HD VMD battles Blu-ray with lower price

BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- HD VMD, a new system that is incompatible with Blu-ray, for versatile multilayer disc has emerged, media reported Monday.

New Medium Enterprises, the London company behind HD VMD, said its system's quality is equal to Blu-ray's but it costs less.

While Blu-ray players typically cost more than 300 U.S. dollars, an HD VMD unit is priced at 199 dollars, said the company.

New Medium believed that it could 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 while the Blu-ray and HD DVD machines use a more-expensive blue laser system.

However, New Medium denied its ambition to take place Blu-ray.

"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."

Sales through Amazon are scheduled to begin in five weeks, the company said.

New Medium would take Michael Jay Solomon, one of Hollywood's best-known film distributors, as its secret weapon.

Solomon, a former president of Warner Brothers International Television, has been named chairman of the company.

Solomon said his long tenure in the industry would help him succeed in licensing movies for HD VMD.

"It's a combination of my good experiences and continual relationships," Solomon said in a telephone interview from Shanghai, where he was visiting with company engineers.

Australia, China, India, Central Europe, Russia and Scandinavia would be major markets, said Solomon.

(Agencies)

BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- HD DVD may disapear from our lives while Toshiba Corp is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp, media reported Monday.

The move will likely put an end to a battle that has gone on for several years between consortiums led by Toshiba and Sony vying to set the standard for the next-generation DVD and compatible video equipment.