants its reputation back.

      KFG
      • I'd like tho know what the brand is also...
      • When he picked it up and started to play his first comment was, "Niiiiiiiice bow!"

        Well of course it was a nice bow. The Chinese have been bowing for millenia, I expect they've got the whole thing down pat. Now, if he had said, "nice handshake!" That would be something else.

  • The question is... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jupix ( 916634 )
    WHY? What's wrong with uniform standards for the whole world? Why can't I just buy stuff from where I want to buy it?
    • As in, the Chinese mfgs will be expected to pay some kind of licensing/royalty fee for the other formats and not for the PRC-developed one.

      • Re:I'll bet it's royalty-related (Score:4, Interesting)

        by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @03:06PM (#13742263) Journal
        I would wager it will allow China to more easily control what media enters their country. If people can only purchase this dvd player, and china keeps this format niche, then other countries are less likely to carry it - and less likely to have unwanted movies/music/more on it. Basically - control.
      • at least as far as I understand it. RTFA and it mentions the liscensing fees.

        Current DVD players (most made in China) need to buy the "rights" to decode/play the region specific DVD encodings. This liscensing cost makes up somewhere between 40%-50% (TFA says 40%) of the entire production cost per player.

        With their own format, production costs drop by nearly 50%... units can be sold for less while making a larger profit... consumers buy more... company makes tons more money. (assuming that consumer
    • What's wrong with uniform standards?

      License fees.

      It's really a shame when a standard requires very non-trivial [mpegla.com] licensing [philips.com]. Shouldn't standards be usable by anybody for anything? But somehow high-paid lawyers got mixed in and now it's a mess. I aplaud the Chinese for trying to avoid it altogether.

      I expect the Chinese aren't too happy about some other mandates [videobusiness.com] too.
    • WHY? What's wrong with uniform standards for the whole world?

      Three letters... DRM. Thats whats wrong.

      Hopefully the Chinese standard will be exactly like HD-DVD, only without any DRM.

    • Re:The question is... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shokk ( 187512 )
      What makes you think that a product that 1 billion people use cannot be considered a standard on its own? Why does something have to be produced with the approval of the rest of the world, where there is a real chance that this thing could be adopted on top of all the other many formats. Honestly, with all the CD and DVD formats, what is one more to pack into all-in-one readers and burners these days?

  • Patents? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jsrjsr ( 658966 )
    "based on but incompatible with HD DVD"

    I'm wondering how they're going to avoid the patents involved (after all, their stated reason for doing this is to avoid the licensing fees).
    • Well, China's national market for digital entertainment is "pretty big" already, and subjected to grow significantly the next years. China can afford not to care about certain issues outside its legislative power, like the US-american patent system, for instance (or human rights, as we're being shown again and again). They'll just stay "local" with their format, and everything's still just fine for them with about 1 billion potential customers at hand.
      • They'll just stay "local" with their format, and everything's still just fine for them with about 1 billion potential customers at hand.

        Exactly. Perhaps China is thinking that with THAT MANY "potential customers", they are in a pretty good position to dictate the CD (and other) standards as they wish? Kind of hard to ignore.

  • they already have one (Score:5, Funny)

    by crabpeople ( 720852 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:15PM (#13741817) Journal
    its called VCD :P
  • That it is HD-DVD but without DRM. I fully support this effort!

    • Re:If based on, but incompatible means... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:40PM (#13742040) Journal
      What it probably means is that it uses HD-DVD disks, but a different encoding. I would imagine that they are picking something that doesn't require the payment of licensing fees to foreign interests. HD-DVD specifies things like MPEG-4 and (I think - I can't remember if it made it into the final standard) WMV. If they used a home-grown CODEC then Chinese player manufacturers wouldn't have to pay US corporations (e.g. Microsoft, Dolby) to produce their players, even if they wish to sell them in the American market. This could potentially dramatically reduce the amount of money that flows from China to the US.

      Note that this isn't conceptually new. It was originally announced at least a year ago as a DVD competitor. The news seems to be that it is now targeting HD instead of SD.

  • Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by burtdub ( 903121 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:17PM (#13741831)
    "the new standard will be based on but incompatible with HD DVD"

    Then where will Americans get their $2 bootleg DVDs?

    • I know you're being funny, but what does this mean for film makers outside of China? Will the Chinese develop a player that can play several formats, or will Chinese consumers be unable to watch Hollywood films at all?

  • Good luck, China. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by djdole ( 588163 )
    Good luck getting anyone to care. If it were Japan with Sony's backing, then ok.
    But China....um, no.

    *flips over a DVD (from the future)* "Made in China"
    Unlikely
    HIGHLY Unlikely
    • If by "anyone" you mean anyone west of Istanbul, then yes. But in case you haven't noticed, there are a very large number of people in China and India, and they make a lot of movies there. If 1% of those people buy an HD-TV and a new Hi-Def disc player in the next 5 years, that is more than enough for a market.

    • Re:Good luck, China. (Score:4, Funny)

      by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:34PM (#13742004)
      *flips over a DVD (from the future)* "Made in China"
      Unlikely
      HIGHLY Unlikely

      I think you may be right. It'll definitely say "Made in USA".

      Of course, it'll be written in Chinese. And we'll all be able to read it. Fluently.
  • I somehow doubt that they're going to bother with user-hostile crap.

    Considering the number of high-quality films coming from China and Bollywood lately, I wonder if there'll be subtitles?

  • I buy a lot of Chinese DVDs.
    No, not the bootleg kind -the legally manufactured and purchased new kind (yes, these exist).

    So am I going to have to get a third DVD player for my home theatre exclusively to watch Chinese Cinema?
    Crap, so in stead of watching good foreign films I will be stuck watching the effed-up American remakes. If anyone thinks that The Departed will be anything like Infernal Affairs, theyve got another thing coming...
    • So am I going to have to get a third DVD player for my home theatre exclusively to watch Chinese Cinema?
      Crap, so in stead of watching good foreign films I will be stuck watching the effed-up American remakes. If anyone thinks that The Departed will be anything like Infernal Affairs, theyve got another thing coming...

      You're not going to have to buy another DVD player. A Chinese player will probably just stuff all the formats into one unit.

      Infernal Affairs... one of my all time favourites.

  • Chinese Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <slashmail AT initialized DOT org> on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:20PM (#13741869) Homepage
    The Chinese government will certainly benefit from this. If the hardware sold in China is no longer capable of playing foreign discs, then the Chinese government will have absolute control of what can be viewed by most of the Chinese people.

    If the Chinese government doesn't like a political documentary, they can simply refuse to release it domestically. The Great Firewall will prevent you from downloading a copy, and smuggling a foreign copy in will no longer be an option. You won't be able to play it, after all.

    • Re:Chinese Censorship (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ngr8 ( 504185 )
      It would, of course, be gauche to say "ME TOO!".

      This begins to complete a package for the Great Wall: get the offshore search engines to "private label" Internet search, so no nasty ProtestorTankPic.jpg can be found, so that Chinese bloggers/reporters can be turned in, and hardware-based media (DVD) can be private labeled for "safe" domestic distribution in China.

      Look: its bad enough that the Wal*Marts have changed the content of CDs and what's on their magazine racks. This is a nation state, a growing and

    • Re:Chinese Censorship (Score:4, Funny)

      by mickwd ( 196449 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:10PM (#13743119)
      "...the Chinese government will have absolute control of what can be viewed by most of the Chinese people."

      Hmmmmm.....control over what content can be viewed and by whom.....

      Sounds like some sort of DRM scheme.

      No-one would dream of trying anything like that in the free, capitalist west, now would they?
  • Do they really need a new format just to support Engrish subtitles?

  • Seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:22PM (#13741883) Homepage Journal
    ... the rest of the world probably doesn't care. While China may be on the same physical planet as the rest of us, they arent playing on the same logical field. In terms of copywrite and intellectual property, we are completely seperate worlds, and I doubt either really cares about the other.

    • Re:Seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Baki ( 72515 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:27PM (#13741938)
      China still has sound ideas w.r.t. intellectual property, namely that it is largely harmful. They will benefit from all wasted resources in the parts of the world obsessed with this evil concept, which is hostile to civilisation and development.
      • China still has sound ideas w.r.t. intellectual property, namely that it is largely harmful.

        Oh, please. You're not seriously suggesting that China has some well-reasoned philosophy regarding IP, implemented by wise leaders who have given long consideration to moral and ethical concerns?

        The philosophy consists of certain people in China saying, "we can steal this, because no one can stop us." And their leaders simply do very little about it.

        • yes, very pragmantic. they have the "wisdom" to put their own interests at first, instead of bowing to a so called superpower telling the rest of the world what to do.

          indeed, i know they don't do it because of deep philosophical considerations w.r.t. intellectual property (as I would like, since I reject the whole concept as principle), but still I am glad that at least one significant power on the planet resists the current dreadful trend and does not allow themselves to be intimidated.
          • That's like saying that I'm just being "pragmatic" and "putting my own interests first" by breaking into houses and stealing from people.

            You may reject the concept of intellectual property, but you don't need the concept of IP written into law to recognize that's it's morally and ethically indefensible to use something that someone else created in a way that they specifically ask you not to.

            Just out of curiosity, do you reject the concept of open source software licenses as well?

        • As china develops more intellectual property, you can bet your ass this is going to change.

          Never forget that for the time being, the PRC maintains one of the world's foremost police systems.

          When push comes to shove, if they decide it is in their interest to defend the IP, laws will be passed, and the police will crack down (similar to western countries).

          Their lack of enforcement is lack of willpower, not lack of ability.

          Oddly enough, as we see China continue to grow, and the inevitable free-trading of Yuan
          • China is going from backwards empire to economic powerhouse. The other asian tigers were doing the same thing.

            Hmm, I dunno. Seriously, people have been predicting the domination of China for literally a thousand years. They certainly *could* do it, but they are a very insulated culture.

            As you say, Japan certainly did, but of course that took destroying their national psyche and rebuilding it in Western terms. And even so, they still don't have much of an entrepreneurial culture compared to the US (which

          • Additionally; consider that china's growth rate has slowed down to 8% in 2005.

            India, a higher population country, with a far lower GDP, has a growth rate of 6.5%

            The U.S., a lower population country, with a somewhat higher GDP, has a growth rate of 4%, adjusted one point downwards for hurricane damage.

            China is, and will continue to grow, as an economic powerhouse. It is misleading, however, to portray China as the empire of the future.

    • Re:Seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:45PM (#13742094)
      ... the rest of the world probably doesn't care.
      Doesn't China make most of the rest of the word's DVD players? Maybe they'll push to make this the standard here, too, so they don't have to pay so many royalties.

      That would be fine with me. I'm all for direct importation of Chinese goods without ridiculous markups for the "American" brand-name. (See Nike and Levis). So long as I'm buying goods with my outsourcing-deflated wages, I'd like the opportunity to buy at equally deflated prices. I don't think the greedy American overlords who cut all their American workers add much value anyways.

      • I mean they can make their DVD players, and sell them in the US but they can't force companies to make their DVDs. If they say "nope, we don't make HD-DVD players" the answer will be to not give China the business and have them made elsewhere. Perhaps they'll choose to do that, but it won't stop the HD-DVD drives from being made.

    • Re:Seriously... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Comboman ( 895500 )
      Yes very different. The evil, communist, totalitarian Chinese government wants to have complete control over what their people see and hear.

      ...whereas the democratic, free-market, capitalist MPAA/RIAA want to have complete control over what their customers see and hear.

  • The only reason why MS is behind HD-DVD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by varmittang ( 849469 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:22PM (#13741884)
    Is because they put it in their Xbox360s. MS couldn't license or didn't want to pay to license the Sony Blue-Ray, so they had to go with HD-DVD to give more room for the programmers to give game content. If Blue-Ray becomes the standard, then the Xboxes that are coming out will only be game consoles, not home entertainment pieces. They would be forced out of the living room since DVDs would be Blue-Ray only, and wouldn't play though their Xbox consoles. This is why HD-DVD is so important to them, not because its better format.

    • Re:The only reason why MS is behind HD-DVD (Score:5, Informative)

      by nutshell42 ( 557890 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:48PM (#13742123) Journal
      so they had to go with HD-DVD to give more room for the programmers to give game content.

      Xbox360 games use DVDs.

      Which is the reason MS supports HD-DVD. They've got nothing to lose. They announced their intent to think about the possibility to include an HD drive for movie playback at some time in the future or not. So if Blu-Ray wins big deal, MS simply puts a BR drive in their consoles. On the other hand if they can kill Blu-Ray, they negate one of the main advantages of the PS3 (i.e. the one that it is a HD player. Sony sold a lot of PS2s that way when stand-alone DVD players were still expensive) one Sony will use to justify the (supposedly) higher price of their console

  • Best News Ever (Score:5, Funny)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:23PM (#13741894) Homepage Journal
    Now we can:

    * Bootleg Chinese DVDs to sell on every market corner in the US
    * Make a US region and sell unlocked US-made DVD players in China
    * Terribly mispell Chinese words in our manual
    * Make badly lip-synced English voice overs on the DVDs
    * Open Caucasian-run DVD stores in China with thousands of bootlegs, and canned American food
    3. ???
    4. Profit!!!
  • Please sir may I have some more? I am really getting sick of these format wars every couple of years. What really needs to happen is for nobody to get any money out of these format incriments. No royalties, no advertising money, nothing. THEN maybe they can all agree on a single low cost high compression format that can be universally accepted.

    This would work because everyone would sell more, movies, games, data discs, whatever. I'm tired of big electronics bick

  • China?!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by linumax ( 910946 )
    hmmm, is it some kinda company?! like Sony or Toshiba or even Cuba?

  • Information control? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:24PM (#13741906) Homepage Journal
    My first thought when i read this is "Great Firewall".

    Picture this:

    1) China develops its incompatible format and patents it.
    2) They won't provide licenses to anyone they don't want to.
    3) They forbid the use of the DVD standard, so people won't be able to buy or copy DVD's.
    4) They copy the DVD's and release them (censored of course) in their own format.
    5) ???
    6) Total Control!

    Or maybe I'm too paranoid? Perhaps they only want economical gains from this, so 6) Profit!!

    I really don't know.

    • missing step 3.5 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by way2trivial ( 601132 )
      electronics factory in china, employed in the production of THOUSANDS of DVD players for export to the US, suddenly grows incredibly profitable, while at the same time recording a much higher than thought possible component/device failure rate in production....

    • Having RTFA, I read the bit about stronger anti-piracy than HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and got to thinking "Bollocks". I do understand the statement made, but funnily enough my faith in genocidal gerontocratic tyrannies falters from time to time. Like now.

      I really don't think China wants strong anti-piracy measures - they want rapid economic growth. Thus, anything which impedes that is a Bad Thing, and must be stopped. Patent licensing, anti-copying measures will stop people in Shanghai and other relatively wealth
  • China has developed a new DVD technology where it can not be copied and sold on the street for $3.00. So far, noone anywhere wants to buy them.
  • FTA: "Blu-ray is backed by Sony Corp., Apple Computer Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., along with a variety of other tech companies and studios."

    I didn't know apple supports the blu-ray. And now I feel compelled to support it irrationally until apple backs the next hopefully big thing.

    I was surprised to read that China is developing a standard with anti-piracy in mind... Since most of my favourite hardware toys come from there (the kind you can't buy in North American stores)...

  • Losing DVD Battle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:28PM (#13741946) Homepage Journal
    ""If successful, the move could add a new wrinkle to the battle between HD DVD and the competing Blu-ray Disc formats over which will become the dominant new DVD standard. "

    If successful, the could also heavily regulate what their populace is allowed to view given their complete control over this specialized format that nobody else will ever use. Yeah, color me a tad paranoid, but I nearly always assume that the Chinese government has ulterior motive beyond the headlines. Of course, they could be doing it for pure profit and control of an industry standard, but lets face it, they're starting a bit late in the game and offering little in the way of innovation to actually have any sort of leverage. But saying 'yay' or 'nay' as to which movies (and ideas) get pressed for their populace to view? Yeah, I can see that.

    That's not to say I think it'll work in either senario. The standards are too entrenched either way and their competition already has a head start and mass marketing experience.

  • License Fees (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:31PM (#13741979)
    They probably don't want to pay technology license fees to the west. I don't blame them.

  • Usians Ignorant of (their own) History, Repeat It (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:33PM (#13741993) Homepage Journal
    The Comments laughing at the idea of the Chinese being innovative reverberate with the jibes thrown at the japanese economy after WWII. The japanese were seen as copiers, inept as engineers, and suited to making cupie dolls and other knock offs.

    Now, in America, it's the Chinese who are seen to be a bungling satellite economy dependent upon American management and good old American know how. And how did that turn out last time around with the japanese?


  • Are we going to have + and - recordables for each of these standards? Would you like a +/-R+/-B+/-H+/-C DVD recorder war?

    Here's my hazy analysis. I think it's partly an artifact of how fast markets move today, so fast that sometimes standards can't settle and you end up with embedded markets for multiple standards. The real tragedy of this is that manufacturing prices fall slower (because of duplication of effort), and that slows new development (and keeps profits lower than they might otherwise be, and thu
    • Are we going to have + and - recordables for each of these standards?

      Probably not, the BluRay/HD DVD split probably replaced it. This new Chinese standard sounds like it's written on HD DVDs, but in a different format. Thus it would be likely you could get a player that plays both. Even more interesting, they might not pay to license the western HD DVD standard, but have upgradable firmware players that some HD DVDJon just happens to have made an upgrade for with code to handle U.S. discs.

    • Actually, a lot of this is the result of many major hardware players and the trick of making "standards" that are patent encumbered and thus make money for someone. If the government would mandate real, open standards for media to prevent lock in and ensure that media is always readable by everyone, we'd see these groups settle on a single standard because then they would have no financial incentive to push one or another and could compromise on the best technical soultion.

  • In Other News (Score:2, Funny)

    by jnadke ( 907188 )
    Beijing (AP) - In a move that has surprised the world, China has announched today that its new DVD format will be 100% Freedom-Free. "We want to make sure terrorists cannot attack the pride of the People's Republic of China," said President Hu Jintao. "China will not be hindered by other formats that could possibly include Freedom protocols," he concluded.

    "We were just trying to stop those damned file sharers," said Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA. "This time, China has gone too far. They can
  • Well. This would be one agruement against region-coding. There's one less region to try to keep seperate.
  • How long before manufactures just make players and writers detect and support all formats?

  • YET another one!? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:41PM (#13742054) Journal
    I first thought this was about EVD [wikipedia.org], and an ancient dupe, but after RTFA, it sounds like this is YET another one?? They aren't even done with the EVD's...

  • Figured this looked familiar... (Score:3, Informative)

    by jamesshuang ( 598784 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:42PM (#13742066) Homepage
    DUPE! [slashdot.org]

    Yeah, go slashdot... =p

  • How long before the UN and EU (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2005 @02:49PM (#13742136)
    decide that they should be in charge of DVD formats? :)
  • Will they make their DVD players compatable with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD as well as their own standard, then?

    There's little point in starting a separate format if studios don't release their content in it. I predict this new Chinese format will be marginalized by the fact only Chinese studios release in it.

  • Clever move (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 )
    This will help kickstart China's economy and lower the trade deficit as in isolating the country in this case would create more demand for local businesses to start cranking out devices that only Chinamen would want. Even better, since China isn't super rich, higher quality of lives would become within reach to more citizens who'd otherwise have to participate in the world markets.

    At first glance, this strikes the average person as being another bizarre action of their evil autocratic censoring and repres

  • No copy protection? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pyite69 ( 463042 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:12PM (#13743854)
    If they had support for high definition without copy protection, this should hopefully become the worldwide standard.

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