Following requests by China's government-sponsored Optical Memory National Engineering Research Centre (OMNERC) and the state-run China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), China will get a HD DVD-ROM format designed specifically to be incompatible with the global HD DVD standard. The DVD Forum announced at a Japanese conference in that it is now planning to work on this blue laser HD DVD variant for the Chinese market.
The purpose of this format is to fight the huge on-going piracy of optical discs as well as produce a less expensive version of the HD DVD format that will not result in its cheaper players and discs being marketed outside of China. To make the Chinese HD DVD disc incompatible with the global standard, only the modulation scheme will be changed, where the Chinese version will use FSM (Four to Six Modulation), unlike the global HD DVD standard that uses ETM (Eight to Twelve modulation). This Chinese version is expected to be finished in December.
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News source: CDFreaks.com
News source: DigiTimes Systems