New high def DVD format: HD VMD
No sooner has the battle for the next-generation high definition DVD format ended, with Blu-ray triumphing over HD DVD, than a new contender has emerged. A new system that is incompatible with Blu-ray, called HD VMD, for versatile multilayer disc, is trying to find a niche. New Medium Enterprises, the London company behind HD VMD, says its system’s quality is equal to Blu-ray’s but it costs less. By undercutting the competition in production, replication and hardware costs, it thinks it can find a market among consumers with less disposable income, particularly outside the United States. An HD VMD player costs less than a Blu-ray because it uses the red-laser technologies found in today’s standard-definition DVD players. The Blu-ray and HD DVD machines use a more-expensive blue laser system. “We do not intend to take on Blu-ray,” said Shirly Levich, New Medium’s vice president and product development manager, in an e-mail message.
“We see VMD as a natural extension of mass market DVD product enhanced to HD capabilities. We shall not rekindle the format war.” The industry and consumers may not see it that way, given that the company is promoting its price advantages. While Blu-ray players typically cost more than $300, an HD VMD unit is priced at $199. Sales through Amazon are scheduled to begin in five weeks, the company said. Neither Walt Disney, Universal Studios nor Warner Brothers would comment on their interest in releasing movies on HD VMD. But even without major studio movies, Mr. Solomon thinks the company will be successful. The low cost of producing HD VMD master discs, from which the consumer products are made, and the inexpensive consumer players have attracted the owners of movie rights in China, India and Spain already.
Source: NY Times
Comments(86)
Ah come on this is stupid. People have already bought Blu-ray players and hd-dvd players. This format is going to spoil everyones fun if it actually makes it.
Oh man just when I thought I was going Blu-Ray!…lol
old news
It’s not new at all… it’s actually been there all along right next to Blu-Ray and HD DVD, but it was very unknown.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAH!!!!! i was right…..Now i wonder if this disk as it uses current tech is compatiable with THE XBOX 360……MUHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!or use it with usb port drives and have All 3 of em HAHAHAH!!
fuggetaboutit…
maybe in china, india and so on, but not in europe and usa, bluray definitely made it here.
i want more info.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136977-c,hometheatersystems/article.html
HD VMD discs, which hold up to 30GB on a single side, are encoded with a maximum bit rate of 40 megabits per second; that’s within halfway between HD DVD’s 36 mpbs and Blu-ray’s 48 mbps. The format uses MPEG-2 and VC1 video formats to encode at 1080p resolution for the time being, and will possibly move to the H.264 format in the future.
The ML622S and the ML775S players each have a single HDMI 1.3 connection and can play HD VMDs, DVDs, CDs, and MP3 CDs, as well as a few other formats. The ML622S costs about $150; the ML775S will cost slightly more. The ML775S adds USB ports and a media-card reader for displaying photos and playing video content from devices such as thumb drives and external hard drives. Both players have Ethernet ports designed for downloading firmware updates, not the interactive features supported by HD DVD and Blu-ray. They come in black, red, gray, and white.
Thanks @7, anyone know how much it will cost to buy a burner?
Fools, they make no chanche (against blu-ray). It’s already difficult to break through with a new format, they only make it more difficult for everyone
#8 makes a good point… even thought the average American or European might not look twice at HD VMD (like #6 suggested), your average home pirate might, and those are growing by the day. If they can make an affordable burner, I think that the will have a good chance at making a profit, though i doubt that they will be able to compete with Blueray. But that is my know nothing opinion.
what a joke… like this crap can make it here.. it all depends on computer media for this to work, the 360 is already going dead in another year or so.. just like MS original xbox, they have the uncanning ability to make people pay out the butt and love it.. it cant do what the PS3 can do when they fully unleash its power after 2008, pay attention to the track records and sell off your 360 today and start saving for the 720 witch still will not out live the 3rd sony console
i dunno about this but u can see their store and see what movies they offer…
http://nmestore.com/index.php?cPath=2
you can also see how much the players cost…about 210 bux for one of their players and 20ish for movies…16 blocks is 17 bux…
Anyone remember CD-I? I didn’t think so…
MCF3778… what are you talking about ? Is it possible to say anymore BS. Clearly a Sony fanboy, who knows nothing about business.
