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China's EVD Standard becomes the industrial one
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2004-07-21 09:49

By Zhong Jing

China's traditional DVD player industry with overwhelmingly cruel competition is now approaching its end. As the so-called substitute for DVD players, high definition disc players, such as EVD, HVD, HDV and the like, are launched successively. However, without exception, their appearance in the market incurs various questions from both inside and outside the industry circle.

Meanwhile, market feedback further manifests obviously that the substitute for the traditional DVD player does not appear in fact.

Actually, China's disc player industry, while suffering from being forced to pay foreign patent magnates billions of US dollars of patent fees, is now striving for the research and development of high definition video disc technology. Therefore, support should be given to the industry.

On July 8, the Ministry of Information Industry declared that the national standard of EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) for the electronic industry was officially publicized online. It is China's first standard for high definition video disc system with the independent intellectual property, indicating that a "title" is finally given to EVD as the world's first industrialized high-definition digital disc player developed by China.

On the same day, the China's Audio-Visual Industry Summit Forum was held synchronously in Guangzhou. In the forum, a keynote speech ¨C Development Tendency of High Definition Disc Player ¨C was delivered by Tian Yujing, a senior engineer with Television and Acoustics Research Institute of Information Industry Ministry and an authoritative expert in the audio-visual industry. During her speech, Tian analyzed one by one the three high definition disc formats that are based on red-laser technology, namely EVD, HVD and HDV, all of which are now speculated heatedly in the domestic industry circle.

Tian Yujing stated that in terms of the audio and video compression, there are few differences between the traditional DVD format and the current three formats that still use the present mainstream technologies of audio and video compression. It is not the best solution to the current high definition technology of red-laser disc players. In addition, the overwhelmingly high price of EVD made it difficult to be favored by the market, and the scarcity of program sources in the market leads to more difficulties on the spread of EVD.

As for HDV mainly promoted by Beijing Kaicheng High-Clarity Electronics Technology Co., Ltd., Tian Yujing analyzed that since the function of decoding MPEG-4 is added, HDV can become the decoding platform of some network videos, but "it is not the real high definition program and even has basically no relation with high definition".

In the light of HVD, Tian Yujing said that its video and audio formats are the same with those of DVD and its file system structure is similar to that of the computer.

Tian Yujing believed that in general, these three products have the additional functions based on those of DVD. If they are not compatible with DVD, the problem of serious scarcity of program sources will exist in all of the three products. In view of the market enrichment, the three products each have some advantages. However, the competition among the three has led to the market chaos.

Meanwhile, Tian indicated that before the launch of blue-laser products, red-laser high definition products are undoubtedly the focus of market research. Nevertheless, blue-laser technology will inevitably become the mainstream disc technology in the future, and thus China's enterprises should participate in the world¡¯s research group of blue-laser technology as early as possible.

As an authoritative expert in China's audio and video industry, senior engineer Tian Yujing provides a fairly sharp review. However, just as what she has said, the competition among the three formats has led to the market chaos, which is definitely not beneficial to all of the three products.

In fact, how the industry carries out the integration of systems and technologies is the key for the healthy development of products and also a tough issue that the industry has to face. In view of the whole industry in China, there is hardly a precedent of successful alliances. Almost all of the alliances are communities for temporary interests, and there were no binding force or cohesion between them. It is one of the hindrances to China¡¯s industrial development and also a problem that high definition disc industry urgently needs to solve.

Therefore, China's relevant industry circles should integrate their forces to unitedly conduct product researches and to avoid cannibalism. In addition, under the general background of global technology convergence, foreign technologies should not be completely abandoned just for the sake of pursuing full independent property rights.