New Force in DVD Wars: China

Rob Updegrove 7 Oct, 2005 at 9:14am ET Article published in Tech

According to Business Week, China has announced plans to enter the fray in the battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. But it’s not taking one side or the other; China has announced it will develop its own DVD format to rival both existing competing standards.

The Chinese standard, not expected to reach markets until at least 2008, would provide higher definition, better sound and better anti-piracy measures, Xinhua quoted Lu Da, deputy director of the government-affiliated National Disc Engineering Center, as saying earlier this week.
“With such format and related standards,” Lu said, “We could have our own voice in the DVD industry.”

The announcement marks China’s latest attempt to leverage its manufacturing muscle to play by its own terms in the home video market. Up to 80 percent of DVD players are made in China, but makers have to cough up around 40 percent of the cost of each player to license holders, according to Chinese reports.

As if it wasn’t bad enough with [i]two[/i] competing standards…

Source: Business Week

Comments

7 Oct 2005 ~ 10:02am PirateNinja ;d
7 Oct 2005 ~ 10:06am Garg In communist China, DVD plays you!
7 Oct 2005 ~ 11:35am kanezfan well if they put 1 billion DVD players in chinese homes, hd-dvd and blu-ray are both dead and we'll all be watching hi def dvds on chinese players. they're gonna take over some day those chinese.
7 Oct 2005 ~ 1:59pm Jengo guys i hate to say it... but if china steps in. then say goodbye to blu-ray and HD-DVD

lol @ gargoyle
8 Oct 2005 ~ 11:10am drasnor And the UN worries about our control over the top level domain servers...?

-drasnor
9 Oct 2005 ~ 1:17am airbornflght i knew it would come to this, china/usa
9 Oct 2005 ~ 2:27am Leonardo

i knew it would come to this, china/usa

Well as long as "com[ing] to this" stays at trivial things like DVD protocols, there won't be a lot to worry about.
9 Oct 2005 ~ 9:26am deepsea Currently, DVDs are not produced in China. As long as the manufacturers are willing to forgo that extra $.06 (yes, that's typically the savings - about 6%) per copy, then the DVDs will (1) not be illegally pirated before they are ever shipped and (2) be produced to the standards that sell in this country.
10 Oct 2005 ~ 2:42am Jengo

deepsea wrote:

Currently, DVDs are not produced in China. As long as the manufacturers are willing to forgo that extra $.06 (yes, that's typically the savings - about 6%) per copy, then the DVDs will (1) not be illegally pirated before they are ever shipped and (2) be produced to the standards that sell in this country.

price of production of DVDs or other media is not really important, as long one isnt way way more then the other. The problem here is manufacturers of the players, if you have 2 small companies making players for HD-DVD and trying to make them as inexpensive as possible, OR 400 large companies competing to get the cheapest blu-ray players out, wich format do you think would be more affordable? Blu-Ray of course. And what do people buy more? Expensive or inexpensive products?

We are talking about china, one of the Biggest manufacturers of DVD players in the world, not to mention there players are much more inexpensive then brands from say... America. They can easily put players and their own format of Disc onto the market at VERY VERY affordable prices. I will probably bet money that in 2010 their format will be either the main format or at least the secondary alternative. i dont think there is enough room in the market for 3 main formats so.... one of the three are gonna probably hit the dust early.
10 Oct 2005 ~ 8:58am GHoosdum On that point, China will be able to produce their own players for cheaper than they'll be able to produce an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player, because they won't have to pay licensing fees.