historic video formats – Page 2 – HDDVD-Revived Global

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Where to Buy EVD Players and Discs

Current market reality

No confirmed listing of a genuine Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) player or a commercial EVD disc was found on JD, Suning, eBay, Kongfz or Chinese Wikipedia-linked shops in the research passes behind this series. Current searches for “EVD” on JD and Suning return DVD players, portable DVD players and Blu-ray players. That keyword collision is the central buying hazard: modern EVD retail language is not the same thing as a genuine 2004-2008 EVD deck with LSI Logic decode.

Ordinary DVD player beside a television, illustrating that EVD-labelled decks today are usually standard DVD hardware — EVD-labelled decks offered today are usually ordinary DVD players. Photo: Ma8thew, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.

What current platforms actually show

Platform	What to expect	Source
JD (京东)	“EVD” used as keyword on DVD/Blu-ray players; filter by brand and year	JD
Suning (苏宁易购)	Same pattern; e.g. Jinzheng portable “evd” DVD players at ¥369-519	Suning
Kongfz (孔夫子旧书网)	Second-hand shops with large out-of-print disc categories; best chance for period EVD discs	Kongfz VCD/disc category practice
Xianyu (闲鱼)	Second-hand players and discs; not searched in this set	–
Taobao second-hand	Not searched	–
eBay	Chinese-region DVD players occasionally listed; no EVD found	–

Kongfz remains the most promising Chinese-language place to look for period discs because its second-hand shops already organise large out-of-print film categories. Sellers may still misuse “EVD” as a vague high-definition adjective. Photographs of the disc face, EVD logo, publisher mark and 版号 matter more than the search keyword. Xianyu and Taobao second-hand were not searched here and remain high-priority next channels precisely because JD/Suning/eBay already returned no confirmed genuine objects.

Jinzheng portable players advertised with an “evd” keyword in the ¥369-519 Suning band are useful as negative examples. They show how the three letters still sell in Chinese retail search, and they show how far that marketing language has drifted from 2004-2008 living-room EVD with LSI Logic silicon and component HD outputs. Treat them as ordinary DVD/portable DVD hardware unless a seller can prove otherwise with model numbers from the period list below.

Historical retail channels (2004-2007)

Channel	Role	Source
Gome (国美)	Launch channel; chair of 2006 alliance; 30 EVD stores planned	pass 1; Baidu
Dazhong (大中电器)	First EVD HD experience hall, June 2004	Baidu
Suning (苏宁)	Listed by E-World as a retailer; later refused EVD as “fake HD”	E-World FAQ; pass 1
Yongle (永乐)	Listed by E-World	E-World FAQ
Manufacturer counters	Shinco, Amoi department-store counters	E-World FAQ
搜E网	Planned online EVD store (2006)	pass 1
800 disc outlets	Planned (2006)	pass 1

Historical geography explains where survivors may still hide. Gome was both a launch channel and, later, chair of the 2006 alliance that planned thirty EVD stores. Dazhong’s June 2004 HD experience hall is an early public demonstration node. E-World’s own FAQ listed Suning and Yongle among retailers even as other reporting notes Suning later refusing EVD as “fake HD.” That Suning contradiction is itself a buying lesson: a chain name that appears in vendor FAQ copy is not automatically a friendly modern stockist for genuine discs. Manufacturer counters for Shinco and Amoi matter because period hardware often moved through brand floors rather than through a single EVD specialist chain. Planned 2006 outlets (搜E网 online; eight hundred disc outlets) are capacity pledges, not proof that those nodes still hold stock today.

When a second-hand seller claims a machine “came from Gome” or “was from a department-store counter,” ask for carton photos, warranty cards and model stickers rather than accepting the story alone. Launch-channel provenance is historically plausible for Shinco and alliance-era decks; it is also easy to invent in a listing title. The same caution applies to discs said to be “Jindian Global from 今典” without a readable publisher mark in the photograph.

Search terms that actually help

Language / focus	Terms
Chinese, players	新科 EVD-8700; 新科 EVD8830; 新科 EVD-327; 上广电 EVD388; EVD影碟机 2005; EVD高清碟机老; 真高清 EVD 碟机; EVD 播放机 LSI
Chinese, discs	EVD碟片; EVD光盘正版; 今典环球 EVD; 中凯 EVD; 中影 EVD; EVD 高清影碟; HD-EVD 碟片
English	Enhanced Versatile Disc; EVD player Shinco; EVD disc Jindian; HD-EVD

Model-linked Chinese queries outperform the bare acronym. Shinco EVD-8700, EVD8830 and EVD-327, and SVA (上广电) EVD388, are period SKUs named in E-World and reference material. Adding LSI to player searches targets the decode silicon story rather than keyword-stuffed portable DVD players. Disc queries that name Jindian Global, Zhongkai or China Film outperform generic “高清影碟” alone.

Filter out listings after 2009 and anything describing a “DVD播放机” with “EVD” merely appended. Ask sellers for a photo of the disc tray area showing an EVD logo and of the rear panel showing component HD outputs. Those two photographs separate living-room HD EVD hardware from ordinary DVD chassis that borrowed the three letters for search ranking.

Buying recommendations

Buy genuine players only with the model number visible (EVD-8700, EVD8830, EVD-327, EVD388) and ideally with a commercial EVD disc included.
Buy discs only with a visible Jindian Global, Zhongkai or other listed publisher mark and an EVD logo.
Image discs immediately on receipt using the preservation workflow in this series.

A realistic first shopping list is therefore not a JD portable “evd” DVD player in the ¥369-519 band. Those machines document how the keyword is abused, not how 2004-2008 LSI Logic EVD worked. Budget instead for seller photo requests, Kongfz trawls through out-of-print disc lots, and immediate imaging time if a marked disc appears. Historical channels (Gome, Dazhong, Yongle, Shinco/Amoi counters) explain why survivors may surface as undifferentiated “old Chinese HD disc player” lots rather than as museum-labelled EVD artefacts.

If a candidate player arrives, verify the rear panel for component HD outputs, open or photograph the decode board for LSI Logic markings when safe, and test with an ordinary DVD first so you know the laser path works before you risk a scarce EVD title. If a candidate disc arrives, refuse to play it heavily before imaging: the preservation post’s ISO, hash, file-tree and dual-player test package is the purchase receipt that later research can reuse. Bundled player-plus-disc lots are especially valuable when both objects can be authenticated together, because period marketing often joined hardware sales to content supply.

Until a seller photographs a disc face with an EVD logo and publisher mark, or a chassis with a documented period model number and component HD outputs, every purchase remains an authenticity experiment. That is the honest market condition for EVD in the mid-2020s: the three-letter keyword is plentiful; confirmed 2004-2008 objects are not yet on the searchable shelf.

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 CVD Disc Catalogue Guides

bundled discs, Chaoji VCD, China, China Video Disc, Chinese publishers, collector catalogue, CVD, disc catalogue, historic video formats, karaoke, optical disc, physical media, pressings, title list, Video CD, 超级VCD

CVD Disc Catalogue: Titles and Bundles

What the catalogue evidence actually shows

China Video Disc (CVD) research has not yet produced a title-by-title catalogue. No ISRC list, no 版号 (publication number) register, and no named commercial CVD feature have been identified. The evidence that does survive is aggregate: contemporary Chinese press claims about how many discs were being bundled, how many publishers were “gradually” feeding the market, and how disc cost compared with Video CD. Building a CVD filmography therefore starts from those aggregate claims, from the content types the 1998 sources describe, and from a recording template that collectors can apply the moment a real disc appears-rather than from a finished list of spines.

That absence is itself historically meaningful. CVD launched into a saturated VCD retail culture in mid-1998, with player makers competing to give discs away and regulators and industry bodies already steering the market toward the Super VCD (超级VCD) national specification. Disc production was discussed as a supply problem for hardware sales, not as a curated prestige catalogue. Press language about “thousands of discs” and “several hundred titles” must be read with that commercial context in mind.

Catalogue-size claims, mid-to-late 1998

The dated claims cluster tightly between July and December 1998:

Date	Claim	Source
Jul 1998	Jinzheng will give away CVD discs with its players	Shenghuo Shibao, 22 Jul 1998
Jul 1998	CVD discs “not yet widespread”	Shenghuo Shibao, 29 Jul 1998
Nov 1998	Several hundred CVD titles bundled free by a dozen or so player makers	Guangming Daily, 3 Nov 1998
Nov 1998	Thousands of discs from nearly 20 audio-video publishers “gradually flowing into the market”	same
Nov 1998	“CVD 2000 project” to invest ¥200 million in disc production	same
Nov 1998	SVCD makers to release nearly 100 titles by year end	same
1998-1999	Super VCD discs produced with player-maker backing; some carried interference codes	Wenzhai Bao, 20 Dec 1998

Two reading rules follow. First, “thousands of discs” most likely means disc units or SKUs across all publishers, not thousands of distinct programme titles; the Guangming Daily article does not say which. Second, the November 1998 “several hundred CVD titles” figure is tied to free bundling by player makers, not to a verified retail filmography. Treat “nearly 100” Super VCD titles by year-end as a parallel SVCD-camp claim, not as proof that CVD and SVCD catalogues were the same size or the same titles.

The July 1998 Shenghuo Shibao pairing is especially useful for chronology. Jinzheng’s giveaway plan shows that hardware vendors treated discs as launch incentives before a deep retail catalogue existed. The same month’s survey language that CVD discs were “not yet widespread” confirms that early abundance claims, if any, were aspirational. By November the story had shifted from scarcity to industrial scale-publishers, investment projects, and competitive title counts-while still refusing to name individual programmes.

The CVD 2000 project as a catalogue risk

Guangming Daily’s mention of a “CVD 2000 project” intending ¥200 million of disc-production investment belongs in the catalogue file as a planned capacity claim, not as evidence that those discs shipped. Whether the project actually produced commercial CVD titles remains an open question elsewhere in this series. Catalogue rows must not invent titles from investment headlines. The correct status for CVD 2000 output is “announced investment; production unverified.”

Likely content types, not title lists

The 1998 sources and Baidu Baike’s Super VCD article indicate the programme mix that Chinese audio-video publishers were already set up to supply: feature films, karaoke (the four-channel audio pitch was aimed at karaoke use), MTV music videos, scenic films, and science and education titles. Baidu’s SVCD entry notes that such material could “easily be converted to Super VCD format for publication,” because Super VCD was an open production specification whose disc cost matched VCD apart from content royalties. That conversion language explains why contemporary writers often talked about content families rather than about unique CVD franchises.

For collectors, content-type fields therefore matter more than premature title guesswork. A karaoke CVD and a feature CVD are different preservation objects even if both are unmarked “several hundred titles” in a 1998 newspaper sentence. Scenic and science-education discs may survive in school and tourism stock rather than in film-collector shops. None of those inferences invents a named title; they only map the categories the sources themselves describe.

Publishers and pressing plants: named gaps

The “nearly 20 audio-video publishers” (音像出版社) of November 1998 remain unnamed in the located press. No pressing plant, matrix code family, or 版号 series for CVD has been identified. The only named production tool in the research set is Beijing Galaxy Computer’s domestic Super VCD authoring system-useful for understanding how open Super VCD production was supposed to work, but not a CVD title credit.

Hong Kong publishers Mei Ah Entertainment and Universe Laser were major VCD and DVD distributors in the period and appear repeatedly in Western Video CD FAQs. No CVD or SVCD release by either firm has been confirmed. That negative finding is important: Western eBay “Hong Kong VCD/DVD” lots are not automatically CVD finds, and Mei Ah / Universe branding alone does not prove Super VCD or China Video Disc encoding. Period Hong Kong stock remains a search channel, not a verified CVD publisher list.

Bundles versus retail SKUs

Jinzheng’s July 1998 giveaway plan and the November claim of several hundred titles “bundled free by a dozen or so player makers” establish player-bundle discs as a primary CVD distribution mode. Catalogue discipline therefore requires separate product classes:

Commercial standalone – sold as a disc SKU without a player carton’s obligation.
Player-bundle disc – supplied with a CVD or 超级VCD deck; may never have had a shelf price of its own.
Demonstration disc – store or factory demo material.
Promotional disc – marketing giveaways beyond the player carton.

Wenzhai Bao’s late-1998 note that Super VCD discs were produced with player-maker backing, and that some carried interference codes, further warns that “disc found in a 1998 carton” is not the same evidence class as “disc bought as a named title.” Interference-coded discs may have been compatibility weapons in the CVD-SVCD market fight rather than ordinary retail programmes. Record them, but do not fold them blindly into a commercial feature count.

Prices: VCD parity as the business model

Item	Price claim	Source
CVD disc (1998)	About the same as a VCD disc	Jinzheng article, Shenghuo Shibao, 22 Jul 1998
Super VCD disc (1998)	Cost equal to VCD; retail slightly higher due to licensed content	Baidu Baike SVCD

Price parity with VCD was part of CVD’s pitch against DVD’s higher cost structure. It also helps explain why publishers and player makers could talk about flooding the market with bundled titles: incremental disc cost was familiar CD-family economics. Super VCD’s “cost equal to VCD, retail slightly higher for licensed content” claim is the open-standard counterpart. Neither figure yields a title list, but both constrain what a future photographed CVD package should look like economically-mass-market, not boutique.

Recording template for every new find

Until named titles appear, the useful catalogue is a protocol. Each disc found should be recorded with:

Title in Chinese and English (even if English is a provisional romanisation).
Publisher name as printed.
版号 and/or ISRC if present.
Disc marking: CVD, 超级VCD, SVCD, or mixed/ambiguous labels.
Number of discs in the set.
Video width from ffprobe (352 versus 480 is the technical discriminator discussed elsewhere in this series).
Subtitle stream type.
Audio track count and channel layout.
Player bundle association, if any.
Pressing plant marks and matrix codes.
Date evidence (packaging, receipt, publisher colophon, bundle carton).
Whether the disc plays on multiple player brands.

Then classify the object as commercial standalone, player-bundle, demonstration, or promotional. That classification prevents bundle giveaways from being double-counted as retail catalogue growth when later researchers finally acquire numbers.

How to read “several hundred” without inventing spines

A responsible CVD catalogue page must refuse two temptations. The first is to invent plausible 1998 Chinese film titles and attribute them to CVD because “everyone was releasing VCD then.” The second is to treat Super VCD and CVD as interchangeable SKUs whenever a Kongfz shop labels a lot 超级VCD. Disc marking, video width, subtitle format, and playback behaviour across brands are the fields that will eventually sort the pile.

What can be stated now is limited and still valuable: July 1998 discs were not yet widespread while Jinzheng planned giveaways; by November a dozen-odd player makers were said to be bundling several hundred CVD titles and nearly twenty publishers were feeding thousands of discs into the market; an SVCD-camp claim of nearly one hundred titles by year-end sat beside a ¥200 million CVD 2000 ambition; disc cost was pitched at VCD parity; content families were film, karaoke, MTV, scenic, and education; publishers and plants remain anonymous; Mei Ah and Universe are unconfirmed for CVD/SVCD; and no individual commercial title name has yet been recovered. Until a labelled disc is photographed and measured, the CVD catalogue is a set of claims about volume, distribution mode, and programme type-not a filmography.

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 Home Authoring

CBHD, China, China Blue, China Blue High-Definition, disc image, DIY, format reverse engineering, high definition, historic video formats, home authoring, optical disc, physical media, reconstruction, recordable media

Home Authoring and CBHD Reconstruction

Positions across the research passes

Home authoring is the most contested chapter in the CBHD record. Passes disagree on whether a disc burned on ordinary DVD media can play in a CBHD player. Summary:

Pass	Position
ChatGPT pass 1	No end user could author CBHD with typical DVD tools; ordinary PC DVD/Blu-ray burners cannot produce CBHD discs.
Claude pass 1/2	No documented home method. Theoretical route blocked by FSM: no consumer burner writes FSM. Whether players read DVD-R with a CBHD folder structure is untested.
ChatGPT pass 2	Separates three projects (CBHD-like disc, playable CBHD image, physical CBHD); physical CBHD needs FSM mastering.
Gemini	Practical pipeline: AVS via libxavs, LPCM/AC3, MPEG-2 TS mux, CBHD_TS tree, UDF 2.50 ISO burned with ImgBurn to DVD+R DL, claimed playable on Shinco HD-3700U or TCL THBD-1008.

Gemini presents the pipeline as working, citing LDDb threads, What Hi-Fi, Wikipedia and general burning guides. Claude and ChatGPT passes found no documented case of a burned disc playing in a CBHD player and argue DVD burners write EFM+, not 4-6 FSM. Directory models also diverge (CBHD_TS vs EVOB/HD DVD Book 3).

Gemini pipeline (as stated)

Step 1 – encode strict AVS (GB/T 20090.2) elementary video with FFmpeg linked to libxavs, example constraints: ~15 Mbps average, maxrate 18M, closed GOP N=12 for 23.976 fps, Jizhun Base Profile Level 6.1, yuv420p. Commercial averages 12-18 Mbps sit under the CHDA 28 Mbps video ceiling.

Step 2 – audio: DRA via the Tsinghua thesis encoder if available; otherwise 16/24-bit LPCM or stereo/5.1 AC3/DTS for legacy decoder paths.

Step 3 – mux to MPEG-2 Transport Stream and lay out:

VOLUME_ROOT/
├── CBHD_TS/
│   ├── CBHD_TS.IFO
│   ├── CBHD_TS.BUP
│   ├── ITEM_001.AVS
│   ├── ITEM_001.MAP
│   └── MENU_01.AVS
└── ADV_OBJ/
    └── CETC_NAV.DAT

Primary folder CBHD_TS (or HVDVD_TS on early CH-DVD transition discs) at volume root. CBHD_TS.IFO holds stream map, sector pointers, resolution and audio assignments; without it, players such as the HD-3700U may fall back to browsing an unparsed file structure.

Step 4 – build UDF 2.50 (or 2.01 with Unicode) ISO, uppercase ASCII volume label, burn at low speed to dual-layer DVD+R. Gemini states the pickup then reads the 0.6 mm layer, recognises UDF, finds CBHD_TS and plays through onboard AVS decode. HD DVD-R blanks are also listed among usable media in that account.

