China muddles the picture for high-def format: EVD raises concerns; DVD Forum votes for Toshiba.(a consortium in China unveils a new disc format, called Enhanced Video Disc)

Video Business, November, 2003 by Sweeting, Paul

A government-backed consortium of DVD manufacturers in China has thrown a major and unpredictable wrinkle into worldwide efforts to develop a unified high-definition DVD system. The nine-member consortium, which includes some of the world's largest producers of DVD players, unveiled a new disc format, called Enhanced Video Disc, based on technology developed in China that is different from either of the two major HD-DVD efforts under way in Japan, Europe and the U.S.

As the world's largest maker of DVD players and with a domestic market of 1.3 billion people, China now stands as a major obstacle to Japanese or U.S. hopes for a single, worldwide HD-DVD standard. The announcement last week in Beijing comes at a critical time for the Japanese and...

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