CBHD Disc Catalogue: Titles, Bundles and Prices
How large was the catalogue?
No complete catalogue, ISRC list or 版号 list was found. Contemporary claims mix plans, production counts and cumulative totals and should not be treated as a verified catalogue. Selected claims:
| Date | Claim | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2009 | Warner plans 100 titles in 2009 | CAV Warner MD 方东林 / big-bit |
| Mar 2009 | CBC: 5 Chinese titles done, 20+ in production | Memory-Tech |
| Apr 2009 | 25 titles ordered from Warner China and CRC | Memory-Tech |
| Aug 2009 | Warner + China Record to release 200 within the year | 北京商报 |
| 21 Dec 2009 | 100 titles reached | ja.wikipedia |
| Jan 2010 | 150 CBHD vs 1,800 BD titles; ~50,000 players sold | av269 Guangzhou |
| Jan 2010 | Hongyi: 10 in run, 35 in production, 120 planned for 2010 | Press |
| 2010 | CAV Warner ~80 released, 200+ planned | cnBeta |
| Mid-2010 | ~100 titles; one 3D title | Tencent |
Assessment: 100+ titles is plausible and contemporaneously claimed; 1,000 released titles is not established; “only a few hundred titles ever existed” is also not established. Build the catalogue title by title. By mid-2009 only Warner’s library and Chinese titles were officially available; other majors had not yet committed catalogues.
Confirmed and reported titles
Record each disc as commercial standalone, bundle-only, demonstration or promotional. Technical profiles such as “1080p AVS, DRA 5.1” appear in one secondary pass and are not verified by MediaInfo across the set; early 2009 discs likely used VC-1/AVC.
- CAV Warner launch / retail: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone; Chamber of Secrets; further Potter entries advertised through Half-Blood Prince; Blood Diamond (血钻); The Golden Compass; Speed Racer; The Aviator (飞行者); Poseidon (海神号); The Polar Express (极地特快); The Invasion (致命入侵); Batman Begins; Superman Returns; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; The Ant Bully; Scooby-Doo (sampler).
- Bundle / multi-channel evidence: The Island (逃出克隆岛); The Warlords (投名状); Flood (水啸雾都).
- Taobao / street mentions: Transporter 3; Lord of War (under $5).
- Notable non-HD-DVD title: Slumdog Millionaire (ITmedia, Oct 2009)-example of a CBHD title never released on HD DVD.
- Chinese specials: Song Zuying Jasmine (茉莉花) concert; Monkey King sample; 60th National Day military parade; National Geographic 5-disc set (eetrend, Apr 2010); one unnamed CBHD-3D title (Tencent, Jul 2010); Guangzhou Asian Games ceremonies planned in 3D; China Record music documentaries as CBHD-HiFi collector editions (24-bit/192 kHz LPCM).
CBHD was not simply a reissue service for dead HD DVD titles. No pass identified specific HD DVD-only reissues beyond Warner catalogue titles that had also existed on HD DVD.
Player bundles
Sampler bundles were non-standardised by batch, factory and model-5-disc or 10-disc sets in keep cases or paper/multi-disc sleeves.
| Bundle | Size | Known contents |
|---|---|---|
| Shinco CBHD-9100 launch | 15 (not sold separately) | The Warlords, The Island, Flood + 12 others |
| TCL THBD-1008 China | 15 | Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Poseidon, Polar Express, The Invasion + 10 Chinese |
| TCL THBD-1008 UK (GBAX) | 14 | Aviator, Blood Diamond, Invasion, Island, Flood, Poseidon + 8 Chinese |
| Shinco 9100 import Oct 2009 | 25 | Includes The Island |
| ja.wikipedia note | 16 | – |
| Suning Shanghai Apr 2010 | 10 | – |
| Factory sampler sets | 5 or 10 | Harry Potter 1-2, Polar Express, Ant Bully, Scooby-Doo among reported |
Disc prices
- Launch: ¥50-70 ($7.25-$10.15).
- Nikkei xTECH (4 Aug 2009): ¥55 CBHD vs ¥175 Blu-ray vs ¥60 pirated BD.
- Later: ¥25-30; ¥28 online by 2010; ¥28-55 in Guangzhou, Jan 2010.
- Taobao: Transporter 3 and Lord of War under $5.
Studios and publishers
Documented supporters: Warner Bros. (CAV Warner), Universal, National Geographic, Paramount, Celestial Pictures, BBC/Discovery, China Record Corporation, China Film Audio-Visual Press, Hongyi and other domestic studios. Universal and National Geographic announced support at the September 2009 Guangzhou conference. Eetrend (April 2010) lists Warner, Universal, Paramount, Fox and National Geographic content. Support announcements do not equal verified release catalogues-separate the two in any database. November 2009 reporting claimed every CBHD disc so far was issued by 中录.
Building the catalogue responsibly means photographing keep-cases, recording 版号 when printed, noting bundle vs retail SKUs, and refusing to inflate totals from alliance “1,000 titles in 2010” targets that never materialised.
How to build the database without inventing titles
Every catalogue row should carry evidence tags: launch announcement, retail keep-case photograph, bundle-only, sampler sleeve, Taobao listing screenshot, or press mention only. Warner’s March 2009 announcement named Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, Speed Racer and Blood Diamond among launch titles at ¥50-70. Bundle photography and AVSForum unboxings extend the list with The Aviator, Poseidon, The Polar Express, The Invasion, The Island, Flood and The Warlords. Taobao-era mentions add Transporter 3 and Lord of War at under five dollars. ITmedia’s October 2009 field report uses Slumdog Millionaire as an example of a CBHD title that never appeared on HD DVD-proof the format was not solely a dump of dead Western HD DVD SKUs.
Technical columns for “1080p AVS, DRA 5.1, dual-layer 30 GB” appear in one secondary pass for several Warner keep-cases and should be marked unverified until MediaInfo or bitstream logs exist. Claude pass 1 notes early 2009 discs likely used VC-1 or AVC because AVS encoders were missing at China Record. Sampler packs may mix single-layer 15 GB children’s titles (The Ant Bully, Scooby-Doo in Gemini’s notes) with dual-layer features.
Publishers versus announcements
CAV Warner and 中录 dominate verified early output; fx361 claimed in November 2009 that every CBHD disc so far was issued by 中录. Universal, National Geographic, Paramount, Celestial Pictures and BBC/Discovery announced support around the September 2009 Guangzhou conference, yet substantial released catalogues for those brands are not established. Hongyi announced ten titles in a production run, thirty-five in production and 120 planned for 2010-plans, not a finished filmography. China Film Audio-Visual Press and China Record music documentaries (including CBHD-HiFi editions) belong in separate product-type fields from feature films.
Bundle heterogeneity matters for collectors: Shinco launch 15-disc packs, UK GBAX 14-disc THBD-1008 packs, October 2009 25-disc import packs, Suning 10-disc promotions and factory 5/10-disc samplers are different SKUs. Price history from ¥50-70 to ¥28 online and street undercutting by BD-9 piracy frames why catalogue growth stalled even when alliance slides still promised 1,000 titles.
National Geographic’s five-disc set (eetrend, April 2010), Song Zuying’s Jasmine concert, the Monkey King sample, the 60th National Day military parade disc and the unnamed CBHD-3D title show that non-theatrical product types matter. CBHD-HiFi music documentaries from China Record using 24-bit/192 kHz LPCM belong in an audio-product table, not mixed blindly with feature SKUs. Planned Guangzhou Asian Games 3D ceremonies may never have shipped; keep them in a “planned” status field.
Cumulative claims to reject as verified totals: 1,000 titles released in 2010; “only a few hundred ever existed” as a hard ceiling; Warner’s 100-title plan as proof of 100 finished SKUs. Accept as working estimates: about 100 titles by late 2009/mid-2010; about 150 in one January 2010 Guangzhou report; CAV Warner near 80 released with more planned per cnBeta. Build upward from photographed and cited titles instead of downward from alliance slides.
Potter entries through Half-Blood Prince appear as advertised rather than equally well evidenced; catalogue rows should distinguish launch announcement, advertised, and bundle photographed. Batman Begins, Superman Returns and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sit in Chinese distribution reports for 2009. Eight or ten unnamed Chinese titles in TCL bundles remain anonymous until spines are photographed. Twelve unnamed titles in the Shinco fifteen-disc launch pack similarly await identification. Anonymous bundle slots are catalogue debt, not proof those slots were blank.
Evidence discipline for collectors
Photograph both keep-case spines and disc labels; Chinese 版号 strings often appear only on packaging. Note whether a disc came from a player carton or a retail shelf. Record layer count if printed. Separate demonstration and promotional discs from commercial features. When Gemini lists AVS and DRA 5.1 for a title, copy that claim into a “reported profile” field rather than a “verified bitstream” field. When Claude notes early VC-1/AVC likelihood, keep a “codec uncertainty” flag on all pre-September 2009 release dates. Catalogue work is cumulative: each photographed spine reduces reliance on alliance press maths.
Further reading on historic video formats
If you want to learn more about historic video formats, get The History of Physical Video Formats from the Frontier by Stephen Driver on Amazon: