CBHD Community Sources: Forums, Press and Reviews

Why forums and trade press matter more than product pages

Manufacturer support sites for 2009 CBHD players are mostly dead. The densest surviving primary material sits in 2009-2011 forum threads and Chinese/Japanese trade press. AVSForum pages returned HTTP 402 when fetched directly in one research pass, so details below combine search snippets with cited URLs that still resolve when logged-in browsers or archives cooperate.

Forum threads

Thread	Date	Unique content
AVSForum – Chinese CBHD player master thread (with pics)	2009-2010	TCL service-manual block diagram and chip IDs; A30/A35 comparison; import experience; Taobao disc prices; CHDA Guangzhou plans; Joyo-Amazon/Dangdang; GOME/Suning deals
AVSForum – China CBHD Player User Reports	~May 2009	THBD-1008 unboxing; Toshiba-like menu; three launch models with photos (THBD-1008, Shinco CBHD-9000, THTF CBHD-0002); bundle list
AVSForum – China turns HDDVD into CBHD	2008	Early marketing; firmware debate; Richard Paul’s physical-incapability view
AVSForum – China officially released CBHD players	22 Apr 2009	Translation of Sina Tech launch article
LDDb – CBHD: The forgotten Blu-Ray competitor	–	Owner experience with Shinco HD-3700U, quirks, directory behaviour
LDDb – second CBHD thread	–	Sampler bundles, sourcing, trading
What Hi-Fi – Can I play Chinese CBHD in HD DVD player	16 Oct 2009	Confirms incompatibility
DVD Talk – Will China’s HD DVD format work in domestic players	2008	Compatibility debate
Reddit r/HDDVD – HD DVD Emulator Firmware	–	HD DVD firmware context (not CBHD dumps)

Key URLs (avsforum.com threads 1150473, 1149496, 1059383, 1141114; forum.lddb.com topics 10789 and 11813; forums.whathifi.com thread 35580; forum.dvdtalk.com thread 525341).

Reviews and Chinese trade press

PConline Shinco CBHD-9100 review, 5 Jul 2009 – five pages, 54 photos, spec table (Sina mirror 4 Jul 2009).
电脑报 2009 No. 30 – hands-on; USB 1080p and subtitles; ¥2,999 (sciencenet repost).
itavcn CBHD-9100 spec page, May 2009.
ZOL THBD-1008 menu/interface reviews, Jun 2009; CBHD-9100 price page ¥2,580.
Sina Tech TCL CBHD test (1 Jun 2009); industrialisation piece naming three format changes and FSM “to add Chinese patents” (3 Apr 2009).
Yesky CBHD-3800 parameters, ¥2,980.
pjtime buyer’s guide, CBHD-9100 review, THBD-1008 coverage, market comparisons, Dec 2009 price cuts, Jan 2010 CBHD vs BD, 2 Jul 2010 3D launch, 16 Jun 2011 CMM data (4.2% blue-laser share).
av269 15 Jan 2010 – 150 vs 1,800 titles; 50,000 players; regional prices.
Tencent Tech 5 Jul 2010 – one 3D title; ~100 titles; TCL exit.
cnBeta Warner support (Mar 2009); ~80 CAV Warner titles and ¥28 discs (2010).
eetrend Apr 2010 – Suning sales; National Geographic set.
big-bit / fx361 / CCCME / Chinatimes – Warner plans, 30/10/60 sales claim, 中录 exclusivity note, 3D push, launch plans.
Sina News Dec 2011 – Shinco blue-disc investment “met a cold market.”

International press and blogs

Nikkei xTECH (4 Aug 2009) – price economics (¥55 vs ¥175 BD vs ¥60 pirated BD).
Diamond Online – retail observation (writer never saw physical CBHD software shops).
ITmedia field report (Oct 2009) – Suning visit; Slumdog Millionaire as CBHD-only vs HD DVD.
ASCII retrospective (2013) – format gone; author estimated ~25 dedicated titles across EVD/CBHD experiments.
New Atlas, CDRInfo (launch, AACS, CHDA structure, HD DVD China logo), Gizmodo (modulation comment), Tom’s Hardware, Sound & Vision, The Guardian (31 Jul 2008), What Hi-Fi (CBHD-3D/HiFi), DFC Intelligence (28 Jul 2008, ~$8 royalty), See You Next Wednesday (28 May 2009 hack hopes), diit.cz (European import), dvd-and-beyond (Warner/CAV Warner).
Gigazine (27 Oct 2009) – TCL internals as Toshiba HD DVD hardware.

Video

YouTube clip titled along the lines of “After many years, finally CBHD Chinese Blue High …” (video id VzRO4VhM1Bw) is cited in secondary research. Bilibili searches for CBHD teardowns in one pass returned only an unrelated Shinco VCD changer video.

Manufacturer and alliance URLs to archive-hunt

shinco.com historical news_id pages 312, 361, 367 (Warner support, Universal support, product launch) – paste into Wayback.
chdia.org.cn (e.g. /dongtai002.html) – alliance site, likely offline.
tcl.com 2009-2010 product captures; current manual downloaders unlikely to list THBD-1008.
Memory-Tech 20090323 and 20090430 CBHD announcements.
AACS Spec CBHD Prerecorded 0.90 (7 Oct 2008) PDF cited by ja.wikipedia.

Not yet searched or found empty

Baidu Tieba (CBHD吧, 蓝光吧, 新科吧), Chiphell, hifidiy, 影音极客, hifi.com.cn, AV前线, Zhihu, Douban groups, Doom9, videohelp, Myce/CDFreaks, AV Watch, Phile-web, Reddit beyond r/HDDVD, Youku, Xigua, Douyin and Weibo remain lightly touched or empty in the passes. Empty search results are not proof of absence-especially on Tieba and Douban.

For reconstruction work, prioritise: AVSForum master thread page 5 (TCL 维修手册 excerpts), LDDb HD-3700U owner posts, PConline/ZOL photo reviews, Memory-Tech press releases, and Wayback walks of shinco.com/chdia.org.cn. Those sources carry chip IDs, bundle lists, menu trees and pricing that product databases dropped years ago.

How to work the archive without the live web

Start with PConline’s five-page CBHD-9100 review and ZOL’s THBD-1008 hands-on pieces for UI photography and measured behaviour. Add pjtime’s 2009-2011 market series for price cuts, 3D launch notes and the June 2011 CMM statistic that blue-laser players were only 4.2 percent of 2010 disc-player unit sales. Tencent’s 5 July 2010 article pins TCL’s exit, the ~100-title plateau and the single 3D title. av269’s 15 January 2010 Guangzhou comparison supplies the 150-versus-1,800 title claim and the ~50,000 player estimate.

Japanese and English field reporting fills gaps Chinese marketing omitted: ITmedia’s Suning visit, Nikkei xTECH price economics, Diamond Online’s observation that software was online-only for one writer, Gigazine on TCL’s Toshiba internals, ASCII’s 2013 retrospective, and diit.cz on European arrival. CDRInfo’s cluster on CHDA structure, the HD DVD China logo and AACS mentions remains useful for standards chronology.

Forum triage order

AVSForum master thread-especially page 5 service-manual excerpts.
AVSForum User Reports-unboxing, CBHD-9000/CBHD-0002 photos, bundles.
LDDb CBHD threads-HD-3700U quirks and trading.
What Hi-Fi and DVD Talk-compatibility negatives.
2008 “China turns HDDVD into CBHD” thread-firmware debate context.

Manufacturer URLs to feed into Wayback include shinco.com news_id 312, 361 and 367, chdia.org.cn dynamic pages, Memory-Tech’s March/April 2009 announcements, and the AACS CBHD Pre-recorded 0.90 PDF cited by Japanese Wikipedia. Empty results on Tieba, Chiphell, Doom9 and Bilibili teardowns are unfinished searches, not closed cases. Budget time for logged-in AVSForum browsing because anonymous fetches returned HTTP 402 in one research pass.

Additional press anchors worth downloading before links rot further: cnBeta Warner-support and industrialisation interviews with Tian Yujing; big-bit pieces on Warner’s 100-title plan and the August 2009 sales-lead claim; Chinatimes launch planning; Sina’s December 2011 Shinco “cold market” post-mortem; What Hi-Fi’s CBHD-3D/HiFi coverage; DFC Intelligence’s 28 July 2008 royalty note; See You Next Wednesday’s May 2009 hack-hope blog; New Atlas and Tom’s Hardware launch notices. Each supplies a dated claim you can cross-check against CMM and Tencent later data.

Video remains thin: one YouTube clip is cited; Bilibili teardown searches misfired on unrelated Shinco VCD changers. Offering rewards in preservation Discord/QQ groups for phone video of menu trees and disc loads may outperform web search. When AVSForum returns payment walls, use search-engine caches and the Wayback Machine on thread URLs ending in page-4 and page-5.

pjtime’s Shinco brand news index still lists the 3 March 2010 CBHD-3800/HD-2100 article; av-china.com and Headphone Club covered HiFi/3D launch events in July and September 2010; CCCME summarised the 3D patent-pool working group. Launch reporting from a&s, Hualu and hxzg.net on 22 April 2009 still anchors the commercial start date. Cross-linking those URLs in a private archive before they disappear is itself preservation work. When citing forums, capture page numbers because AVSForum rewrites paths between forum and threads forms.

Building a personal source packet

Download and hash PConline’s CBHD-9100 review pages, ZOL’s THBD-1008 articles, the Sina Tech 3 April 2009 industrialisation piece on FSM patents, Memory-Tech’s two 2009 PDFs or HTML announcements, DFC Intelligence’s royalty note, and Tencent’s July 2010 market post-mortem. Store AVSForum thread IDs 1150473, 1149496, 1059383 and 1141114 with page snapshots. Keep LDDb topic 10789 and 11813. Add the AACS CBHD Pre-recorded 0.90 filename to the packet even if the PDF must be retrieved later from AACS LA or archives. That packet lets future researchers work offline when forums paywall or domains expire.

Pair each downloaded article with its access date and final URL redirect. Link rot is already visible across pjtime, big-bit and older Sina mobile mirrors.

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: