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Blog EVD Guides Related Formats
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EVD Related Formats: HVD, FVD, VMD and Neighbours

The red-laser HD field, 2003-2008

Between DVD (1996) and the blue-laser formats (2006), several groups tried to put HD video on red-laser DVD-sized discs. The shared idea was simple: keep cheap optical pickups and pressing lines, and gain HD through better compression or more layers. EVD was China’s government-backed entry in that field. It competed with domestic rivals HVD and HDV, Taiwan’s FVD, UK-based VMD, and Microsoft’s short-lived WMV-HD DVD experiment, then lost the larger war to HD DVD, Blu-ray and finally CBHD.

Format Origin Physical Video Max resolution Status
EVD China, E-World, 2003 DVD-5/9, 650 nm MPEG-2 MP@HL-based (EE Times) / VP5-VP6 (On2 contract) 1080i, 720p (1080p HD-EVD) Dead c. 2008
HVD (China) Amlogic + TV makers, Apr 2004 DVD media Not verified HD claimed Dead
HDV (China) Beijing Kaicheng HD, Jan 2004 DVD media Not verified; later IP-HDV HD claimed Dead
FVD Taiwan ITRI / AOSRA, 2004-2005 650 nm, tighter track pitch; ~6 GB/layer WMV9 (also MPEG-2, MPEG-4 in players) 720p (1080i on three-layer) Defunct
VMD / HD VMD New Medium Enterprises (UK) Red multilayer, ~5 GB/layer MPEG-2, VC-1 1080p Dead
WMV-HD DVD Microsoft/studios, 2003-2004 Standard DVD-ROM WMV9 1080p PC-only niche

HVD and HDV: domestic rivals

HVD was backed by Shanghai Amlogic (上海晶晨) with roughly nineteen TV and player makers including Skyworth, Changhong, TCL and Malata. Three of those brands (Skyworth, Changhong, Malata) were also EVD alliance members. Contemporary reports say HVD launched with an Amlogic-designed chip whose IP was held in China, offered patents free to alliance members, and performed better in the market than EVD. 2005 HVD sales were reported above ¥200 million. In some months of 2006 EVD sold about one-tenth as many units as HVD. By 2006 Amlogic was even listed among EVD’s technology providers, underscoring how porous the camps were.

HDV came from Beijing Kaicheng HD Electronic Technology (北京凯诚高清), led by 任为民, launched in January 2004 with Gome and later Suning as channels. Kaicheng had reportedly taken part in EVD research before launching its own format. Industry commentators urged the three domestic red-laser camps to combine before Blu-ray arrived: multiple incompatible formats would confuse consumers and leave nobody large. They did not combine.

FVD (Taiwan)

Taiwan’s Forward Versatile Disc was developed by ITRI’s Opto-Electronics Systems division and promoted by AOSRA (about 29 companies). ITRI argued that DVD royalties of as much as US$10 per Taiwan-made player were unsustainable. FVD kept 650 nm lasers with NA 0.6-0.65 and reduced track pitch (0.64 µm) to reach about 6 GB per layer. Sigma Designs processors powered first players, decoding WMV9, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 up to 720p with hardware AES DRM. First Taiwanese players were expected around April 2005 at about TWD 5,500 (US$175). BenQ and Mustek were early supporters; Cheertek announced an FVD chip for 2006. Wikipedia describes FVD-1 as using DVD’s 8/16 modulation, 135 minutes of 720p on dual-layer and 135 minutes of 1080i on three-layer discs, and calls the format apparently defunct.

EE Times explicitly compared FVD to mainland EVD and noted that FVD backers looked to the mainland for sales. A Calimetrics Wikipedia article claims China instead chose Taiwan’s FVD. No other source supports that claim; China’s chosen industry standard was EVD (SJ/T 11299). The Calimetrics wording is kept as an outlier disagreement.

VMD and the NME partnership

New Medium Enterprises’ Versatile Multilayer Disc used red-laser multilayer discs of about 5 GB per layer (20 GB for a four-layer disc), with MPEG-2 and VC-1 video and up to 7.1-channel audio. E-World signed cooperation with NME in September 2005 and a share-exchange in November 2005; a 50 GB EVD/VMD was shown at CeBIT in March 2006. The partnership produced no commercial EVD/VMD product. HD VMD itself launched in 2007 and failed; its IP was later revived for larger-capacity experiments.

EVD versus DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray and CBHD

Parameter DVD-Video EVD HD DVD Blu-ray CBHD
Laser 650 nm 650 nm 405 nm 405 nm 405 nm
Capacity (SL / DL) 4.7 / 8.5 GB 4.7 / 8.5 GB 15 / 30 GB 25 / 50 GB 15 / 30 GB
Video MPEG-2 (MPEG-1) MPEG-2 MP@HL-based (reported) / VP6 (contract) MPEG-2, VC-1, AVC MPEG-2, VC-1, AVC AVS, AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2
Max resolution 720×576 / 720×480 1080i, 720p (1080p HD-EVD) 1080p 1080p 1080p
Audio LPCM, AC-3, DTS, MPEG ExAC / EAC DD+, TrueHD, DTS-HD DD, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA DRA and others
Protection CSS Proprietary (AACS planned) AACS AACS, BD+ Own scheme
Standard owner DVD Forum E-World / MII SJ/T DVD Forum BDA China HD DVD / OMNERC
Launch 1996 Nov 2003 Mar 2006 Jun 2006 2008-2009
End Current c. 2008 Feb 2008 Current Niche

The table makes the structural point: EVD never left the red-laser DVD capacity envelope. Blue-laser formats multiplied capacity by three to five times on single-layer discs. Once HD DVD and Blu-ray launched, EVD’s pitch (HD on existing DVD lines) competed against true next-generation capacity, not only against other Chinese red-laser brands.

EVD in the Chinese disc lineage

Format Year Chinese standard Physical base Foreign dependency
VCD 1993 (China from ~1995) None (White Book) CD Philips/Sony licence; C-Cube chips
CVD / Super VCD 1998 SJ/T 11196-1998 CD C-Cube and ESS chips; MPEG-2
EVD 2003 SJ/T 11299-2005 DVD LSI Logic chips; On2 licence; DVD royalties for DVD playback
CBHD 2008 China HD DVD specifications HD DVD (blue laser) Toshiba/NEC HD DVD base; DVD Forum licence

EVD is the middle link: Chinese system specification on a foreign optical base, after Super VCD on CD and before CBHD on HD DVD-derived blue laser. EE Times in 2003 already compared EVD to the earlier VCD-to-Super-VCD pattern. Collectors should not confuse modern EVD-keyword DVD players with this 2003-2008 red-laser format, nor confuse EVD discs with CBHD or Blu-ray.

How to read the neighbourhood

For magazine-length orientation, keep five distinctions sharp:

  1. EVD vs DVD: same laser and capacities; different encryption, audio codec claims and HD output targets. An ordinary DVD player rejects commercial EVD discs.
  2. EVD vs HVD/HDV: three Chinese red-laser HD brands fighting the same shelf space in 2004-2006, sometimes with overlapping member companies.
  3. EVD vs FVD: mainland SJ/T industry standard versus Taiwan ITRI/AOSRA WMV9-centred disc with tighter track pitch; parallel royalty anxieties, different politics.
  4. EVD vs VMD: partnership and CeBIT demo, no mass EVD/VMD product.
  5. EVD vs HD DVD / Blu-ray / CBHD: red 4.7/8.5 GB versus blue 15-50 GB class; once blue laser shipped, red-laser HD lost the capacity argument even if compression improved.

Jindian Global’s October 2005 “five measures” against HD DVD (free film licences for EVD hardware makers, purchase guarantees for publishers, incentives for multi-title releases) show how quickly the blue-laser threat reshaped red-laser politics. Changhong and Amoi had already announced HD DVD production. The domestic red-laser war was unfinished when the international blue-laser war arrived.

Why red-laser HD clustered then died

Every format in this neighbourhood answered the same industrial question: can HD video ride existing red-laser tooling cheaply enough to matter before blue laser ships? EVD answered with government SJ/T status, LSI silicon and proprietary encryption. HVD answered with Amlogic IP held in China and free patent licensing to members. FVD answered with tighter track pitch and WMV9. VMD answered with more layers. None of them accumulated Hollywood-scale catalogues or a clear winner among Chinese living-room buyers. When HD DVD and Blu-ray arrived in 2006, and when China later adapted HD DVD into CBHD, the red-laser HD cluster lost both the capacity race and the standards race.

For this site’s later CBHD posts, EVD matters as the failed middle chapter that taught Chinese OEMs how expensive format politics could be when content, royalties and televisions were not aligned. For collectors, the practical takeaway is narrower: buy documented 2004-2008 LSI-era players and commercial Jindian/Zhongkai discs, and treat every modern EVD shopping keyword as noise until proven otherwise.

Sources

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:

Blog CBHD Codecs Guides
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CBHD Codecs Today: AVS, DRA and Tooling

Starting point

Pressed CBHD discs carried video and audio under Chinese and Western codec labels. Reconstructing or playing ripped material in 2026 depends less on finding a “CBHD player app” and more on whether modern open-source stacks can decode AVS video and DRA audio after the container and DRM layers are stripped. This post inventories what exists today, what is missing, and how those tools map onto the format’s commercial codec list.

AVS video on the open-source side

FFmpeg’s cavs decoder handles AVS1-P2 Jizhun (base) profile. Stefan Gehrer wrote it in 2006-before CBHD’s commercial launch-because AVS itself is older than the disc format. The AVS working group began first-generation work in 2002; AVS Part 2 video became national standard GB/T 20090.2-2006 in February 2006. For software archaeology that timing matters: a CBHD encoding tool may simply have been an AVS encoder feeding a proprietary mux/authoring system, not something branded “CBHD Encoder.”

Support for AVS+ (AVS1-P16, broadcasting profile) was proposed in a 2026 FFmpeg-devel RFC titled along the lines of “avcodec/cavs: bugfixes and AVS1-P16 (AVS+) decoding,” but that work is not yet merged. Encoding uses libxavs, available in FFmpeg builds configured with --enable-libxavs; Chinese CSDN guides document such builds. FFmpeg’s separate avs decoder is for an unrelated game video format and must not be confused with Chinese AVS. The name uAVS appeared as a search target in the research brief; no pass reported usable details.

What commercial CBHD actually put in the bitstream

Official CHDA documentation lists AVS, H.264/AVC, VC-1 and MPEG-2. Player specifications made AVS, MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 mandatory. Early 2009 discs almost certainly used VC-1 or AVC because AVS content and encoders were not yet available at China Record; AVS and DKAA discs were presented as a “new generation” only at the September 2009 Guangzhou conference. An actual disc could therefore contain a conventional MPEG-2, H.264 or VC-1 stream even though later marketing emphasised AVS.

Technical traits reported for AVS as used on CBHD include compression efficiency comparable to H.264 High Profile with lower computational complexity; licensing about 1 RMB per decoder unit versus multi-dollar MPEG-LA structures; 8×8 integer transforms; quarter-pel motion-vector accuracy; context-adaptive spatial prediction; and its own loop filter. Typical CBHD encodes are described as 1080p at 23.976 or 24 fps, or 1080i at 50 Hz for domestic Chinese TV masters, at average bitrates of 12-18 Mbps under a format maximum video bitrate of 28 Mbps.

DRA audio: silicon IP and one thesis tree

DRA (standardised as SJ/T 11368-2006 and GB/T 22726-2008) was developed by DigiRise / Guangzhou Digital Rise Technology. Expansions of the acronym differ across sources-“Dynamic Resolution Adaptation” versus “Digital Rise Audio” after the developer. It is optional in Blu-ray from version 2.3. Reported capabilities include multi-channel compression using sub-band coding, psychoacoustic masking and MDCT; channel layouts from mono/stereo to 5.1 and 7.1; and bitrates from 64 kbps to 1.5 Mbps.

Commercial decoder IP: Synopsys DesignWare ARC Sound IP (2011, first to support DRA) and Tensilica HiFi Audio DSP library (2012). Open source: a DRA encoder/decoder from Tianyi Geng’s Tsinghua undergraduate thesis, published on GitHub as tianyigeng/DRA-Audio-System. No DRA decoder exists in mainline FFmpeg. For archival workflows that means DRA either goes through the thesis codec or through a conversion step before ordinary desktop players see the soundtrack.

Player-facing audio lists for context

  • Official specification: AVS Audio, DRA, Dolby AC-3.
  • Shinco CBHD-9100: AVS-Audio, LPCM, DRA, Dolby AC-3; coaxial digital and 5.1 analogue.
  • TCL THBD-1008: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, PCM.

CBHD-HiFi (July 2010) used dual-layer capacity for multi-channel LPCM up to 24-bit/192 kHz over secure HDMI. That profile is a separate audio path from DRA compression and matters for identifying special collector editions from China Record Corporation.

Putting decoded streams into players

A decrypted CBHD AVS elementary stream should decode in FFmpeg-based players such as mpv, MPC-HC via LAV Filters, and probably VLC, provided the cavs path is available. Transcoding can use FFmpeg with libxavs when re-encoding is required. DRA still needs the thesis codec or conversion. No research pass found software that decrypts DKAA. International titles protected with AACS follow the AACS route rather than a CBHD-specific PC decryptor.

Standalone player USB paths remain relevant when discussing “home content” without disc authoring: the Shinco CBHD-9100 plays 1080p video files and TS/MP4 from USB with external subtitles; the Shinco HD-3700U plays AVI from USB and network shares. Those routes bypass FSM mastering entirely and are the only documented realistic home-content path on original hardware.

What is still missing

  1. Mainline FFmpeg DRA decoder.
  2. Merged AVS+ (AVS1-P16) support in cavs.
  3. Any public DKAA decryption tool.
  4. Documented uAVS encoder details usable for reconstruction.
  5. Confirmed PC application that mounts a pressed CBHD volume end-to-end (filesystem + CETC + DRM + decode).

ChatGPT pass 2 cautions that “there were no PC decoders” has not been proven as a historical absence; PC playback software and a CBHD emulator remain unresolved research targets rather than confirmed non-existence. For practical work today, treat AVS via cavs/libxavs and DRA via the thesis tree as the working open toolchain, and treat DKAA as a hard stop until keys and algorithms surface.

Codec archaeology versus disc archaeology

AVS and DRA outlived CBHD in Chinese broadcasting. AVS was re-engineered as AVS2 and AVS3; together with DRA they were mandated across terrestrial HD, 4K Ultra-HD and 8K state networks. That continuity means codec libraries and silicon IP continued after disc replication ended, but it does not automatically recover CBHD muxers, CETC navigation files or DKAA. Separating the problems helps: decode the elementary streams with tools that already exist; recover containers, navigation and DRM with disc images, firmware dumps and professional verifiers.

When a catalogue title is labelled “1080p AVS, DRA 5.1” in secondary reporting, treat that as a technical profile claim pending MediaInfo or bitstream confirmation. Early launch discs may not match that profile. When a title lists only Western codecs on a player menu screenshot, that is equally consistent with the 2009 encoder gap. Codec tooling today is strong enough to handle AVS Jizhun video once decrypted; audio and DRM remain the thinner layers of the stack.

Quick reference

Component Open tooling status
AVS1-P2 Jizhun decode FFmpeg cavs (2006)
AVS encode libxavs via FFmpeg
AVS+ RFC proposed; not merged
DRA decode/encode Thesis GitHub project; not in FFmpeg
DRA in silicon IP Synopsys ARC Sound (2011); Tensilica HiFi (2012)
DKAA No public decryptor found
AACS (international CBHD) Standard AACS research path

The next posts in this series cover standards numbers and patents, then hardware that actually ran these codecs in living rooms. Codec tooling without a disc image or firmware dump still leaves navigation and protection unresolved; codec tooling with those artefacts turns a sector dump into watchable video.

AVS as a system, not a single FourCC

The AVS organisation describes AVS1 as a full system covering system layer, video, audio, DRM and compliance testing. That breadth affects how researchers hunt tools: filenames may say AVS encoder, AVS muxer or compliance suite rather than CBHD. Part 2 video (GB/T 20090.2-2006) is the elementary stream FFmpeg’s cavs path targets. Broadcasting later moved to AVS+ and then AVS2/AVS3; those later profiles are not automatically present on 2009-2010 CBHD discs. Keeping profile names straight prevents false “unsupported CBHD” reports when the real issue is an AVS+ stream fed to a Jizhun-only decoder.

Licensing economics also explain why Chinese manufacturers preferred AVS on paper: about 1 RMB per decoder versus multi-dollar MPEG-LA stacks. Whether every pressed title actually shipped AVS is a separate empirical question. China Record’s lack of an AVS encoder in April 2009 and the September 2009 “new generation” AVS+DKAA unveiling are contemporaneous evidence that the codec story changed during the format’s short commercial life.

DRA beside Dolby on the same machines

Player marketing lists show DRA and Dolby families coexisting. The Shinco CBHD-9100 advertises DRA and AC-3 together with LPCM; the TCL THBD-1008 leans on Dolby Digital / Digital Plus / TrueHD and PCM in published specs. HDMI bitstream of DRA to Western AV receivers was reported as fragile on the HD-3700U because descriptors did not identify the payload. Desktop preservation therefore cannot assume “if the video decodes, the audio will follow in VLC”-DRA may need an offline conversion pass through the thesis codec before a standard media player sees PCM or AC-3.

Research targets still named but empty

uAVS encoders were on the original search brief; no pass returned usable documentation. Synopsys and Tensilica DRA IP proves silicon-level interest after 2011 but does not yield a Windows DLL for archivists. No pass found DKAA decryption code. AACS on international CBHD titles remains the better-documented protection path solely because AACS LA published a CBHD pre-recorded book (v0.90, 7 October 2008) rather than because those titles are easier to obtain.

Practical lab order: identify whether a given disc is domestic (DKAA) or international (AACS); extract after legal decrypt where applicable; demux; run cavs on AVS; route DRA through tianyigeng/DRA-Audio-System or transcode; archive both elementary streams and a transparent remux. USB playback on the CBHD-9100 remains available for non-DRM test encodes.

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:

Blog CBHD Guides Technical Specifications
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CBHD Technical Specifications

Physical disc geometry

CBHD kept the 12 cm diameter and the DVD-like structure of two 0.6 mm polycarbonate substrates bonded back to back, giving a 0.6 mm cover layer above the data layer. It did not adopt Blu-ray’s thinner 0.1 mm cover and 0.85 NA lens. Physically the disc resembles an HD DVD disc. Optical readout uses a head capable of differential phase detection tracking.

CHDA comparison: CBHD vs DVD vs Blu-ray

Parameter CBHD DVD Blu-ray
Laser 405 nm Red (650 nm) 405 nm
Numerical aperture 0.65 0.60 0.85
Single layer 15 GB 4.7 GB 25 GB
Dual layer 30 GB 8.5 GB 50 GB
Maximum resolution 1080p 576p 1080p
Track pitch 0.40 μm 0.74 μm 0.32 μm
Minimum pit 0.204 μm ~0.40 μm ~0.149 μm
Modulation 4-6 FSM EFM(+) BD modulation
File system UDF UDF UDF
1× data rate 36.55 Mbps – –
Max video bitrate 28 Mbps – –

CBHD vs HD DVD vs Blu-ray (codec and DRM view)

Parameter CBHD HD DVD Blu-ray
Cover substrate 0.6 mm 0.6 mm 0.1 mm
Primary video AVS (GB/T 20090.2) VC-1, H.264, MPEG-2 H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2
Primary audio DRA (GB/T 22726) DD+, DTS-HD, LPCM TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, LPCM
Copy protection DKAA / AACS derivative AACS AACS, BD+
Navigation CETC Advanced Content (iHD/XML) HDMV / BD-J

Laser wavelength, NA, track pitch, minimum pit length and capacities match HD DVD’s physical envelope. Error-correction details remain undocumented across the research passes. Early presumption that CBHD matched HD DVD’s NA 0.65 and 0.40 μm pitch was later confirmed from the archived CHDA technical page.