Directory model comparison

Model	Top-level	Containers
Gemini	CBHD_TS/, ADV_OBJ/	MPEG-2 TS/PS; .AVS, .MAP, .IFO/.BUP, CETC_NAV.DAT
HD DVD-derived	HVDVD_TS/, ADV_OBJ/	EVOB / EVO (MPEG-PS)
Unknown	Requires real disc image	–

Claude theoretical route (untested)

Encode with libxavs or AVC; audio AC-3 or thesis DRA; mux to EVO/program stream in HD DVD Standard Content style; build UDF 2.5 image. Blocker: pressed CBHD uses FSM and no consumer burner writes FSM. Whether players accept DVD-R media carrying a CBHD folder structure-analogous to HD DVD’s “3× DVD” method-is untested. That route would also need DKAA or an unencrypted mode players accept. The only documented realistic home-content route on original hardware remains USB file playback on the CBHD-9100 (1080p files, TS/MP4, external subtitles), with HD-3700U adding AVI and network shares.

Three projects that must not be conflated

Project	Goal	Difficulty
A. CBHD-like video disc	UDF + compatible streams + simple navigation	Approachable once logical format is recovered
B. Playable CBHD image	Structure accepted by a real CBHD player	Hard (CETC + Book 2/3 details)
C. Physical CBHD	Data on CBHD physical media	405 nm, NA 0.65, FSM, channel coding, replication

VCD became accessible because its physical layer was standard CD. CBHD kept UDF, but its physical layer is not ordinary DVD burning.

Recordable CBHD (CBHD-R)

Patent CN101712809A describes an organic dye and recordable CBHD medium while calling commercial CBHD read-only replicated media. An AACS LA order form lists CBHD (China) Pre-recorded (P) and Recordable (R) options. Conclusion: recordable CBHD was technically contemplated; no evidence shows commercial CBHD-R discs, burners, recorders or consumer authoring chains shipped.

Reconstruction roadmap

Known-good CBHD disc → sector image → UDF analysis → identify video-system files.
Compare against DCA Book 3 assumptions → identify CBHD-specific extensions.
Reconstruct unencrypted/non-protected test material.

Recommended order: obtain an inexpensive domestic disc; obtain two players (Shinco CBHD-9100 and TCL THBD-1008); identify optical chipset (Novatek parts, pickup, servo DSP, RF amp); dump firmware; make a physical-sector image (ordinary PC drives may not suffice); compare with HD DVD; identify an unencrypted or legally accessible sample; locate the DCA verifier; recover CBC/Memory-Tech authoring software; only then attempt home authoring. Before buying repair donors, photograph the pickup label. Untapped sources for disc-structure clues include the full AVSForum master thread and Wayback captures of Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang category pages.

Until a photographed successful burn-to-player test is published, treat Gemini’s DVD+R DL pipeline as an unverified recipe and treat FSM mastering as required for true physical CBHD.

Keeping the disagreement visible

Readers should leave this chapter knowing the research record does not agree. Gemini publishes a full command-line pipeline culminating in an ImgBurn UDF 2.50 burn to DVD+R Dual Layer and asserts playback on Shinco HD-3700U or TCL THBD-1008. Claude and ChatGPT passes found no documented successful burn-to-player case and emphasise that consumer burners write EFM+, not 4-6 FSM. Gemini’s cited sources for the pipeline are LDDb forum threads, What Hi-Fi, Wikipedia and general Chinese burning guides-not a photographed verification on calibrated hardware in the compilation passes.

Directory hypotheses also disagree. Gemini’s CBHD_TS with ITEM_001.AVS, MAP files and CETC_NAV.DAT differs from ChatGPT pass 2’s EVOB and HD DVD Book 3 model informed by DCA documentation. Claude presumed EVO containers from HD DVD lineage. None of the passes cites a directory dump of a real pressed CBHD disc. Home authors who pick one tree without imaging a commercial disc are guessing.

USB first, pressed media later

The only documented realistic home-content route on original hardware is file playback: CBHD-9100 USB for 1080p, TS and MP4 with external subtitles; HD-3700U USB AVI and Ethernet shares. Those paths exercise SoC decoders without claiming FSM authorship. They are the correct first experiment for anyone who owns a player and wants to see AVS on period silicon.

Recordable CBHD media remains a paper trail only: patent CN101712809A for dyes; AACS LA order-form categories for Recordable CBHD; zero evidence of shipped CBHD-R discs, burners or recorders. Listing HD DVD-R among Gemini’s usable blanks does not create a commercial CBHD-R ecosystem. Project C-physical CBHD-still demands 405 nm mastering, NA 0.65 optics, FSM channel encoding and replication know-how of the Memory-Tech/UOD class.

Reconstruction roadmap order from ChatGPT pass 2: obtain a cheap domestic disc; obtain CBHD-9100 and THBD-1008 players; identify chipsets; dump firmware; make a sector image; compare with HD DVD; find an unencrypted sample; locate the DCA verifier; recover CBC/Memory-Tech software; only then attempt home authoring. Skipping to step ten is how myths about burned DVD-9 CBHD discs spread.

Encoding constraints listed for hardware compatibility-closed GOP near twelve frames at 23.976 fps, Jizhun Base Profile Level 6.1, averages of 12-18 Mbps under a 28 Mbps ceiling-remain useful even if the burn step fails. They describe what commercial players’ ASICs expected. Falling back to LPCM or AC-3 when DRA encoders are unavailable matches player backward-compatibility lists. Multiplexing to MPEG-2 TS is consistent with one directory model; EVO/program stream muxing is consistent with another. Researchers should archive both experiment branches with clear labels rather than deleting the “failed” tree.

Project A (CBHD-like disc), Project B (player-accepted image) and Project C (physical FSM CBHD) must stay separated in grant proposals and lab reports. Conflating them produces blog posts that claim “CBHD authoring works” when only Project A file layouts were demonstrated-or when only USB file playback was tested. VCD’s accessibility came from CD physicality; CBHD kept UDF but not consumer-writable physics.

If a researcher follows Gemini’s ImgBurn steps and a player rejects the disc, record the exact on-screen error, whether the volume mounted as data, and whether CBHD_TS.IFO was present. If the player plays the disc, publish model number, firmware if shown, media type (DVD+R DL versus HD DVD-R), and a short video. Either outcome closes more science than another undocumented recipe. Until then, treat burned-media playback as unresolved per the open-questions list.

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 Disc Catalogue EVD Guides

China, China Film, content library, disc catalogue, DVD, E-World, Enhanced Versatile Disc, EVD, historic video formats, Jindian Global, optical disc, physical media, publishers, red laser, title list, Zhongkai Culture, 增强型多媒体盘片系统

EVD Disc Catalogue: Titles and Publishers

What the catalogue evidence actually shows

No title-level catalogue of Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) releases was found in the research set. There is no verified spine list, no complete 版号 register and only one named demonstration title. What survives instead is a run of aggregate counts from 2003 through 2008, a short publisher roster, a thin price table and a recording template for the next disc that surfaces. Building an EVD filmography therefore starts from those aggregate claims and from publisher identity, not from a finished list of programmes.

Period optical packaging is identified by logos and publisher marks, not by the word EVD alone. Photo: William Hook, CC BY-SA, via Openverse.

Catalogue-size claims over time

Date	Count	Context	Source
Nov 2003	About 12	Hong Kong-sourced titles at the launch	EE Times (via pass 1)
2004	12	Gome launch batch	赢周刊 (via pass 1)
Jul 2004	14	Jindian Global’s first release (“今年7月，今典环球首推14部碟片”)	gzhifi
Dec 2004	“上百种” (hundreds)	Claimed by a Gome salesperson	新闻晚报 via Douban
2005	≥20 new titles a month promised	Zhongkai Culture on joining	pass 1
c. 2006-2007	“More than 100” titles, with at least 20 a month to follow	E-World FAQ	PjTime
Nov 2006	About 100 movie titles	Relaunch-era coverage	EE Times
Oct 2005	100 film licences offered free to every EVD hardware maker for bundling	Jindian “five measures”	Sina

Keep the disagreements side by side. Early 2003-2004 figures cluster around about 12 to 14 titles. A Gome salesperson in December 2004 claimed “hundreds.” E-World material around 2006-2007 speaks of more than 100 titles with further monthly supply promised. EE Times in November 2006 says about 100 movie titles. Jindian’s October 2005 “five measures” offered 100 film licences free to every EVD hardware maker for bundling, which is a licensing offer, not a proof that 100 distinct pressed SKUs already existed on shelves.

Reading rules follow from that spread. Launch-batch numbers (12, 12, 14) are the most concrete early counts and agree within a narrow band. “Hundreds” from a single salesperson is the most aggressive claim and sits alone. The later “100+” / “about 100” cluster is consistent with a mid-life catalogue that never grew into a mass Blu-ray-scale library. Promises of twenty new titles a month (Zhongkai joining language; E-World FAQ follow-on language) are supply pledges, not audited shipment logs.

Publishers

Publisher	Chinese	Role	Source
Jindian Global Digital Technology	北京今典环球数字技术有限公司	Main content company; “the only EVD disc maker” (2006)	PjTime; EE Times
Zhongkai Culture Group	广东中凯文化集团	Joined March 2005; major legitimate distributor	PjTime; Ministry of Culture article
China Film Group	中影	Publisher; alliance member	PjTime; Baidu
China Record	中唱	Publisher	PjTime
Shanli Culture	山力文化	Publisher	PjTime
Feishi Audio-Video	飞仕音像	Publisher	PjTime
Yingyi Culture	盈艺文化	Publisher	PjTime
CITVC	中国国际电视总公司	Alliance member	pass 1

Zhongkai is documented as having released hit titles such as 《无间道》, 《手机》 and 《天下无贼》 on disc in other formats. Whether those titles were actually issued on EVD is not confirmed; they are listed only to identify the company. Catalogue rows must not promote Zhongkai’s known DVD or other-format hits into EVD SKUs without disc-face evidence. Jindian Global’s “only EVD disc maker” status in 2006 EE Times coverage remains the central production claim for commercial pressing.

The only named title

《九寨沟》(Jiuzhaigou) appears as a scenic HD demonstration disc shown at the Zhongguancun computer festival and not for sale at the time (gzhifi). That is the only EVD title named in any source retrieved for this series. Identifying further titles requires physical discs, 版号 searches in the national audio-video product database, or Kongfz / Xianyu listings discussed in the buying post. Until those appear, “about 100 titles” remains a count without a filmography.

Prices

Date	Price	Source
2004-2005	“20多元” (twenty-odd yuan)	pass 1
Mar 2005	Promise of ¥3-5 per disc (“EVD digital cinema”)	Sina Finance
Oct 2005	Jindian would buy 1,000-2,000 discs at ¥15-20 each from publishers	Sina
2006	¥18-28	pass 1
2008	“Several tens of yuan”, against hundreds for Blu-ray	gqjd.net
2008 (HD-EVD)	¥15-30	Baidu

Price claims mix retail talk, wholesale buy commitments and later comparative rhetoric against Blu-ray. The March 2005 ¥3-5 “digital cinema” promise is an aspirational figure in Sina Finance coverage, not a verified shelf average. October 2005’s ¥15-20 band is what Jindian said it would pay publishers when buying discs in thousand-unit lots. Mid-2000s retail notes of twenty-odd yuan and ¥18-28 sit closer together. 2008 language comparing “several tens of yuan” with hundreds for Blu-ray is marketing contrast as much as a price list. HD-EVD’s ¥15-30 Baidu figure belongs to the 2008 successor branding, not to the 2004 launch catalogue.

Recording template for new finds

For each disc record: title (Chinese and English); publisher; 版号 / ISRC; disc marking and logos; single or dual layer; running time; audio tracks; subtitle languages; file tree (preservation post); ffprobe output; SHA-256 of image; player it was tested on; bundle source (retail, player bundle, promotional). Separate commercial standalone discs from player-bundle and demonstration objects so that catalogue counts do not quietly mix free giveaways with shelf SKUs.

Bundle versus retail status also belongs in every new row. Jindian’s October 2005 offer of 100 film licences free to hardware makers for bundling means some discs may have lived only inside player cartons. Catalogue discipline should mark retail standalone, player-bundle, demonstration and promotional objects as separate classes so that “about 100 titles” claims are not quietly inflated by counting the same programme twice under different distribution modes.

The EVD catalogue file is therefore still a method, not a filmography. Early counts of about 12-14, later claims of about 100 or “hundreds,” a named publisher list headed by Jindian Global, one demonstration title (Jiuzhaigou), and a price band mostly in the teens to twenties of yuan are all that the public sources currently support. The next confirmed commercial title will matter more than another round of aggregate adjectives.

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 CVD Guides Preservation & Ripping

archival, bitstream, Chaoji VCD, China, China Video Disc, collector research, CVD, disc identification, historic video formats, ISO image, optical disc, physical media, preservation, ripping, Video CD, 超级VCD

CVD Preservation, Ripping and Identification

Why CVD needs a two-layer archive

China Video Disc (CVD) shares the fragile sector model of VCD and SVCD. Form 2 sectors carry no Layer-2 ECC-only EDC and the CD’s CIRC. VCDImager warns that (S)VCD MPEG tracks “are more easily affected by scratches.” A preservation copy that only saves files from a mounted volume is therefore not an archive: it loses raw sector layout, error context and often wraps the MPEG in RIFF-CDXA that later tools misread as a plain program stream.

A good CVD archive has two layers. First, a raw, bit-exact disc image. Second, extracted playable MPEG program streams plus a structural description of the disc (INFO/ENTRIES/TRACKS, PBC, volume labels). The image answers “what was on the pressed or burned CD?”; the extracted streams answer “what can we play and remux tomorrow?” Copying files from a mounted disc satisfies neither question by itself.

Raw imaging

Tool	Command / method	Notes
cdrdao	`cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile disc.bin --device /dev/sr0 disc.toc` then `toc2cue disc.toc disc.cue`	2,352-byte raw sectors
CDRWin / IsoBuster / ImgBurn (Windows)	Read to BIN/CUE in raw mode	Record read errors
Any workflow	Keep a log of read errors and retries	Form 2 errors are not ECC-corrected

Raw mode matters because Form 2 payloads are not reconstructed by the same ECC path DVD and Mode 1 data enjoy. Retries and a written error log are part of the archival object, not optional debugging. Prefer imaging before heavy playback testing that might leave a marginal disc worse than you found it. On drives that struggle with Mode 2 Form 2, note the drive model in the read log: future re-reads may need a different mechanism even when the BIN already exists.

Structural extraction

vcdxrip “disassembles a given VCD or SVCD disc into a XML description and the contained MPEG program streams.” Run it against the image (vcdxrip --bin-file=disc.bin --cue-file=disc.cue) or against the drive. The resulting XML plus MPEG files can be edited and rebuilt with vcdxbuild. An Ubuntu Forums tip notes vcdxrip --nofiles extracts just the AVSEQ tracks as .mpg when you only need the elementary playback objects.

Do not trust a plain file copy. On Windows, copying /MPEG2/AVSEQnn.MPG or /MPEGAV/*.DAT yields RIFF-CDXA-wrapped data. VCDImager’s documentation is blunt: people tend to think of these as MPEG files, but they are not. Strip the wrapper with cdxa2mpeg, or better, use vcdxrip so structure and streams stay paired. IsoBuster users can open the MPEG2 folder and choose “Extract but filter only M2F2 Mpg frames.” VCDGear also extracts MPEG from CDXA files. Those tools are recovery aids; the raw BIN/CUE remains the preservation master.

When both a pressed commercial disc and a hobbyist CD-R are in the same collection, keep extraction recipes identical so that later comparison of INFO.SVD, TRACKS.SVD and program-stream widths is not confused by tool differences. Rebuild tests with vcdxbuild are useful for verifying that the XML description is complete, but a successful rebuild does not replace the original raw image.

Identifying CVD vs SVCD vs XSVCD

Check	CVD	SVCD (Philips/IEC)	XSVCD
INFO.SVD system ID	“SUPERVCD”	“SUPERVCD”	“SUPERVCD”
Video width (ffprobe)	352	480	480 (or other)
Bitrate	≤ ~2.6 Mbps	≤ ~2.6 Mbps	Often higher
Subtitle stream	CVD-style private_stream_1 (VLC: “CVD subtitles”)	OGT 0x70-series	Either
TRACKS.SVD	vcd-info may print “CVD interpretation (probably)”	IEC layout	Usually IEC
Sequence folder	/MPEG2 or /MPEGAV	/MPEG2	Either
Disc type	Pressed (commercial, 1998-1999) or CD-R	Pressed or CD-R	Usually CD-R

Only the resolution is decisive for the CVD-versus-Philips-SVCD distinction in practice. Folder names and TRACKS.SVD layout are suggestive, not conclusive: a 352-wide “XSVCD” made in the West in 2003 is structurally a CVD. Commercial Chinese discs from mid-1998 labelled CVD, or Super VCD discs from late 1998 carrying 352-wide video, are the true period objects. System ID “SUPERVCD” appears on all three columns and therefore cannot settle the question alone.

Operational checklist: dump structure with vcd-info against the CUE or BIN; probe each extracted track with ffprobe -show_streams -show_format; open the same streams in VLC and note whether it reports CVD subtitles; photograph packaging and matrix/IFPI/SID codes before the disc is filed away. When vcd-info hints at a “CVD interpretation,” treat that as supporting evidence beside the 352-wide measurement, not as a substitute for it.

Archival packaging and documentation

Keep the raw BIN/CUE (or TOC) and its read log.
Keep vcd-info output as a text file.
Keep ffprobe -show_streams -show_format -of json output for each track.
Photograph the disc (both sides), inlay, case and any matrix / IFPI / SID codes.
Hash the BIN and every extracted MPEG (SHA-256).
Make lossless access copies: ffmpeg -i avseq01.mpg -c copy -map 0 out.mkv keeps video, audio and subtitle streams together. Transcode only for convenience copies.
Record provenance: where bought, price, whether bundled with a player, and which brand of player actually plays it.
For 1998-1999 commercial discs, also record whether the disc plays on players from different brands-evidence relevant to the contemporary “interference code” compatibility disputes.

Lossless Matroska access copies are for day-to-day playback and subtitle checks in VLC; they do not replace the raw image. If a private subtitle stream exists, -map 0 is what keeps it. Dropping to a video+audio-only remux for “simplicity” is a preservation error when CVD-style or OGT packets were present on the original. Hashing both the BIN and the extracted MPEGs lets you detect silent re-rips later without reopening every tool log.

Identification pitfalls

Hobbyist CD-Rs labelled SVCD, XVCD or XSVCD may be 352-wide CVD-structured discs, 480-wide IEC SVCDs, or over-rate XSVCDs. Commercial packaging that says 超级VCD may still carry 352-wide video from the Chaoji transition period. Conversely, a Western “SVCD” burn at 480-wide with OGT subtitles is not a period Chinese CVD even if a Chaoji player plays it. Bitrate above the ~2.6 Mbps community ceiling suggests XSVCD or a non-compliant hobby encode regardless of folder names.

PC Explorer copies that “play in VLC” can still be CDXA-wrapped; always confirm with a proper rip or cdxa2mpeg before declaring an archival MPEG. Players that ignore CVD-style subtitles can make a disc look subtitle-free when VLC would report otherwise. Standalone “plays / does not play” notes should name the player brand and model: 1998 interference-era discs may fail on rivals’ Chaoji machines while succeeding on the issuing brand. Guangming Daily and Wenzhai Bao coverage of late-1998 compatibility contests and “interference codes” is why cross-brand play notes belong in the archive package, not only in forum anecdotes.

Putting the workflow together

A minimal responsible pipeline for a newly acquired CVD or Super VCD candidate is: photograph and note provenance; raw-image with error log; vcdxrip (or IsoBuster M2F2 extract) to clean MPEGs plus XML; vcd-info and ffprobe sidecars; SHA-256 hashes; lossless MKV access copy; VLC subtitle check; optional hardware play notes across brands for commercial 1998-1999 discs. Only after that stack exists should the physical disc be treated as replaceable for routine viewing.

Preservation of CVD is therefore less glamorous than format archaeology and more like careful CD-XA work: protect the Form 2 sectors, refuse mounted-file illusions, measure 352 versus 480, and keep private subtitle streams attached to the program stream. Identification follows measurement; nostalgia labels on the jewel case do not. When later catalogue posts ask whether a survivor is “true period CVD,” the answer should be readable from this package-width, subtitle flavour, press-versus-burn medium, and any selective playback failures-without inventing titles the disc face never carried.

The same discipline applies when a disc arrives as a BIN/CUE from someone else. Re-run vcd-info and ffprobe yourself; verify hashes if the donor provides them; and do not assume their “CVD” label survived a width check. Community encodes from the early 2000s often used SatStorm’s 2,520 kbps half-D1 recipe under an SVCD authoring path-structurally CVD-like, commercially unrelated to 1998 Chinese pressings. Archival notes should say which case you have, in plain language, so the next reader does not merge hobbyist CD-Rs with period Chaoji stock.

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 Professional Authoring

authoring, CBC, CBHD, China, China Blue, China Blue High-Definition, high definition, historic video formats, Memory-Tech, optical disc, physical media, premastering, professional production, UOD, verification

Professional CBHD Authoring and Verification

Authoring existed-consumers never saw the tools

All research passes agree that no consumer-level CBHD authoring package-the equivalent of DVD Architect, Adobe Encore or a “Sonic Scenarist CBHD”-was ever released publicly. The sharper distinction matters: “there was no CBHD authoring software” is false; “there was no publicly available consumer CBHD authoring package” appears to be true. A professional authoring system existed inside the Memory-Tech / China Record joint ventures. Its software stack has not surfaced in any source found. Searches for Sonic Scenarist HD branded for CBHD and for Chinese tools from OMNERC, 中录 or 清华同方 returned empty.

Memory-Tech, CBC and UOD

Memory-Tech (Japan), the largest HD DVD replicator, developed the complete CBHD production process and planted it in China:

Shanghai United Optical Disc Co., Ltd. (UOD, 上海联合光盘) – Memory-Tech’s Shanghai joint venture with China Record Shanghai. Opened the first CBHD line in July 2008. In April 2009 it was described as the only Chinese company with the technology and equipment to produce CBHD discs.
CBC – CRC/BMB Audio Visual Co., Ltd. – established jointly by Memory-Tech and China Record Corporation specifically for CBHD editing, encoding and authoring. By March 2009 CBC had completed five Chinese CBHD movie titles with more than twenty in production.

On 23 March 2009 Memory-Tech announced an integrated CBHD production system for China covering editing through mass production. April 2009 announcements described the chain as editing → encoding → authoring → disc production → release; several dozen titles were in preparation at the 22 April launch, and orders for 25 titles had been received from Warner China and CRC. One pass frames this as a government-backed Shanghai facility for “compiling and authoring,” implying a closed workflow on proprietary software with special encoders for AVS/AVC/VC-1 and encryption. Commercial authoring was tightly controlled by the Memory-Tech/CRC joint venture.

Likely production chain

Source material
Encoding / editing at CBC
CBHD authoring at CBC
Premastering
Replication at UOD
Released CBHD disc

Technology flowed Memory-Tech → CBC authoring/encoding → UOD replication. That yields three archives to search for lost authoring software: Memory-Tech, CBC (CRC/BMB) and UOD. Memory-Tech’s March and April 2009 CBHD press releases (memory-tech.co.jp news pages for 23 Mar and 30 Apr 2009) remain primary documents.

What professional authoring had to produce

Beyond elementary AVS or Western video and DRA/Dolby/LPCM audio, a commercial CBHD title needed:

Correct UDF volume layout (exact version and identifiers still under investigation).
Application structures accepted by CETC navigation-menus, dual highlight regions, preview audio, multi-angle, multi-audio, subtitles.
Either DKAA packaging for domestic titles or AACS packaging for international titles.
Premasters compatible with 4-6 FSM channel encoding and blue-laser replication-not DVD EFM+ burners.

Early 2009 production faced an encoder gap: China Record did not have an AVS encoder in April 2009, so early discs likely used VC-1 or AVC. AVS + DKAA “new generation” discs were unveiled in September 2009. Professional houses therefore switched profiles mid-life of the format; any recovered toolset may have versioned templates for both generations.

