Another HD disc format: HD Versatile Multilayer Disc Posted by XanTium | June 23 00:31 EST | News Category: OffTopic

From variety.com: [QUOTE] As if high-def DVDs weren't already a consfusing enough sell to consumers. Starting in September, home media buffs in the U.S. and Europe -- Denmark, Finland, France, Poland and Sweden, specifically -- will have a third HD disc format to choose from, the HD Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD). Debuting a full year and a half behind HD DVD, the fledgling HD VMD -- being championed by U.K. technology company New Medium Enterprises -- is starting almost from scratch in the U.S. in terms of both distribution and content. No major U.S. studio has aligned itself with HD VMD yet (although one indie has). And so far, just one U.S. retailer, Web site PCrush.com, has formally agreed to sell the HD VMD player. Overall, NME has partnered with international distributors for about 5,000 slated HD VMD releases, including Bac Films (titles include "Pulp Fiction") in France, Scanbox ("Saw II") in Scandinavia and Germany's VCL Communications ("Hostage"). Based on "red-laser" technology, HD VMD utilizes conventional DVD manufacturing and authoring processes, so production costs are lower than those of HD DVD and Blu-ray. "In the first six months we are giving free authoring tools to studio partners to make our content popular in the format," he says. "Many production houses can't make the investment with (Blu-ray or HD DVD). We want to make the industry feel comfortable with high-def." Of course, consumers have to feel comfortable, too -- New Medium plans to debut its HD VMD players at under $200, with European retailers, including Tesco in Poland and Boulanger in France, selling the device from $150 to $199. [/QUOTE] Full Story: variety.com

It'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere....

well thats something worth looking into.

Maybe I can't read, but did the article mention how many gigabytes a disc can hold?

20-40GB Storage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_VMD

This is basically worthless in the US. HD VMD has about as much chance at winning the format war as a kid with down syndrome winning a marathon after starting a day late. No major studio support, late out of the gate, use of a dated technology.

It is about as versatile as the UMD is universal.

Another hd disc format... This is getting ridiculous. I'm sure it wont be compatible with any of the hd/bd players out now so then they will come out with their own player. Retarded. This whole battle of the disc's is starting to agitate me now.. You gotta have "this" to for "this" to work, but if you dont have "that", "this" wont work. MEH!! I say make one frickin disc be it blueray or hd, release all movies on the chosen and be done with it already.

microsoft is could really take advantage of this. there arelot of confused consumers and they have a simple way of getting HD movies into their home with out the puchase of an aditional (and possbly worthless) HD/BRD player. its called the marketplace!! let us use our own storage and ill have no problem paying for your movies msft. but dont make me buy your bigger drive =(

the winner of this whole mess are regular dvd's people keep buying them cuz they wont buy anything else until a winner is decided

It uses 'red-laser' but not compatible with current DVD drives, let them shove the VMDs and its players up their arse.

I dont think that we're gona see a clear winner any time soon is very frustrating.

I'm sick of hearing about the 'format war' to be honest, its just plain boring now. Has the 360 scene hit a brick wall or is it me? XanTium has been scraping the barrel for quite a while now...

Oh no! Please not another HD format

I'm waiting for FVD to hit the stores.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_Versatile_Disc

Ash

This was a little late to the market. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have already done it big, with movie studios and companies backing them and with plenty of players already sold. Not to mention they were developed by "big brand names" like Toshiba and Sony. Anything else doesn't have a chance in my opinion.

Pah, get with the times people!

Bring on PCD!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-coated_disc

But PH-DVDs will most likely win the war for home use!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH-DVD

They have been trying to push this disk and technology for years now. Its not something new. Does anybody not remember all the big Constellation 3D hubbub and consequent scandal a few years back? Its still the same people (namely Eugene Levich) under a different name. For those that want a little background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_3D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_Multilayer_Disc

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/11/40053

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,100...,2083842,00.htm


You can find lots more articles if you google Constellation 3D and/or Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD)

When I saw this I was like "oh no"... but the price IS right. And it IS HD. If the studios jump on board... why not?

mempile FTW.

Already achieved 0.5 TB. Technology promises one tetrabyte per disc.

The technology is based on multi layer discs (200 layers±)

competition is always good for the consumer

Especially when the new competition is 1/5th the price of the competition. If they can make this DVD compatible, I could easily see it taking over. Advertising and price alone would make most households choose it over HD DVD and Bluray. Remember, it wasn't until DVD player dropped under the $100 mark that most people went out and bought them.

it's like svcd to dvd. svcd is popular in china no royalties. i never seen a legit svcd in the US i bet we well never see this in the US.

I was actually about to make that same exact analogy. I was quickly reading over post and you beat me to it. This probably will do well overseas but won't mean much here Stateside. Great minds think alike mofo.

The HD war is far from over anything could happen.

How many players BD and HD-DVD combined have been sold?

4-5 million world wide. Thats nothing, considering 80% of those are PS3s.

The price is great! If they got some big names on I bet it would do well. If it could play DVDs too and stick at the ame price (Or lower) it would sell here in the UK.

And if the players sell then more big names would jump in.

Fingers crossed.

them links someone posted are interesting... Maybe it would blow all these names out the water.

VMD: AKA 5 Layered DVD.

we needed another hd format like we nedded the first 2 lol we didnt. why bring a 3rd one in when the first 2 are both at war with one another and not doing so well. 90% of the people are sticking to the orignal dvd format and probly will for years to come. as i said many times befor the leap from vhs to dvd was a big one and was so rather quickly simply couse it was a step forward. the leap from orignal dvd to hd whatever comes out next is not only barly any diffrent yes i have seen standerds vs hd many time and the diffrence is so small its pretty sad. not to metion confusing to the avg persion couse of the now 3 way format war. this was not the case with dvds. the hd formats killed themselfs befor they even got on the market couse they couldent agree on 1 format.

the only reasion blueray is ahed is couse of the ps3 and thats the only reasion and well the ps3 isnt relly doing that hot eyther.

^ there are many many more formats in this war than you realize. There was last gen as well. DVD, LD, (S)VCD, CVD, etc.

You should read up on DVHS, that will really upset you.

it goes back all the way since any kind of storage media was introduced.

VHS Vs Beta Max. vhs won cos sony picked up on it and everyone thought "o there using it it must be good". but the thing about that was beta was a much clearer picture and had much better sound.ah well win some loose some.

theres masses of them that got taken out because a big company picked up on one but not the other.
i can see the sony/microsoft debacle going on for ages as neither one will admit defeat. clash of the titans really. although i bet blu ray will win. higher capacity will entice more companies to think oh wow more storage space we can slap more content in.it may not be good but who gives.

^ Sony/Microsoft debacle???

You are confused as well. Sony helped with both formats, but now backs bluray. Microsoft backs downloaded media. But they also don't want to back Sun Microsystems which backs Bluray. The only reason they have an HD-DVD add-on is to make its customers happy. Microsoft doesn't include a Bluray add-on cause Bluray supports Sun Java.

You can use Bluray or HDDVD in Microsoft's OSes.

So many strange formats! Still BETAmax for my taping of my missed shows!

How could VMD and others win when all the big names are already using HDDVD or BluRay?