Why DVD factories could convert

Because recording-layer geometry stayed close to DVD, Chinese plants could modify existing DVD lines instead of building a Blu-ray production ecosystem. Plants in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou needed upgrades such as a 405 nm mastering laser and spin-coater retrofits for denser pit geometry. A secondary unverified source puts line conversion near US$800,000 versus about $3 million for Blu-ray. Memory-Tech independently confirmed the strategy and built a complete CBHD production system through UOD.

Modulation: 4-6 FSM

CBHD replaced HD DVD’s 8-12 ETM with 4-6 FSM. Chinese industry reporting (Sina Tech, 3 April 2009) names this as one of three major changes, made “to add Chinese patents.” The Shinco CBHD-9100 specification advertises China’s proprietary 4-6 modulation coding. A 2008 Gizmodo piece described a CH-DVD player as essentially an HD DVD player “whose laser is set at a different modulation,” able to share processors and optical pickups in manufacturing.

The VCD analogy breaks here. VCD could be authored onto CD-R with ordinary burners. A pressed CBHD needs correct logical structure, premaster, CBHD physical encoding with 4-6 modulation, error-correction/channel structure, blue-laser mastering and replication. A DVD burner cannot simply be told to “burn this CBHD ISO”: the disc may be UDF, but UDF is not the physical format. A later Novatek servo DSP (NT90912) supported FSM alongside ETM, EFM+ and EFM, showing dedicated hardware support for the channel.

File system and disc structure

Chinese comparison tables explicitly identify UDF, which makes preservation more tractable than inventing a file system from zero. Descriptions of what sits on top of UDF differ between research passes:

  • Exact UDF version and containers not verified; UDF 2.5 and EVO/MPEG-PS are likely but unconfirmed given HD DVD derivation.
  • The DCA verifier validates China HD content against HD DVD Book 3 1.x with supplemental information, including EVOB, HDi content, Full Trust and Restricted Mode-implying HD DVD logical structures with Chinese extensions.
  • Another model places elementary AVS video and DRA audio in MPEG-2 Transport or Program Streams under a CBHD_TS volume directory (or HVDVD_TS on early CH-DVD transition discs), with a CBHD_TS.IFO stream map.

None of the passes cites a directory dump of a real CBHD disc. Relatively understood items include UDF as the filesystem label, 12 cm geometry, 15/30 GB capacity, 405 nm / 0.65 NA, 4-6 FSM as a concept, and the codec list. Still requiring direct disc investigation: exact UDF layout, directory conventions, EVOB usage, playlist and navigation files, CETC implementation details, DKAA structures and keys, sector-level differences, lead-in/lead-out, error correction, and exact Book 2 / Book 3 relationship to HD DVD.

Three software layers on a commercial disc

  1. Application: media assets and scripts; video in AVS; audio in DRA or LPCM; menus and multi-angle via CETC.
  2. Container / system stream: AVS and DRA elementary streams multiplexed into MPEG-2 TS or PS under CBHD_TS.
  3. Cryptographic protection: DKAA between UDF and decoders; authenticity checks; key exchange with player hardware; HDCP over HDMI.

CETC navigation

CBHD replaced HD DVD’s Advanced Content (HDi/iHD-XML, ECMAScript and SMIL) with CETC navigation. CHDA material lists dual highlight regions in menus, preview/summarised content, audio associated with the highlighted selection, and DVD-like multi-angle, multiple audio and subtitle tracks. The design kept some DVD-like interface behaviour without a Java virtual machine (unlike Blu-ray BD-J) or heavy XML parsers. A first-generation CETC bug on the Shinco HD-3700U caused pause on native CBHD to break frame sync; the TCL THBD-1038 is described as carrying an updated CETC engine. Even with UDF, video, audio and subtitles in hand, a playable CBHD still needs the CETC environment the player expects.

Video and audio codecs

Official CHDA documentation lists AVS, H.264/AVC, VC-1 and MPEG-2; player specs made AVS, MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 mandatory. Player lists:

  • Shinco CBHD-9100: AVS-Video, VC-1, MPEG-4, AVC; JPEG; outputs 1080p/i, 720p, 480p.
  • TCL THBD-1008: VC-1, H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2; 1080p/24.
  • Shinco HD-3700U: AVS, MPEG-2, DVD-Video, EVD, HVD, SVCD, VCD; AVI from USB.

Early 2009 discs almost certainly used VC-1 or AVC because AVS encoders were not yet available at China Record; AVS and DKAA discs were presented as a “new generation” only in September 2009. One research pass states video was encoded exclusively in AVS; others say discs could and early discs likely did use VC-1/AVC.

AVS Part 2 video became national standard GB/T 20090.2-2006 in February 2006 after working-group work from 2002. AVS1 is a full system-system, video, audio, DRM and compliance-not only a video codec. Technical traits cited for CBHD use: efficiency comparable to H.264 High Profile with lower complexity; licensing about 1 RMB per decoder; 8×8 integer transforms, quarter-pel motion vectors, context-adaptive spatial prediction and its own loop filter; typical encodes 1080p at 23.976/24 fps or 1080i at 50 Hz, averages 12-18 Mbps.

Official audio lists AVS Audio, DRA and Dolby AC-3. Shinco CBHD-9100 adds LPCM and 5.1 output. TCL THBD-1008 lists Dolby Digital, Digital Plus, TrueHD and PCM. DRA is standardised as SJ/T 11368-2006 and GB/T 22726-2008 (DigiRise / Guangzhou Digital Rise Technology); optional in Blu-ray from version 2.3. Expansions of the acronym differ: “Dynamic Resolution Adaptation” versus “Digital Rise Audio.” Multi-channel sub-band/MDCT coding from mono/stereo to 5.1/7.1 and bitrates from 64 kbps to 1.5 Mbps are reported. CBHD-HiFi (July 2010) used dual-layer 30 GB for multi-channel LPCM up to 24-bit/192 kHz over secure HDMI; China Record music documentaries appear as HiFi special editions.

DKAA, AACS, region and packaging

CBHD-3D specifications and products launched in Beijing in July 2010; by that month only one 3D title existed; Guangzhou Asian Games ceremonies were planned for 3D release. What Hi-Fi covered the move under the headline that HD-DVD was “back” in 3D. Packaging used black Blu-ray-size cases originally designed for HD-VMD, carrying a blue CBHD logo; the DVD Forum’s “HD DVD China” logo had been approved in November 2007. Region coding remains poorly attested across passes.

Understood versus still needing a disc

ChatGPT pass 2’s checklist remains the practical guide for laboratory work. Relatively understood: UDF as the labelled filesystem, twelve-centimetre geometry, 15/30 GB capacities, 405 nm laser, 0.65 NA, 4-6 FSM as a concept, AVS and the Western video codecs, DRA and Dolby AC-3, and the existence of CETC and DKAA as named systems. Still requiring direct disc investigation: exact CBHD UDF layout and identifiers, directory conventions, exact EVOB usage, playlist structure, navigation files and CETC binaries, DKAA structures and keys, sector-level differences from HD DVD, lead-in/lead-out implementation, error-correction details, and the precise relationship between CBHD Books 2/3 and HD DVD Books 2/3. Owning an actual CBHD disc therefore becomes extremely valuable for reconstruction.

Understood versus still needing a disc on the bench

ChatGPT pass 2’s checklist remains the practical guide for laboratory work. Relatively understood: UDF as the labelled filesystem, twelve-centimetre geometry, 15/30 GB capacities, 405 nm laser, 0.65 NA, 4-6 FSM as a concept, AVS and the Western video codecs, DRA and Dolby AC-3, and the existence of CETC and DKAA as named systems. Still requiring direct disc investigation: exact CBHD UDF layout and identifiers, directory conventions, exact EVOB usage, playlist structure, navigation files and CETC binaries, DKAA structures and keys, sector-level differences from HD DVD, lead-in/lead-out implementation, error-correction details, and the precise relationship between CBHD Books 2/3 and HD DVD Books 2/3. Owning an actual CBHD disc is extremely valuable for reconstruction.

Packaging used black Blu-ray-size cases originally designed for HD-VMD, carrying a blue CBHD logo. The DVD Forum’s separate “HD DVD China” logo had been approved in November 2007. Region coding remains poorly attested. Domestic films used DKAA; international films used AACS.

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:

Blog CBHD Guides History
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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)

Date Event
27 Jul 2005 OMNERC + CETC propose Chinese HD DVD to DVD Forum WG-11
Feb 2007 DVD Forum approves Chinese HD DVD physical-format text
7 Sep 2007 CH-DVD announced; CHDA founded
15 Nov 2007 “HD DVD China” logo and OMNERC agreement approved
19 Feb 2008 Toshiba ends HD DVD
Mar 2008 Tongfang, Shinco, TCL prototypes
Jul 2008 UOD opens first CBHD line
Early Mar 2009 Warner announces CBHD support via CAV Warner; launch titles ¥50-70
22 Apr 2009 Official commercial launch
Oct 2009 GBAX imports TCL THBD-1008 to UK (~£259.99)
21 Dec 2009 100 titles claimed reached
2 Jul 2010 CBHD-3D product launch; CBHD-HiFi unveiled
Q2 2010 onward CMM retail data: CBHD share falling sharply
2011-2012 Unofficial end of disc replication

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:

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China Blue High-Definition Disc: Format at a Glance

China Blue High-Definition Disc at a glance

China Blue High-Definition Disc (CBHD) is the English commercial name for the format Chinese sources call 中国蓝光高清光盘, shortened to 中国蓝光. Earlier publicity used CH-DVD / China High Definition DVD and the DVD Forum logo name “HD DVD China.” Developers were the Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (OMNERC, 清华大学光盘国家工程研究中心) at Tsinghua University together with the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) 3rd Research Institute (中国电子科技集团第三研究所).

Identity card

Item Value
Proposal to DVD Forum WG-11 27 July 2005
Public announcement (as CH-DVD) 7 September 2007
Retail / official commercial launch April 2009 / 22 April 2009
Commercial life Approximately 2009 to 2011 / early 2010s
Primary market Mainland China (limited UK import via GBAX, 2009)
Physical basis HD DVD / DVD optical architecture, 2 × 0.6 mm bonded substrates
Disc diameter 120 mm
Capacity 15 GB single layer, 30 GB dual layer
Laser / NA 405 nm blue-violet / 0.65
Track pitch / minimum pit 0.40 μm / 0.204 μm
Modulation 4-6 FSM (replacing HD DVD’s 8-12 ETM)
1× transfer rate Approximately 36.55 Mbps
Maximum video bitrate (reported) 28 Mbps
File system UDF
Maximum resolution 1920 × 1080 (1080p)
Navigation CETC navigation (replacing HD DVD Advanced Content / HDi)

The archived official CHDA technical page is the source for the pit length, track pitch and numerical-aperture figures that later summaries often omit. It states that CBHD kept the 12 cm disc and used 405 nm light with NA 0.65, reducing pit length to 0.204 μm and track pitch to 0.4 μm.

What sits on the disc

Video codecs listed for the format are AVS (GB/T 20090.2), H.264/AVC, VC-1 and MPEG-2; MPEG-4 also appears on player lists. Audio codecs include AVS Audio, DRA (GB/T 22726), Dolby AC-3 and LPCM; the TCL THBD-1008 additionally lists Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD. Copy protection split by content origin: DKAA for domestic titles, AACS for international titles. In 2010 the alliance also unveiled CBHD-3D and CBHD-HiFi profile extensions.

Commercial players normally documented as production models are six units: Shinco CBHD-9100, CBHD-3800, HD-2100 and HD-3700U, plus TCL THBD-1008 and THBD-1038. Prototypes and pre-production machines sat around that commercial set. Catalogue size claims cluster around about 100 titles by December 2009 to mid-2010, with one early-2010 report citing about 150; a promised 1,000 titles for 2010 was never reached.

How the numbers relate

Capacity, laser wavelength and cover-layer thickness place CBHD next to HD DVD rather than Blu-ray. Single-layer 15 GB and dual-layer 30 GB match the HD DVD envelope. The 0.6 mm bonded-substrate stack is the same family of DVD-like geometry that Chinese replication plants already knew how to make. Blu-ray’s 0.1 mm cover and 0.85 NA optics were deliberately not adopted.

Where CBHD diverges from a simple HD DVD rebadge is the channel and application stack. Replacing 8-12 ETM with 4-6 FSM changes the physical channel coding. Replacing Advanced Content with CETC navigation changes menus and interactivity. Mandating AVS and DRA (alongside legacy Western codecs on players) and pairing DKAA with AACS changes the intellectual-property and DRM profile. Those four layers-modulation, navigation, codecs, protection-are the short definition of the format beyond the capacity table.

Transfer rates and video ceiling

A 1× rate near 36.55 Mbps and a reported maximum video bitrate of 28 Mbps are reconstruction-relevant numbers. They show that CBHD is not “HD video burned onto a DVD.” The physical channel is genuine high-density blue-laser optical media. Average commercial encodes discussed elsewhere in this research cluster in the 12-18 Mbps range for 1080p, leaving headroom under the 28 Mbps ceiling for peaks and multiplexed audio.

Market envelope in one paragraph

Development started with a July 2005 proposal while HD DVD was still an active international format. Public CH-DVD announcement and CHDA founding followed in September 2007. Toshiba ended HD DVD in February 2008; Chinese work continued under MIIT backing and commercial branding as CBHD. Retail players and discs reached Chinese stores in April 2009 at player prices around ¥2,000 and disc prices initially ¥50-70. Limited overseas retail appeared when GBAX imported the TCL THBD-1008 into the United Kingdom in October 2009. By mid-2010 the title count had stalled near the low hundreds against a thin hardware base; by 2011-2012 replication had effectively ended.

Quick codec and protection matrix

  • Video: AVS (national GB/T 20090.2), H.264/AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2; MPEG-4 listed on hardware.
  • Audio: AVS Audio, DRA, Dolby AC-3, LPCM; Dolby Digital Plus / TrueHD on TCL THBD-1008.
  • DRM: DKAA domestic; AACS international.
  • Navigation: CETC (not HDi / Advanced Content).
  • Extensions: CBHD-3D and CBHD-HiFi (2010).

What this glance deliberately excludes

Detailed timelines, patent numbers, authoring chains, firmware debates and catalogue title lists belong in later chapters of this series. The glance is the fixed reference card: names, dates, physical parameters from the CHDA technical page, codec and DRM labels, the six production player models, and the catalogue-size claims that contemporary reporting actually made. Use it as the index into the longer research posts rather than as a substitute for them.

When later posts cite “15/30 GB,” “4-6 FSM,” “NA 0.65,” “0.204 μm pits,” “0.40 μm track pitch,” “36.55 Mbps 1×,” or “28 Mbps max video,” they are referring to the same CHDA-backed parameter set summarised here. When they name Shinco CBHD-9100, CBHD-3800, HD-2100, HD-3700U or TCL THBD-1008 / THBD-1038, they are referring to the documented commercial hardware set, not to an open-ended list of brands.

Lineage in three steps

  1. Chinese HD DVD proposal to DVD Forum WG-11 (2005).
  2. CH-DVD announcement and CHDA founding (2007).
  3. Commercial CBHD branding and April 2009 retail launch.

Publications sometimes kept calling the format CH-DVD after CBHD branding appeared. Treat that as one lineage with renaming, not as three unrelated disc formats. The physical geometry stayed HD DVD-like; the Chinese team’s work concentrated on the layers that carried licensing cost and domestic-standard control.

Commercial life in numbers

Retail shelves saw players from April 2009. The official commercial launch date recorded in industry timelines is 22 April 2009. Shinco had already built 2,000 CBHD-9100 units before Chinese New Year that year. Player street prices clustered near ¥2,000 at launch-about forty percent below contemporary Blu-ray decks in mainland China-then fell: the CBHD-9100 appeared around ¥1,599 in Guangzhou by January 2010. Disc prices opened at ¥50-70 for Warner launch titles, drifted toward ¥25-30 as the format fought piracy, and were reported online near ¥28 by 2010.

Title-count reporting is noisy. Japanese Wikipedia notes 100 titles reached by 21 December 2009. A Guangzhou report in January 2010 put CBHD at about 150 titles against 1,800 Blu-ray titles and estimated about 50,000 CBHD players sold nationwide. Alliance messaging at the September 2009 Guangzhou conference still projected 1,000 titles and a million players for 2010; those targets were not met. Mid-2010 Tencent coverage still sat near about 100 titles with a single 3D title in existence.

Hardware set, named once

Only two brands shipped commercial players: Shinco and TCL. The six production designations used throughout this series are Shinco CBHD-9100 (flagship), CBHD-3800 (slim mid-range), HD-2100 (wall-mount/entry), HD-3700U (hybrid UTI/network player), TCL THBD-1008 (Toshiba HD-A30-derived launch model, also sold in the UK by GBAX at about £259.99) and TCL THBD-1038 (second-generation listing). Prototypes such as Tongfang’s CBHD-0002 and pre-production Shinco CBHD-9000 listings appear in forum photography but are not counted as the commercial six. No PC optical drives or laptops with CBHD branding were found in the research passes.

Protection and region notes

Domestic Chinese films used DKAA; international films used AACS. Patent-sharing language described “AACS+DKAA,” and the AACS consortium had interim CBHD specification documents as early as 2007. Region coding is poorly attested: one pass treats it as undocumented (HD DVD itself was region-free); another states discs were region-locked to China with no US or Europe editions. Packaging used black Blu-ray-size keep-cases originally associated with HD-VMD tooling, carrying a blue CBHD logo; the DVD Forum’s separate “HD DVD China” logo had been approved in November 2007.

Extensions that arrived late

On 2 July 2010 CHDA launched CBHD-3D products in Beijing and unveiled CBHD-HiFi. HiFi used dual-layer 30 GB capacity for multi-channel LPCM up to 24-bit/192 kHz over secure HDMI. By early July 2010 only one 3D title was known to exist; Guangzhou Asian Games ceremonies were planned for 3D release. These extensions did not reverse the retail decline that CMM data already showed from the second quarter of 2010.

Reading this card against later posts

When a later post cites Modulation 4-6 FSM, it is pointing at the channel-coding change that blocks naïve HD DVD firmware hacks. When it cites CETC, it means the navigation replacement for Advanced Content/HDi. When it cites AVS and DRA, remember that early 2009 discs may still have used VC-1 or AVC because China Record lacked an AVS encoder at launch. When it cites DKAA versus AACS, treat domestic and international discs as two preservation problems. The glance table is the shared vocabulary; the remaining thirteen posts unpack history, physics, codecs, patents, players, PC paths, firmware, authoring, catalogue, sourcing, community archives and open questions without repeating this card in full.

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: