CBHD History: From 2005 Proposal to Market Collapse

Industrial background before the proposal

Throughout the standard-definition DVD era, mainland China produced roughly 30 percent of the world’s optical disc hardware. Domestic manufacturers remained bound by licensing fees from foreign patent pools including 3C, 6C and MPEG-LA. Contemporary figures for that royalty burden vary: about $22 per DVD player in one accounting, about €15 per unit in another, and a $21 per-player saving claimed by one CBHD maker. Those fees squeezed margins and sent large sums overseas.

As the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format war escalated, Chinese state institutes looked for an exit from royalty dependence. Earlier home-grown formats had already tried: EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) failed for lack of content-a lesson later reviewers said CBHD needed to learn.

2005: the actual origin

On 27 July 2005, OMNERC at Tsinghua University and the CETC 3rd Research Institute jointly submitted a technical proposal to the DVD Forum’s WG-11 working group for a Chinese HD DVD standard. Chinese industry reporting gives this date explicitly. The work therefore began while HD DVD was still an active international format-not after Toshiba abandoned it.

Over roughly three years (2005-2008) researchers modified the Toshiba-derived architecture in three principal areas: 8-12 ETM modulation was replaced with 4-6 FSM; HD DVD’s navigation system was simplified and reworked; and AVS entered as Chinese audio/video technology. The stated purpose of the modulation change was to increase Chinese-owned intellectual property in the physical format. The claim that “CBHD is just HD DVD with a different codec” is therefore wrong: changes reached the physical channel-coding layer. That fact later shapes firmware and drive-compatibility debates.

Dr. Hisashi Yamada and the DVD Forum

Dr. Hisashi Yamada, former Chief Technology Fellow at Toshiba’s Digital Media Network division and often called the “father of DVD,” worked with OMNERC engineers to transfer HD DVD physical-layer specifications to China. In February 2007 the DVD Forum board/steering meeting approved the text of the Chinese HD DVD physical-format specification; application-format work and prototypes then moved mainly to China. On 15 November 2007, the Forum’s 40th Steering Committee approved the “HD DVD China” logo and the DVD Forum-OMNERC agreement, and set up a License Enforcement Committee for the China HD DVD format. In February 2008 the Forum granted OMNERC the right to edit HD DVD specifications independently (English Wikipedia footnotes disagree whether that was the 41st or 42nd meeting; February 2008 is the date given).

Standards relationship is not compatibility. Early reports described CH-DVD as an HD DVD derivative that might be handled through firmware. By the final commercial specification, channel coding, navigation, codecs and content protection had all diverged.

From CH-DVD to CBHD

The original name was CH-DVD (China High Definition DVD). On 7 September 2007 OMNERC announced CH-DVD and founded the China High Definition DVD Industry Association (CHDA), aiming to ship players in 2008. An early prototype demonstration in 2007 used modified 0.6 mm HD DVD substrates. Commercial branding later became China Blue High-Definition (CBHD). Publications sometimes kept saying CH-DVD after the rename. One lineage covers the sequence:

1. Chinese HD DVD proposal (2005)
2. CH-DVD (2007)
3. CBHD (late 2008 / 2009)

Renaming is dated to late 2008 together with integration of indigenous AVS, DRA and DKAA standards.

After Toshiba exited HD DVD

Toshiba ended HD DVD on 19 February 2008. Foreign analysts treated the physical architecture as dead. Instead CHDA, backed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), repurposed it: Western codecs, audio standards and DRM were stripped or subordinated in favour of state-owned intellectual property, and the technology was redirected to the domestic market. Factories could reuse DVD mastering and replication infrastructure, cutting capital spend and avoiding Blu-ray Disc Association licensing fees.

Through 2008, Tongfang, Shinco and TCL showed prototypes (March 2008). Launch dates of August, September, October and December 2008 all slipped. Shinco built 2,000 CBHD-9100 units before Chinese New Year 2009. Shanghai United Optical Disc (UOD) opened the first CBHD production line in July 2008. DFC Intelligence reported expected royalties around $8 per CBHD player on 28 July 2008. Patent CN101556807B (CBHD blue-laser optical pickup) carries a 7 April 2008 priority date.

Master timeline (selected)

Organisations and people

OMNERC deputy director Prof. Lu Da (陆达) led the project. CETC senior engineer Tian Yujing (田玉静) appears in industrialisation interviews; Gemini attributes the domestic navigation stack to CETC. MIIT supervised the effort. CHDA (later Chinese name 中国高清光盘产业推进联盟 / CHDIA) had nearly 20 founding members per Digitimes. Secretary-general Zhang Weimin (张伟民); Shinco chaired the alliance (spokesman Chen Changfeng 陈长峰; general manager Qin Zhishang 秦志尚). Other members included TCL (senior VP Shi Wanwen 史万文), Tsinghua Tongfang, Haier and BBK (步步高). CHDA copied DVD Forum committee structure. Toshiba held licensing because it owned underlying IP.

Content and replication: CAV Warner (managing director Tony Vaughan / 方东林); China Record Corporation / 中唱 and 中唱胜利影音 (GM Yan Hua 阎华); China Film Audio-Visual Press; Hongyi (January 2010 production batch); announced supporters with little visible output including Universal, National Geographic, Paramount, Celestial Pictures, BBC/Discovery. Memory-Tech developed the complete CBHD production process. UOD (Memory-Tech + China Record Shanghai) was, in April 2009, the only Chinese company with technology and equipment to press CBHD. CBC (CRC/BMB Audio Visual) handled editing, encoding and authoring. Retail channels: GOME, Suning, Dazhong; online Joyo-Amazon, Dangdang, Taobao. No GB or SJ national/industry standard number for CBHD itself was found in the research passes.

Launch performance and the 3:1 myth

Players sold in April 2009 at about ¥2,000 (~$293), roughly 40% below Blu-ray. Warner launch discs were ¥50-70 versus mainland Blu-ray at ¥150-200. Disc prices later fell to about ¥25-30, and as low as ¥28 online by 2010. In July-August 2009 TV Tokyo reported from one GOME store in Shanghai a sales split of 60% DVD / 30% CBHD / 10% Blu-ray. That single-store figure became the often-repeated claim that CBHD was outselling Blu-ray 3:1. It is not national market share. 北京商报 (12 Aug 2009) repeated the 30/10/60 claim as a promoter-sourced figure that later conflicted with CMM retail data.

ITmedia’s October 2009 field report found many ordinary DVD players, one Sony Blu-ray player and only one CBHD machine-a Shinco CBHD-9100-on display at Suning. Titles were available through Amazon China and Taobao, but many shops still relied on pirated content. Diamond Online’s China-based writer said he had never seen a physical store selling CBHD software, only online shops. CHDA-sourced figures put Shinco under 11,000 players a month from mid-2009 to mid-2010 (one pass summarises “on the order of 11,000” in late 2009). A January 2010 Guangzhou report estimated about 50,000 CBHD players sold in China. In April 2010 Suning Shanghai was selling 100+ Shinco units a month and giving 10 free discs with each player.

Decline

TCL left around late 2009. By July 2010 Tencent found only Shinco CBHD players in Beijing’s GOME, Suning and Dazhong, and only one 3D title. CMM analyst 杨瑞兵 (pjtime, 16 June 2011) said CBHD’s retail share fell sharply from Q2 2010 and that blue-laser players as a whole were only 4.2% of 2010 disc-player unit sales. December 2011 Sina coverage of Shinco’s decline said its blue-disc investment “met a cold market” as PCs spread. A 2013 ASCII retrospective treated the format as effectively gone. The Museum of Obsolete Media dates CBHD approximately 2009 to the early 2010s.

Documented causes: thin catalogue (about 100 titles by mid-2010 against 1,000 promised; China Record lacked an AVS encoder in April 2009); narrow hardware (only Shinco and TCL shipped; Tongfang held back; Panasonic, Sony, Samsung and LG refused and concentrated on Blu-ray); BD-9 piracy (dual-layer DVD-9 carrying re-compressed 1080p H.264 for Blu-ray players at ¥15-20); PC/file-based HD then streaming (iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video rising 2010-2012); and Blu-ray’s global win, pushed in China by China Hualu and Sony.

Legacy

CBHD failed as a physical format, but AVS re-engineered as AVS2/AVS3 and DRA audio were mandated across China’s terrestrial HD, 4K Ultra-HD and 8K state broadcasting. Surviving fragments-standards pieces, patents, player specs, authoring-company records, verifier software, discs, firmware and collector hardware-are enough for a serious reconstruction attempt. The corrected historical sequence is a formal programme from 2005, deep engineering changes (ETM→FSM, Advanced Content→CETC, foreign codecs→AVS/DRA), continuation after HD DVD’s collapse, a Memory-Tech/CBC/UOD production ecosystem, launch on 22 April 2009, a documented overseas retail attempt, a catalogue exceeding 100 titles by industry claims, falling prices, then failure to build the installed base needed to survive.

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:

• Amazon.de
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com
• Amazon.ca