HD VMD
HD? high definition? Isn't there already a leading format, namely Blu-Ray?
Yes, that's right. However, in mid-2006, the British company NME (New Medium Enterprise), which was getting on in years, opened up Laser- Spice up technology for reading CDs.
Because NME relies on long-wave, red lasers and not how HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to blue, short-wave lasers.
But why? In the battle for market leadership in the high-definition world, both HD parties (HDDVD and Blu-Ray) hostile, which negatively impacts end users:
The two shortwave formats are incompatible (apart from a few manufacturers who have recently started producing combo devices). In addition, production with the red laser is cheaper, according to NME.
But what is the HD-VMD (HD Versatile Multilayer Disc) all about?
If you look at it roughly, there are no big differences to the previous HD formats. The HD-VMD also supports resolutions up to 1080/p etc.
The difference lies inside the disc. The HD-VMD stores its movie files on up to 20 different layers (layers), each of which Layer five gigabytes in size - later it should be up to 100 gigabytes of storage space with ten layers per disk side. At the IFA 2007, NME presented a disc with 15 or 20 gigabytes. In addition, HD-VMD also supports the video formats MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (DivX), H.264 and
VC-1. For the sound, the formats WMA and MP3 care for. HD-VMD owes the variety of formats to the decoder chips from many different manufacturers that NME works with. However, the variety can also lead to incompatibilities if a compression format is not supported. To prevent the creation of digital copies, HD-VMD relies on its own 128-bitBEA-encrypted, copy protection system with an additional HDCP-Copy protection in the digital edition.
The first player for this format is the "NME ML622S" developed by NME:
According to the manufacturer, the players are backwards compatible, ie the playback of CDs and DVDs is also possible with these players. The cost of such a device is between 160 and 220 euros (as of September 2007).
So far, this format is better known in Australia, Iceland, Poland, India and Scandinavia. In Germany it is expected to appear in 2008. It is questionable whether the even lower price of this format will pay off, because by 2008 there will certainly be a lot going on in terms of price for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and the "big ones", such as Sony and Toshiba, are so good at this format like not interested.
The idea in the making may not be bad, but one thing is for sure: consumers will find it increasingly difficult in the format confusion.