…and I say "take on" loosely, although this is going to be interesting to watch.
A company called New Medium Enterprises (NME) has manufactured a "low-cost true high definition solution" that uses standard red lasers found in today’s CD and DVD players. The format is called "HD VMD" or High Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc.
According to NME’s website…
"HD VMD is a true HD format with 1920 x 1080i/p resolution, up to 40 Mbps bit rate playback, DVD up-scaling so users can watch their existing DVD collection and achieve premium picture quality through their HD TV monitors. The HD VMD player is suitable for playback on all HD-capable display devices and will support existing optical disc formats: CD, DVD (DVD 5 & DVD 9). HD VMD players also feature Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and all region codes for greater film viewing flexibility."
So, pros. We’ve got low-cost, region free, and backwards compatible. Cons? Ah, content. The Achilles heel of any new format. There’s a whole lotta nothing right now except for a few older movies like Pulp Fiction.
"Most of the other movies are either lesser-known independents, older films or Bollywood features from India. It’s doubtful that the company will be able to garner support from most major studios, given their already significant investments in the other HD formats," according to technabob.com.
Who knows? This might catch on in other countries and it might be able to develop a DivX-like following here. Only time will tell. Don’t think that HD DVD player prices won’t soon fall below $200 across the board, though. Blu-ray should eventually catch up as well.
hd vmd players hit stores for under $200 [technabob]
i dont think it will do anything considering the momentum blu ray and hd dvd got goin. if it came out like 2 years ago maybe but not now
too early to jump at conclusions, just wait and watch
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
oooh look ma, a clever play on words.
WONDERFUL! Just what the industry needs. Another confusing format to disuade consumers from buying into ANY HD format. The vast majority of HDTV owners out there haven’t purchased a true high def player because they want to see which format wins. Before this announcement, there was only a 50% chance of them being correct. Their chances just fell to 33%. I have no doubt that if this player gets any traction in the market, it will simply herald the end of ANY High Definition movie player from becoming the standard.
Lack-lustre or non-existant sales of the three HD format players in such a climate will tell the industry there is simply no market for what they are selling. I expect they’ll just scrap the whole idea and stick with SD DVD’s, where they know the sure money is.
Wait…
With a name like NME (enemy) is this just a joke? I see on closer inspection of the image that it shows covers of movies for it. Being, “Lord of the Rings”, “Lord of War”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Hostage”, and “Apocalypto”. Is the Lord of the Rings movie really available in High definition already, but we have to wait for it on HD DVD and Blu-Ray?
Are these big name studios really going to support this format? On the NME website they reference movies like “Bridge to Teribithia”. Are you telling me that Disney (Blu-Ray) is allowing their title to come out on this new rival format? but wont release it on HD DVD?
The website looks good, but I wonder if it is in fact real, or just something to stir up confusion in the market. Sounds like something a company called “Enemy” would do.
Smells very fishy to me.
Kayne… NME stands for New Medium Enterprises. Saying that this format will fail just because the company’s initials kind of sounds like “enemy” is just petty and moronic.
And I believe that Teribithia is confirmed. They already have one Disney movie available on HD VMD. It’s that crappy Valiant movie, but it’s Disney movie none the less. Perhaps Disney’s relationship with Blu-Ray is slipping? I honestly don’t know, surely one can hope.
NME has the rights to movies in other countries, thus they can release them there.
here we go again .in my mind i don’t think this wil be a big succes maybe i’m wrong but this is just a generic version of high def and how much storage can you put in there .it looks cool ain’t gonna lie but people allready have invested in blu-ray and hd-dvd .and the momentum blu-ray has now i don’t think nme or whatever it’s called has that
To all you people who claim that people have too much invested in either Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to even consider HD VMD….
Are you aware that BR HD-DVD have a COMBINED 4% market share? The fact of the matter is that virtually no one is buying high definition movies. The two formats have added to the confusion that the average consumer already had about all things HD. The HD VMD players retail roughly from $150 – $210. That’s about on par with a high end upconverting DVD player, which the VMD players do. On top of upconverting standard DVDs, it also plays it’s own format of HD movies. 1080p full high definition movies that retail for $18 USD.
With virtually no one buying either HD format because of expense, confusion and the big companies and studios almost alienating the consumer, this new format could come out of nowhere and really take off. As a consumer who doesn’t have the money to keep up with the insanely overprice Blu-Ray, I certainly hope so.