CBHD: Blu-ray rival based on HD DVD

By Matt Hickey on 06 August 2009

(Credit: Chine Informations)

Now that Blu-ray has won the format war with HD DVD we can all relax and buy Blu-ray players and not have to worry about what physical format our discs are, right?

Maybe not. Besides outside pressure from the combination of high-speed broadband and HD streaming media, a new challenger has risen to seriously challenge Blu-ray's superiority and it's based heavily on its oldest rival: HD DVD.

Meet China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD), a new HD video disc format based heavily on Toshiba's HD DVD format. Toshiba has licensed its technology to the CBHD group for use in China. The format now has the official backing of the Chinese Government and some analysts think it could be the global per-unit HD leader in as little as 12 months. It's already outselling Blu-ray in China.

That's because compatible players are selling at three times the rate of Blu-ray players. In addition, the discs are cheaper to make than Blu-ray discs.

It would be easy to assume that the new format would be a China-only issue, but as English is the second most-spoken language in Asia, and China can be bullish about exporting its tech, you could see as many Western movies in English show up on CBHD as you do on Blu-ray. That means the possibility of an export grey market, one thing Blu-ray doesn't need right now.

So far it appears as if the only major US studios on board with CBHD so far is Warner, but given the size of the Chinese audience and its appetite for Hollywood movies (any street corner in Shanghai will net dozens of pirate copies of US blockbusters) it would be foolish for the other studios to ignore the format for long.

Together with streaming HD, this could potentially be a one-two punch against Blu-ray that may turn into a knockout. The smug backers of the Blu-ray format need to take these threats seriously. The format can't be selling as well as Sony and its friends had wanted, so combined with the alternatives, it's clear something needs to change.

Topics: blu-ray, hddvd, format, cbhd, blu ray, china, hd dvd, disc

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Comments (6)

  • Aimsworth commented on 08/08/2009 12:06 Report abuse

    I think format wars a thing of the past. Its all content wars, and survival or multimedia spanning companies.

    Internet speeds are the only thing stopping downloads as being more a standard home movie format. We had VHS, then DVD, now we are told blu-ray is the future... but the future is content. You will store it however you want.

  • Black Patriot commented on 06/08/2009 23:07 Report abuse

    @rick
    I don't think you understand how video encoding works. To transform an analogue or digital film into a usable format, ie a video file, it needs to be encoded, the individual frames and the accompanying audio have to be transformed into 1s and 0s.

    Blu Ray uses 3 different standards of encoding, however they are the same ones that are used on computers (for obvious reasons), so there should be no difference in quality between a Blu Ray disk and a hard drive video file if they're at the same bit-rate (amount of information per second used to describe the video, so the frames and the audio).

    This crap about truer picture and no pixelation and laser scan shortcomings is nothing but false information. Besides, Blu Ray can do around 40Mbps for video, with about 4Mbps for audio, this is more than enough to remove any artefacts or pixelation.

    To date, the highest bitrate video I have seen on the internet was a 12Mbps video, with 640Kbps audio, well below the average bitrate of most Blu Ray films.

    On the other hand, the encoders that the studios use are usually inferior to the open source ones that the ripping community uses, which results in more artifacts at lower bitrates. This may give the impression that a hard drive would provide better quality video at the same bitrate, but its actually the encoder to blame.

  • rick commented on 06/08/2009 19:21 Report abuse

    guys,
    Who needs blue ray when you can get a portable usb2 hardrive & put heaps of movies etc etc.The good news is that it can copy to hardrive in hi defintion format.Were talking hundreds of gigs & tetrabites which beats blue rays 50 gig handsdown.
    Also guys because a hardrive is magnetic it records a truer picture & doesn't suffer at the high end due to pixiliation & laser scan short comings.
    Hardrive is the winner!!!
    Rick

  • bleach1st commented on 06/08/2009 18:31 Report abuse

    I can see it being another VCD in some ways but hopefully it will give something for Sony to think about as Blu-Ray Disc prices are scary atm :S All that money for a plastic disc..? I don't think so... :|

  • i don't think so.. commented on 06/08/2009 17:35 Report abuse

    this will turn out like vcd's and stay within asia if anything. VCDs were a very popular format in asia that never really took off in western countries

  • SPID commented on 06/08/2009 16:16 Report abuse

    ha ha ha, Sony gets a shafting from the rear. After deliberately loosing millions in order to sink Toshiba's bid. Very cleaver, Toshiba recycles its technology. This is Lazarus on steroids.

    Its a come back for the title!

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