CBHD Player Hardware: Shinco and TCL
Two makers, six production models
Standalone CBHD players were made by Shinco (Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group, 新科) and TCL. Six production models are normally documented. The hardware record also needs prototype and pre-production categories rather than a flat list of six. Memory-Tech’s March 2009 announcement said TCL, Shinco and Tsinghua Tongfang all had player products in development; Tongfang did not confirm a retail release.
| Model | Maker | Class | Price notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBHD-9100 | Shinco | Flagship / launch | ¥2,580 with 15 discs; reviewed at ¥2,999; ¥1,599 by Jan 2010 |
| CBHD-3800 | Shinco | Slim / mid-range | ¥2,980 list (Yesky); ~¥1,800 in one secondary account |
| HD-2100 | Shinco | Wall-mount / entry compact | ~¥1,200 (secondary); Yesky “暂无” |
| HD-3700U | Shinco | Hybrid satellite STB / player | ~¥1,500 |
| THBD-1008 | TCL | Launch model | ~¥1,999; £259.99 UK |
| THBD-1038 | TCL | Second generation | ~¥1,600 (secondary) |
Typical features across the set: HDMI up to 1080p, multi-channel or stereo audio outputs, USB media playback, Linux-based firmware. Price and class figures for CBHD-3800, HD-2100, HD-3700U and THBD-1038 differ between primary Chinese list prices and secondary summaries; both are retained below where they conflict.
Shinco CBHD-9100
First model, spring 2009, best-documented unit. Shinco designed its own loader/mechanism without Toshiba kits, saying it cost less than Toshiba’s design. An AVSForum thread describes it as “likely” derived from the Toshiba HD-A35 (unconfirmed). Specs include AC 100-240 V, 42 W; 430 × 330 × 58 mm; 3.105 kg; video decode AVS-Video, VC-1, MPEG-4, AVC, JPEG; outputs 1080p/i, 720p, 480p via HDMI, component, S-video, composite; audio AVS-Audio, LPCM, DRA, Dolby AC-3 with coaxial and 5.1 analogue; disc compatibility CBHD, DVD, DVD±R/RW, VCD, CD, MP3, JPEG; front USB for TS/MP4/1080p files and external subtitles; CETC navigation; proprietary 4-6 modulation coding. Gemini adds brushed aluminium chassis and HDMI 1.3.
Launch package bundled 15 CBHD discs not sold separately, including The Warlords (投名状), The Island (逃出克隆岛) and Flood (水啸雾都). An importer reported 25 free discs in October 2009; ja.wikipedia records a 16-disc bundle; Suning Shanghai gave 10 free discs in April 2010. PConline published a 5-page review with 54 photos (5 July 2009). 电脑报 2009 No. 30 tested it on a TCL 46-inch TV over component, including USB 1080p and subtitle loading. Shinco built 2,000 units before Chinese New Year 2009. Officially on sale 22 May 2009 with Warner and China Record discs per PConline (31 May 2009).
Shinco CBHD-3800, HD-2100 and HD-3700U
CBHD-3800: slim/ultra-thin mid-range announced early 2010 / launched around December 2009 with HD-2100, forming a high/mid/low line with the 9100 (pjtime). Yesky guide price ¥2,980 with USB and HDMI. Secondary description: standard chassis, HDMI, composite/component, USB, about ¥1,800.
HD-2100: wall-mount (挂壁型) player launched with the 3800; secondary account calls it entry-level compact with basic HDMI/composite at about ¥1,200; Claude pass found no price.
HD-3700U: hybrid home-entertainment gateway. Rear UTI (Universal Terminal Interface) port-Chinese broadcast equivalent of CableCARD-accepted satellite or digital-cable modules. Custom media processor decoded AVS, DRA, MPEG-2, DVD-Video, EVD, HVD, SVCD, VCD, SACD and AVI from USB; about ¥1,500. Reported quirks: pause on native CBHD dropped frame sync (first-generation CETC bug), forcing hard stop and re-seek (~0.5 s skip); DVDs/VCDs/USB AVI paused normally. DRA bitstream over HDMI often failed to lock on Western AV receivers because descriptors did not identify DRA. Factory manual documented Ethernet network playback from remote shares. Relationship of a separately named Shinco HD-3700 CBHD-HiFi demonstrator (July 2010 Shanghai launch) to the HD-3700U is not established.
TCL THBD-1008 and THBD-1038
THBD-1008 launched April 2009. Documented chips: NEC EMMA3 with VR5701C 64-bit MIPS CPU; Anchor Bay ABT1018 (1080i→1080p); Silicon Image Sil9134CTU HDMI 1.3a transmitter; Spansion S29GL256N 32 MB NOR flash. Video: VC-1, H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2; 1080p/24. Audio: Dolby Digital, Digital Plus, TrueHD, PCM. Outputs: HDMI, component, composite, 2.0 analogue, optical. Under 40 W; 430 × 320 × 54 mm; ~3.165 kg. Plays CBHD and DVD. China bundle 15 discs; UK package 14. Setup menu “almost the same as Toshiba HD DVD.”
AVSForum material quoting TCL’s maintenance manual states it “is based on HD-A30, and the motherboard is no doubt from Toshiba,” with firmware and 220 V PSU changes. Internal photos raised A30 vs A35 confusion: one shot lacked analogue 5.1 (A30-like) while a motherboard photo showed 5.1 (A35-like)-possibly a reference photo. ZOL’s June 2009 review tested an ordinary commercial CBHD movie that loaded quickly and played continuously at 1080p. GBAX imported it to the UK in October 2009 at about £259.99 with fourteen movies-the first CBHD player sold overseas. TCL stopped selling CBHD players around late 2009. pjtime (17 Oct 2009) adds output modes through 1080p, programme playing time ≥135 minutes at 1080p, JPEG to 1920×1080, standby under 1 W.
THBD-1038: listed by Wikipedia/secondary sources as second generation with network integration, updated CETC engine and lower power at about ¥1,600; no primary Chinese source found in the dedicated 2026 pass.
Chipsets, optics and donors
Hardware chain: 405 nm laser → optical pickup → RF amplifier → servo DSP → modulation/channel decoder → system processor. CBHD needs dedicated FSM support at the servo/channel stage. Novatek NT90912 (FSM/ETM/EFM+/EFM) and NT90902 RF amp (~60 MHz) appear in patent CN102157185A. Chinese pickup patent CN101556807B and multi-format pickup CN201549222U, plus BD/CBHD freeform lens CN102682801B, document optical engineering. Toshiba HD DVD players used Broadcom (e.g. BCM7411) or NEC SoCs with hard-wired MPEG-2/VC-1/H.264 and Dolby/DTS/E-AC3 decoding.
Because THBD-1008 is HD-A30-derived and CBHD-9100 is reportedly HD-A35-derived, Toshiba HD-A30/A35 (and HD-A2/A3 family) are plausible donors for PSUs, loaders and possibly mainboard parts. No source names the CBHD pickup part number; Toshiba PHR-803T is the documented HD DVD pickup used in Xbox 360 HD DVD drives-plausible but unconfirmed for CBHD. Drive firmware would differ even with the same pickup because the channel must handle FSM 4-6 rather than ETM 8-12. Beyond AVSForum TCL service-manual excerpts, no downloadable 维修手册, Spansion dumps or Taobao CBHD-specific parts shops were found.
Prototypes and extensions
Shinco CBHD-9000 appears in May 2009 AVSForum user reports among launch models with photographs (possibly a pre-production designation). Tsinghua Tongfang CBHD-0002 was shown in 2008 and photographed in 2009 without confirmed retail. CBHD-3D and CBHD-HiFi products launched in 2010; one 3D title existed by July 2010; model numbers for the 3D player were not found. No evidence of CBHD products from Amoi, Skyworth, Changhong, Hisense, Malata or Giec; no PC drives or laptops found. Haier and BBK were alliance members. Pjtime’s 2010 index notes incompatibility problems between brands because production standards were not unified. Tencent (5 Jul 2010): about 4,000 blue-laser players a month in Beijing, of which about 150 were CBHD-almost all Shinco.
Manuals, websites and where documentation hides
No complete user manual, service manual or schematic for any CBHD player was found online in the dedicated 2026 search pass. Queries included CBHD-9100 and THBD-1008 说明书 / 维修手册 / 电路图 strings plus Toshiba HD-A30 manual searches. The highest-value surviving technical fragment remains AVSForum master-thread page 5, where a member posted TCL THBD-1008 maintenance-manual excerpts: a block diagram and a labelled motherboard photo with chip identities.
Wayback Machine captures of shinco.com (news pages on Warner support, Universal support and product launch, plus neighbouring product and service scripts), tcl.com product trees from 2009-2010, and chdia.org.cn are the next places to look. Toshiba HD-A30 owner and service manuals remain platform references because the THBD-1008 setup menu is almost the same as Toshiba HD DVD. Chinese repair libraries returned no CBHD hits in that pass but still deserve model-number retries. Second-hand boxed units on Xianyu and Kongfz often include printed manuals and warranty cards-ask sellers for photos before purchase.
Retail behaviour around the decks
ITmedia’s October 2009 Suning visit found a lone CBHD-9100 among many DVD players and one Sony Blu-ray unit. By April 2010 Suning Shanghai sold more than one hundred Shinco units a month with ten free discs. Shinco’s December 2009 New Year promotion pushed an entry-level player at ¥1,500 with ten to twenty-five free titles plus the 60th National Day parade disc. Marketing general manager 李正洋 said in 2010 that Shinco aimed for about 2,000 retail points through GOME and Suning. TCL had already exited CBHD sales by late 2009 per Tencent’s July 2010 survey. Baidu Baike notes Shinco claimed independent development of front-end servo and back-end decoding-consistent with the story that the 9100 loader was not a Toshiba kit.
Donor strategy in one paragraph: prefer Toshiba HD-A30 and HD-A35 family parts for THBD-1008 and possibly CBHD-9100 mechanical and electrical donors; photograph CBHD pickup labels before buying PHR-803T-class substitutes; expect firmware to differ even if optics look similar; budget trial-and-error; do not expect a cross-flash to invent FSM support. A modern preservation front-end may ultimately favour Novatek FSM-capable Chinese combo mechanisms over hoping an unmodified Western HD DVD drive will suffice.
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: