HD DVD rides again: TCL brings China Blue HD & Blu-ray together for a CES face-off
By Richard Lawler 
posted January 11th 2010 4:04PM
posted January 11th 2010 4:04PM
posted January 11th 2010 4:04PM
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KIRF-esque MUCH?
this is just what we consumers need. more format wars.
yawn, let's move on to upgrading the internet and switch everything over to streaming/downloading already.
@willowtwf
yeah the only way anyway would buy another player is if they can make it play its format and bluray so people dont have to rebuy stuff
but we all know that aint gonna happen so f off china ..l./
@willowtwf
You're talking about a massive "upgrade" to get us to the point where every household can stream/download video and audio on the quality level of actual, uncompressed Blu-Ray type thing.
If you feel so strongly about it, why not invent it yourself? Oh that's right; it's not that easy.
Blu-Ray is not uncompressed. In fact, it's heavily compressed. Just not as compressed as the downloadable crap that so many people are cheerleading.
As far as this Chinese thing goes: Why would anyone consider the choice of a country that, until a couple of years ago, was still watching movies on CD-I?
@Information Central Interestingly, when the Chinese were watching VCDs we in the US were still messing with the old school VHS.
@hmmwv Yeah and when we were having economic growth and putting a man on the moon in the 1960's they were starving 30 million people to death with communist policies.
What's your point? And how far do you want to go back?
China again... remember TD-SCDMA? WAPI? EVD?
I'm more interested in if I can import it when my HD-DVD player starts to act up. I do not mind a grey market if so, just make to make sure that I have a back up device.
Dear CBHD Group,
Please proceed with your attempt at marketing outside of China. There's nothing I would like to see more than you guys falling flat on your asses and suffering huge losses as a result of not learning from Toshiba's mistakes.
Regards,
A. Customer
I thought HD-DVD was 6ft in the ground, blu-ray won a long time ago can't we just move on?
@npa189
The point (I think) is that those who thought HD-DVD was a winner, and made a large collection of them can transition to Blu-Ray, without having to rebuy their HD-DVDs in Sony's format.
Hey, I love China for their proprietary standards. They avoid having to pay licensing fees AND ensure that the product is made in China with Chinese parts by Chinese workers, keeping that cash in China.
@Valicore everything is made in china these days, so what difference it will make to them?
the licensing fees is the only thing they are saving money on.
But will Toshiba charge licensing fees to them? Or are they getting a free ride on that as Toshiba folded the HD-DVD?
@Sam83 Maybe a really cheap ride? Toshiba dumped a lot of money into HD-DVD production plants, maybe they're looking to make minor mods to them to churn out CBHD discs and recoup some of that money.
@Valicore avoiding paying licence fees is understandable. What isn't understandable is why anyone would make a CBHD player support HD DVD when doing so adds a whole bunch of licencing for zero gain.
HD-DVD: I'm not dead yet!
BD: I've just chopped your arms off!
HD-DVD: its just a flesh wound!
BD: you have no arms and legs now!
HD-DVD: shall we call it a draw?
@Sam83
HD-DVD:Come back you yellow bastard!
oh wait that didn't sound good.
Bluray still isn't what HD-DVD was over two years ago. We all know it will never make a comeback but I would shed tears of joy if it managed to.
@moneymark What exactly does that mean?
Blu-ray is actually fairly successful:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/bluray-booms-dvds-keep-slumping-in-fourth-quarter.html
What possible benefit is there to HD-DVD over Blu-Ray now that players can be had under $100.
@Amnesia87
I think you skipped over the two years passing part. Live is still a mess as well. Not faulting the format for some of the other complaints like horrible menus, more mandatory previews, etc..., but they are annoyances I did not deal with before. Are you just talking out your ass or did you actually own both as I do. Two years later I have the same basic functionality in my bluray player as I had with hd-dvd, plus shittier copies of the same movies. It's moot at this point I get it; I can still be bothered by the differences though.
@moneymark Mandatory or upfront previews are nothing to do with the Blu Ray format. Some studios use them, some don't. If the war had gone the other way they'd be inflicting them on HD DVD instead. I'm thinking of Disney in particular who shove previews onto their DVDs and Blu Rays. The tech is irrelevant.
@Amnesia87 Yeah, I got my Blu-Ray for $99 at WalMart, may not be the best player but 1008p and HDMI! I also love renting movies from the Blockbuster in Mexico, no one has a BluRay player so the movies I want to see are always available (you can rent them for a bit over a dollar for several days).
@Amnesia87 so r bluray players at walmart, wake up
@DrXym
You might have actually read my post. I said the lackluster menus and additional previews were NOT the fault of the format. Reading rainbow was not your favorite as a child I take it.
@moneymark Actually I read your post and your implication was clear - that Blu Ray suffered from mandatory trailers and poor menus. Perhaps you tried to slip it in as an aside but clearly you said it to put the format down even though the tech has absolutely zero bearing on how each studio chooses to conduct its business. If HD DVD had won it would suffer from exactly the same variation in menus and trailers as DVD and Blu Ray do today.
Funny, didn't you notice the Made in USA tag in the lower left corner?
My HD-DVD player and movies are still working just fine. By the time I catch up, I'm sure that digital downloads will be even better than they are today.
I miss HD-DVD. I remember the BD folks complaining about the length of time for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 players to boot up...that's about how long it takes to get to the menu of your typical BD these days. Thanks Blu-ray and Java!
@greenmonkey No, not really. You haven't used a BDP very recently, have you? Even with just a PS3, it's quite zippy.
China worked with Toshiba to use HD-DVD as the basis to CHBD. So, this isn't utterly surprising.
And what exactly is the problem with offering HD-DVD as an option? Hell, this is something that Toshiba should be doing on their BD players so that those of us with red and blue discs can keep using our red discs, and there is certainly no licensing issues there!
It's amazing to see people criticizing this move! You're under absolutely no obligation to use the damned thing, but there is certain no harm to anyone to make it an option! Or have you been so unable to let go that the sight of an HD-DVD logo *still* ruffles your feathers?
@JBerg
Well, there really isn't a problem for this one consumer. I doubt CBHD cares about the West in terms of a market. They have their own they are trying to cultivate.
And I seriously doubt mass-market retailers in the West (ahem, North America) will give another competitor a chance after taking hits on the Toshiba/HD DVD fiasco. A lot of retailers had to dump inventory when Toshiba bailed on everyone (including me).
heh, code yellow...
why the hell would u do this now maybe 2-3 years ago but now... wtf blu ray has already come this far including servises and 3d why would you compete now
meh I like seeing the underdog keep fighting so this is good news :)
Also I have a few HD-DVD's as well.
This is pointless of them, waste of time and money. And by the way, I sided with HD-DVD, it didn't have the problems Blu Ray had of past and present, it was cheaper and showed as good if not better than Blu Ray. It only won because of the cash and support behind it and now a new format pops up!? c'mon. Those idiots that supported it are stupid. I'm sticking with my DVD until the prices drop where I can get a decent Blu Ray for the price I get for a decent DVD player and the Disc cost as much as a DVD and not no f**king 30 plus dollars.
@Caprice0083
We'll see. They're a country the size of the United States, with four times the population of the United States, and its middle class has something most the West doesn't: a savings account with money in it.
You never know, it might not affect any of the rest of us. How many VCD titles ever got popular here in the U.S.? Personally, I'll just be delighted if someday, if I still have any of the red discs around and I still want to play them, there might possibly be a way of getting a player. :-D
It's really weird to see the HD-DVD logo on a new product. It just is.
Ha, this is a win-win situation for consumers.
I always supported HD-DVD based on its technical superiority over BD-ROM, but I never bought into either format as I don't have an HDTV (1080p x264 MKVs much? ;) However, aside from buying Serenity as soon as it came out on HD-DVD (more on principle, I couldn't watch the disc for over a year) I never bought any HD-DVDs.
However, more recently I did buy an XBox 360 HD-DVD drive to use on my PC with WinDVD Platinum - and it works perfectly. 5.1 sound out the PC, 1080p video on my monitor or projector whenever I can get my hands on one... Plus the insanely cheap price of HD-DVDs as everyone tries to offload their stock - it's the perfect format to start building your HD collection with.
Supporting HD-DVD will appease fans of the tech AND it'll ease adoption of any HD format for people who haven't as yet bought a player. I think I'd be sorely tempted to buy one of these players if they made it to the UK!
If I recall, reading back many, many moons ago, they had almost no intentions of making this international.
Did they change their minds?