Sony PS3 has been a massive flop. Sony loses 20 Dollars every unit make. There NO WHERE near catching up to Microsoft in console sells. Please go back to your cave, troll.
hahahha omg i lold, goddamit, please stop releasing more formats, reminds me of that red vs blue episode
@ PRODUCT
He’s not saying anything about money… He’s talking about pure system power… And there is no comparison there. S3 wins. And looking back at the PS2 Vs XBox… I wonder which one won there… Doesn’t take a “fanboy” to work that out.
For reals people, we are living in a time when formats come and go as one replaces the other, its called progress.
BETA, UMD, MiniDisc, Tape, HD DVD…
I’ll get excited when we have a storage media that I can attach to me fingernail. Gnome sayin?
Funny i recently emailed NME about a PC burner and they said with all things going to plan, a PC burner will be available between now and may. Cost will be around $300-400 (£150-200) Discs at around $0.60-$1 (30p-50p) each. They have been very interested in mjaking available to PC users as the advantage in storage size will give it more life in the world market…
@11 MCF3778
STFU!
Why turn a post about an alternate HD format into another ‘I think Xbox smells’ fanboy war.
The 360 and PS3 will be living side by side for a while yet so get over it.
As far as HD VMD if they can push this towards people who download I can see a future. Cheap hi capacity burner twinned with a cheap standalone HD player FTW.
wtf the war is over now this now comes this wtf Blu-ray won !!!
Just so you know, the HD VME PC authoring software is coming soon too…
http://www.nmeinc.com/technology_authoring.aspx
My predicition for 6 months from now: HD VMD no longer in production.
Maybe someone should look into why their website is suspended. This says to me that HD-VMD is over before it began. LOL…All this talk about format wars you guys have been waging and none of you even bothered to check the website. LOL
Not being mean man but have to admit..funny as S**T.
OMG they have hit their bandwidth limit… pmsl, that’ll teach me to post link on a scene & a blog site… They gonna have to pay for more bandwidth now.
Backward compatibility is a great incentive for people buying this HD VMD players along with the price. The target market for these players are countries mainly in Asia. It will definately do well there no doubt as Eros the major Bollywood film company (equivalent to Warner) has already been offering film bundles with this player.
If this takes off in India and China there will be some success for this format. HD VMD burners may surprise a few because of its relatively decent price and cheap media.
if anyone’s old enough here to remember: V2000?
they need to just come out with the burner and let us format our own hd dvd.
never heard of it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000
For me this is crap. Blu-Ray won already.
geez if people wanted a cheap system then they would go out an buy a hd dvd player for like $50 and some hd dvd’s for it. just because something is cheap doesn’t make it good. I really doubt this will survive, especially without any support of the movie producers.
I have a Phillips upscaling DVD machine that gives me excellent results up to 1080p, its DIVX Ultra, has a USB socket, and various outputs at the back for my sound set up. I’ll be buying a Blu-Ray machine, but not until theyre less than £100. The machine above only cost me £40 and its excellent on my 42″ Plasma. This “cheaper” HD thing above can go the way of the dodo as far as Im concerned.
this won’t thrive long unless it makes a way into PC systems
Here’s my take, format wars aren’t to bad if they are in favor of the customer. I like my movies to look great on screen. Let them produce a format that has the highest bit rate possible /disk capacity. We pay a little more for the quality… Who am I kidding, a lot more but it’s worth it. Keep the Standard DVD format for budget reasons. Who needs to see “The Three Amigos” in SuperUltraVisionHighDefinition…. I just say, come out with a format that’s worth the money we WANT to pay and make it mainstream.
If it is about capturing a different market segment, and not head-to-head competing with BluRay, then HD VDM might stands a chance. But ultimately, they will need big Studio supports if they want to go far
@35 so Who needs to see “The Three Amigos” in SuperUltraVisionHighDefinition…….well it so we can see up there noses man.
its coming out in china,india ,well i think there will be a pc version,for me i want to store lots of data of 30gb i dont want to pay vast sums of money to do it,and 50p a pop sounds very good to me.
It might have niche appeal like Minidisc or DVD-RAM did, but it’s too late to become a mass market format unfortunely.
Could be popular in the PC market I suppose, due to it’s potential price point but don’t Expect the BluRay Association to get it’s knickers in a twist. Still, it could force the assoc to push for cheaper prices a bit quicker which can only be a good thing.
Blu-Ray is a terrible format because it is being made by a company that will rip everyone off simply because they think they’re good. Sony is a trashy company ran by idiots who have no respect for their customers and consumer and their customer care proves it.
I hope this format makes it and that the discs sell worldwide because I will buy one of these burners as long as they are better than DVD’s and the discs are available. I couldn’t care any less about the film industry drooling all over Blu-Ray because they were paid to do so. What I want is a cheap, affordable burner with good quality discs.
You can all predict all you want but small companies can make a huge impact and if the Spanish, the Chinese and Indians are interested them this format will be here to stay because they, obviously, don’t want to pay Sony for an overpriced product.
I whole heartedly support this product and will buy it as long as the discs are available simply because I hate Sony. Those of you who think the format was is ‘over’ and that you should bow to that useless company Sony please go get ripped off. Good luck with wasting your money.
rs links? i need to download and try out this vmd player on my mac before i buy it.
It’s good news to hear countries like China and India are taking up this technology.
Many years the Chinese were responsible for the CVD ( Chinese Video Disc ) and on from there the VCD format emerged.
It would be interesting to know if due to bulk sales and take up within these 2 countries ( remember it’s cheaper ) that this could stimulate further developments.
As posted above, some people already have upscaling DVD players already and I guess most will just wait for prices drops in BD players and media before committing themselves to purchases.
fools
i have zip disks
Also bear in mind that the technology uses the standard ‘blue laser’ used in DVD products currently, so possibly DVDR media can be used for evaluation purposes …. lol
Funny they call it “NME”
@/b/Lover
Dude, as any format and burner in past, BluRay is expensive.
Remember DVD burner costed….well here where I am from….around 1000DeutcheMarks(500 Euros).
I own PS3 and to tell you the truth, BluRay disc quality is very awesome. Capacity of 25Gig on standard CD diameter with round scratches goes perfectly
it’s never gonna even make a dent in the market it will have nothing but indie films which most people arent interested in and lots of dvd players can upscale nowadays so whats the point.
Hmm, lets see, Blu-Ray is the official winner of the format war, so lets dump all our money into a device that WON’T PLAY BLURAY.
WTF. In what Bizarro world is this a good idea? Yup, you’ve definately conquered the market of those 14 guys that bought HD dvds.
bah VHS FTW.
Alot of you seem to be missing the fact that bollywood is a larger and in several ways superior market to hollywood. http://www.businessweek.com//magazine/content/02_48/art02_48/a48tab37.gif
cool, i’ll definitely get a burner. this rocks big time!!!
a 30 gig blank for 0,65 Euro…
I feel sorry for the fools who spent money on a blueray player…
its old news dude..
they already got der players and some titles
its not next gen format..
its substitute for BluRay.. cause BluRay H/W still costs a lot
and if i’m right its regular dvd with 10 layers..
Nice to see someone isnt conning the world with high priced tech.I hope this pulls off coz i for 1 am in.
It’s not new. I saw an article about this in december last year
@18 FIXXeD
Recordable 30GB DVDs for 1$? BRING IT ON!
No DTS-HDMA, or Dolby True HD? no thx
Does anyone remember Beta vs VHS????
Hmmmmmmmm!
@23 and me at 21 n 24 RE:nme authoring software link…
The site is back up again…
And
@43 you mean Standard ”’RED”’ laser used in DVD products currently, as Blue laser is BLUERay…
Who cares? The future is in downloading. Physical media will be obsolete within a few years. Thats my prediction
Indeed, DLing is the future… HD-VMD vs. Blu-ray? I don’t really care coz Blu-ray has better supporters/backers and bigger/deeper pockets. Personally if this HD-VMD thing comes along, I’d use it for personal storage and back-ups
then Blu-ray for games! O_O
Dudes, this is obviously aiming at the storage segment. If they can make a cheap burner they can sell well. They have no backing from the movie industry, so PC is their hope. Me, i think i could buy a nice burner for optical storage.
Doubt this will go main stream, this reminds me of VCD Players which were only popular in Asian Areas….
this things gonna suck im sure, none of the studios or consumers wan to invest in another format when blu ray is already the winner. this thing is gonna do as bas as divx
Can’t believe you guys have not worked this out yet. The industry backs BR-D, therefore these discs will serve as a pirate’s medium in places where buying bootleg stuff in the street is the norm. You may have noticed that China and India were part of the market. I would not be surprised if Russia also takes an interest.
personaly, this is my format of choice, and as a collective I would like to see people say rather plainly” Hollywood get on board or we will just pirate your blu-rays to the format!”
and then lets all just do that!
20 to 30 buck a blank blu-ray? c’mon, I like the $1.00 max cost a blank better!
it doesn’t take much sense to figure this out here!
LOL
its funny I remember when Hollywood told us they would never support DVD because it wasn’t a secure media, and actually thought we would all stay with VHS.
how stupid what asses you blu-ray fanboys are!
the facts are plain and simple!
either Hollywood will have to adapt or we will just rip and burn to this new cheaper but equal quality format!
stop coddling these greedy corporate giants!
Sony tried to outlaw the entire mp3 format, while selling mp3 players at the same time!
and if you are gonna Love these corps at lest go with one that cares about your lot in life and financial situation like for instance “NME”?
if you really want to shell out more money buy HD-VMD and send the extra money to a charity and help someone!
maybe feed a starving person?
this is just plain stupid to think that the format war ended simply because of bribery and Sony saying so!
LOL
to Sony I say “adapt or be pirated!” this is a lesson you should have learned with mp3 already!
hope the NME makes it.. if simply for the cost of player burner and discs
and they say there just offering an alternative to bluray not competing… but i wish they would because without a competitor sony will never have a reason to stop charging their outrageous prices for their product
simply respex
om-1
Senet thank you very much for the insight into Sony. I didn’t know they tried to ban MP3’s while selling the players, that’s just taking advantage of the consumer in many ways.
sounds interesting but… not another format war!!! just let it go i want my blu ray discs to become cheaper, hey with only one format around consumer confidence will increase and hopefully more and more discs will be sold and thus bringing the price down….
,
and its not only sony that supports blu ray, they like toshiba were for hddvd were the major supporter thats it, so in time there might be cheap brand X pumping out BR players for $100 bucks in a years time
if these guys were around at the start of the format war they might have had a chance of winning, but BR victory mainly lied in the fact it was embedded into the PS3!!
I hope this format is adopted by more white European companies. I don’t have an interest in yank films so Jew-ray can go to hell with their hebrew pricing.
i hope this gets popular. the price is right and if they can get it to play H.264, i am in
@goatman
Ha, yeah right! This is Sony, I’m expecting them to either stay the same for the next year or get jacked up because they don’t have anyone to compete against. I hope this really does well.
Not only has BluRay not necessarily ‘won’ as some claim in order to calm their own insecurities about what they’ve invested in, if HD VMD can produce affordable burners and blank media, then BluRay WILL LOSE in the long run. HD VMD was introduced awhile ago, but it’s obviously not as well known. If they can sell burners for ~$150 or less and blank media, especially rewriteable media, for ~$2 or less, then BluRay is going to get their collective a$$es handed to them in the next couple of years. The red laser aspect of this product means dramatically cheaper production costs vs. blue laser products like BluRay, and their are facilities all over the world that can easily produce the players/burners/media with little adjustments necessary. Short of a major f up from HD VMD, its far cheaper costs will ultimately make it major success.
@Bojangles
That is the exact reasoning I used when I purchased my HD-DVD player, cheaper means people, manufacturers and production companies will prefer it, but no.
I still don’t understand why people bought Blu-Ray players, they are more expensive and stand alones (not PS3) are very unreliable, you don’t know if the Blu-Ray you just bought will actually play. HD-DVD was a finished product with a huge selection of films and the studio companies were going to go with them but people started buying Blu-Ray’s. I just don’t get it.
Well, we never buy original movie here,
so guess this format could be nice for ripped content from blue ray , and with cheap players, this could be popular. Yes, it won’t have blue-ray quality, but will be good enough for a lot of us.
This is a pretty good choice if you like to throw away money at stupid crap.
Too little, too late.
Bluray players for pc are down to 200$ and bluray has the market..
If you buy one of these,… your a fool..
However… I do agree with the possibility of some previous comments!
if they make it play 720p mkv from dvd5 (and 1080p from dvd9)I’d consider buying one….
they say it is going to be a lot cheaper
give it to the uk and goverment will chuck so many taxes at it
it will be about the same price
@78 – That’s probably not much of a stretch at all, these discs are very similar to standard DVDs except with more layers, just a matter of if the players will implement it as they’d be physically capable. They are likely fully capable of playing raw 720P MKV files if the firmware/software on the players were set up to do so. Even if not, it may be a simple matter of reauthoring the MKV files similar to reauthoring compliant MPEG2 files to be DVD Complaint files for the DVD Standards. Hopefully as this format and these players take off, we’ll see players that support raw MKV and other various common file formats in a similar way to how some current DVD players support raw XVID, MPEG2, etc. SD resolution files.
Who says Blu-Ray has one the war, the figures of Blu-Ray penetration are highly skewed because of the PS3.
The porn industry will probably decide who wins the format war yet again.
VHS won over Betamax because although Betamax was superior, VHS was cheaper, and that’s what the porn industry went with.
The DVD is the same story, the porn industry made it.
Must I repeat ‘porn industry’ again?
Porn industry.
Sorry, obviously the porn industry didn’t physically ‘make’ the DVD. They made it standard was what I meant, lol.
HD-VMD won’t need to go up against Blu-Ray to gain a significant foothold.
Simply produce a cheap high capacity disc and PC burner and a low cost HD player capable of playing HD files and it will grab sales simply from people wishing to play downloaded content.
Sony told me I needed DAT’s, Minidisks, Betamax, magneto optical disks, HiFD, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, Music Clip, SACD, Memory Stick , UMD’s, and now Blu-ray.
I remember blank Sony audio casettes costing over $10.00 until cd-r became affordable, they still sell blank cassettes but now for only $0.59 and they are still profitable or they would not continue to manufacture these.
do you really believe it costs more to make a plastic disc with a couple layers for blu-ray than a cassette with moving parts, a shell and metal magnetic tape?
blank blu-ray = $20. to $50. USD
blank HD-vmd $1.00 USD
+1 Zleet … totally agree on that!!
well i have to agree with 81…the porn industry did say a few months before blueray has shown its recent domance ,that it would use blueray media,,,,and they do tend to go for the cheaper standard,,,which blueray is not….?
@75
Who da fool now? Sony is puttin prices up 15-25% on BR players now hddvd gone…
Didnt see that coming… LOL