New Medium Enterprises Hopes to Crash Blu-Ray Disc.

[SRTDodge05]

Right after Toshiba Corp. said it would withdrew from the high-definition format war by stopping production of its HD DVD equipment, Sony- and Philips-backed Blu-ray disc (BD) instantly became the winner of the high-def war. But New Medium Enterprises, the company that developed another type of medium that is suitable for storing high-definition movies, says the war still goes on.

“The way is now clear for VMD to be embraced by the industry, our technology is robust and our format is clearly equal to the quality required to deliver a true HD experience for the consumer at a price they are prepared to afford,” said chief executive officer Geoff Russell.
HD VMD format is the third optical disc type to record high-definition movies. The technology is based on multi-layer DVD discs and red laser head. Each additional layer adds approximately up to 5 GB of memory over a standard DVD disc. VMD provides the ability to place up to 20 layers on a single disc with no quality loss in the content stored. This means capacity to record of 100 GB or more without major changes to DVD players, but the disc technology requires new manufacturing process and production lines. Currently the company can produce up to 30GB discs.

X-bit labs - New Medium Enterprises Hopes to Crash Blu-Ray Disc.

[Rickwell]

Well that figures.Here we go again for another 2 years of format wars.Wake me up when the storm is over.

[ScuzziOne]

They're a little late to the party...

[maraud]

You mean to tell me that they just sat quietly while the war was going on with the product ready to go and no one knew about it. Sounds like a product made of smoke and mirrors to me.

[k0NG0]

It's very much a real format. They initially said they were going to concentrate on markets such as India, which is a really clever thing to do. 1bn inhabitants, booming economy, and HD-VMD is cheaper than Blu-ray.

If they can get a couple of large Bollywood firms to commit to HD-VMD they can make some serious money and hurt the Blu-ray camp at the same time.

[maraud]

Originally Posted by k0NG0

It's very much a real format. They initially said they were going to concentrate on markets such as India, which is a really clever thing to do. 1bn inhabitants, booming economy, and HD-VMD is cheaper than Blu-ray.

If they can get a couple of large Bollywood firms to commit to HD-VMD they can make some serious money and hurt the Blu-ray camp at the same time.

I have seen a lot of if's not materialize in my lifetime so it is still a fairytale.

[XJ.]

Well, Bollywood may accept them, but Hollywood won't - been there, done that - they are done with the format war. Which boils down to HD-VMD having a snowball's chance in hell, since H-wood has probably 1Bn actual customers in a 6bn person market (most of which are not able to afford a TV, nevermind a DVD players)

[suchard]

Yes they're very late for the party and I've heard they are about to go to the wall as they have run out of money. Their reports show the CEO left recently. Looks like even he has no faith and you can't even see them on Amazon no more; they were widthdrawn. And even if you can get one there is no HD VMD titles available for sale. Who wants a player just for upscaling at $199 when you can get one to do the same for $49.

[Kedas]

They should know by now that it is not the price difference that makes the difference but who has the most support of the movie industry on their kind of media.
And a little bit cheaper discs don't mean cheaper for us but more profit for them.

I read that the biggest threat for blu-ray is the current DVD because the price difference is huge but not many have a big TV/projector to see much difference between an upscaled DVD and blu-ray disc.
Adding the fact that you can't make a cheap blu-ray backup....