New Medium Enterprises, Inc. has released yet another potential competitor to the High Definition player market with the announcement of its HD VMD based players, PC based burners and authoring & playback software. HD VMD media is red-laser based with capacities of 9GB and 20GB for 2-layer and 4-layer discs respectively. The players come in a choice of a Duo and Quattro version, which plays up to 2 and 4 layer HD VMD discs respectively and are targeted at consumers with a cost expected to be comparable to current consumer DVD players.
The main advantage of HD VMD over DVD is true high definition (1080i/p), up to a 40Mbps transfer rate, upscaling capability for DVDs on its players and AES encryption for copy protection. Like Blu-ray and HD DVD, HD VMD video supports MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264 as well as Dolby Digital, DTS and PCM sound tracks. The format will take on open source video codecs in the future.
NME expects to make the products available worldwide including the US in the near future.
Unfortunately from what I can see, it is likely too late for the company to try competing against HD DVD and Blu-ray as a HD movie player, however they may have better success with consumers just wanting a low cost HD player and PC writer to record, transfer or backup their own HD content on disc and watch on a HDTV set. For example, if they offer a set-top recorder, this would be ideal for those interested in purchasing a low cost optical disc player capable of recording HD broadcasts and have no intention of ever buying or renting movies on HD DVD or Blu-ray discs.
The press release can be read on the NME website.
