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China To Develop Its Own DVD Format

Posted by Zonk on 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."

29 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Don't pin your hopes on their first format by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because an hour later, they'll have a new one.

    1. Re:Don't pin your hopes on their first format by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

      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" (I'm only half-way joking here) from being imported.

      --
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    2. Re:Don't pin your hopes on their first format by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

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

      --
      Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
    3. Re:Don't pin your hopes on their first format by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "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.

  2. Quality? by The+Infidel · · Score: 4, Funny

    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...)

    1. Re:Quality? by grumpyman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Quality? by Ced_Ex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Live forever, or die trying.
    3. Re:Quality? by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

    4. Re:Quality? by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Few Westerners know the difference, sadly.

      One of the guys I see often at my climbing gym is from Taiwan. A few days ago, he came in with a T-shirt that had the Red Bull logo on it, and a bunch of stuff in Thai. So, I asked him if he picked up his Thai Red Bull shirt here, and he was stunned that I even recognized the language.

      Apparently, a few people had asked him if it was Italian. Some thought French. One guy asked if it was German.

      Goes to show how little some people know.

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      --
      I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy .sig.
  3. they already have one by crabpeople · · Score: 5, Funny

    its called VCD :P

    --
    I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
  4. If based on, but incompatible means... by Stonent1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That it is HD-DVD but without DRM. I fully support this effort!

    1. Re:If based on, but incompatible means... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  5. Hmm... by burtdub · · Score: 4, Funny
    "the new standard will be based on but incompatible with HD DVD"

    Then where will Americans get their $2 bootleg DVDs?

  6. Chinese Censorship by Scoria · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Do you like German cars?
    1. Re:Chinese Censorship by mickwd · · Score: 3, Funny

      "...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?

  7. Seriously... by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... 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.

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:Seriously... by Baki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Seriously... by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful
      ... 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.

  8. The only reason why MS is behind HD-DVD by varmittang · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:The only reason why MS is behind HD-DVD by nutshell42 · · Score: 4, Informative
      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

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      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
  9. I disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  10. Best News Ever by dada21 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!!!

  11. Information control? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  12. Losing DVD Battle by Mulletproof · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ""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.

    --
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  13. Re:Good luck, China. by node+3 · · Score: 3, Funny

    *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.

  14. Figured this looked familiar... by jamesshuang · · Score: 3, Informative

    DUPE!

    Yeah, go slashdot... =p

  15. How long before the UN and EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    decide that they should be in charge of DVD formats? :)

  16. Re:I'll bet it's royalty-related by AviLazar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  17. by creating differing standards... by zogger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...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.