The DCA verifier as specification oracle

The Digital Content Association (DCA) still documents a CBHD-capable verification product:

Class A verification system includes a UDF Verifier that validates Book 2 file-system structures for Blu-ray ROM and CBHD media.
Video System Verifier supports China HD video content, validating against HD DVD Book 3 1.x specification with supplemental information.
Supported items: EVOB, HDi content, Full Trust, Restricted Mode, UDF images, replica discs and raw video-system files.

This implies CBHD did not invent every logical structure from scratch. It reused HD DVD Book 3 assumptions with Chinese supplemental information-consistent with “HD DVD physical architecture + modified Chinese physical channel + modified application/navigation layer + Chinese codecs/DRM.” Locating the DCA verifier executable and its China HD configuration files is a priority research target: it can score candidate images even when original authoring GUIs are lost.

Where the tools might still hide

Memory-Tech internal archives and retired replication-line PCs.
CBC / CRC-BMB editing suites and employee-retained ISOs.
UOD plant engineering stores (premaster formats, job tickets, verifier reports).
CHDA / CHDIA member FTP drops and Wayback captures of chdia.org.cn.
AACS LA CBHD pre-recorded book (v0.90, 7 Oct 2008) for international-title protection parameters.
DCA installer media and licence dongles among former QC houses.

Sonic Scenarist HD remains a search keyword because HD DVD professionals already knew it; absence of public CBHD plugins does not prove Memory-Tech never ran a private branch. Chinese-named muxers and “compiling” tools may never have used the English word authoring in filenames.

Professional vs home: the bright line

Professional production ends in FSM-mastered, replicated discs from UOD. Home experiments that burn UDF trees to DVD+R DL (discussed in the home-authoring post) are a different project even when they reuse AVS encoders. Confusing the two produces false claims that “CBHD authoring is solved” because someone encoded AVS with libxavs. Professional CBHD meant CBC’s closed stack plus Memory-Tech’s channel and replication know-how. Recovery work should prioritise those companies’ artefacts and the DCA verifier over modern DVD authoring suites.

Until those artefacts surface, the verifiable statements are: professional authoring existed; consumer packages did not ship; CBC completed titles before launch; UOD pressed them; DCA still describes how to validate China HD structures against HD DVD Book 3 plus supplements. That is enough to aim archival searches and not enough to press a new commercial CBHD title tomorrow.

Timeline of the professional stack

July 2008: Shanghai United Optical Disc opened the first CBHD production line. March 2009: CBC reported five Chinese titles completed and more than twenty in production; Memory-Tech announced an integrated editing-to-mass-production system on 23 March. Early March 2009: Warner announced support through CAV Warner with launch titles priced ¥50-70. April 2009: Memory-Tech described orders for twenty-five titles from Warner China and CRC and several dozen titles in preparation for the 22 April commercial launch. That sequence shows authoring capacity existed before retail players filled GOME shelves-content was not an afterthought bolted on after hardware shipped.

ChatGPT pass 1 characterises the Shanghai facility as government-backed “compiling and authoring,” implying proprietary encoders for AVS, AVC and VC-1 plus encryption stages. Gemini describes commercial authoring as tightly controlled by the Memory-Tech and China Record joint venture. Neither description names a Windows installer the public could buy. Searches for Sonic Scenarist HD CBHD plugins and for OMNERC, 中录 or 清华同方 consumer tools returned empty in Claude pass 2.

What verification implies about logical structure

DCA’s China HD configuration validating against HD DVD Book 3 1.x with supplemental information-including EVOB, HDi content, Full Trust and Restricted Mode-means professional QC houses treated CBHD as an HD DVD application descendant with Chinese deltas rather than a wholly alien book set. That is encouraging for reconstruction: recover the supplements, and large parts of Book 3 tooling may still apply. It also explains why directory hypotheses swing between CBHD_TS trees and HVDVD_TS/EVOB layouts-both families could appear depending on generation and tool chain.

Primary documents to retrieve next: Memory-Tech’s 23 March and 30 April 2009 press releases; any CBC rate cards or job tickets; UOD replication order forms; DCA verifier installers; AACS CBHD Pre-recorded Book 0.90 for international titles; CHDA 2009 format document referenced for mandatory AVS and DKAA. Those artefacts, not Adobe Encore templates, define professional CBHD.

Early production also faced the AVS encoder gap at China Record in April 2009, so professional houses likely authored VC-1 or AVC titles first and switched to AVS plus DKAA after the September 2009 “new generation” unveil. Any recovered toolset may therefore contain dual templates. QC houses using DCA’s China HD mode would have validated both generations against Book 3 supplements. Hunting for a single “CBHD Scenarist” filename understates how fragmented the private toolchain probably was across encoding, muxing, CETC menu building, DKAA/AACS packaging and premaster hand-off to UOD.

Memory-Tech’s role as the largest former HD DVD replicator explains why CBHD replication appeared quickly after Toshiba exited HD DVD: the company already knew 0.6 mm blue-laser manufacturing and could retarget channel coding and application finishing for Chinese partners. UOD as the April 2009 sole Chinese presser concentrates archaeological risk-and opportunity-in one plant lineage.

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 EVD Guides Preservation & Authoring

archival, authoring, China, collector research, disc identification, DVD, E-World, Enhanced Versatile Disc, EVD, historic video formats, hobbyist, optical disc, physical media, preservation, red laser, ripping, 增强型多媒体盘片系统

EVD Preservation, Identification and Authoring

Authoring today is not a hobbyist path

Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) discs were not something end users burned at home with Nero-class tools. EE Times in 2006 described Jindian Global as “the only EVD disc maker.” PjTime’s overview of E-World’s professional software names the toolchain that sat behind that monopoly: DVD-to-EVD conversion, AC-3-to-EAC conversion, the OGT subtitle authoring system and the EVD digital video disc authoring system. None of those tools, and none of the SJ/T 11299 standard texts, are publicly available. Video and audio were protected by proprietary encryption.

A step-by-step hobbyist guide to making a playable EVD disc therefore cannot be written from current evidence. Anyone promising a modern “author your own EVD” recipe is either rebranding ordinary DVD authoring or inventing steps the public record does not support. The rest of this post covers what can still be done with existing discs and players: identification, imaging, documentation and hardware care.

Identifying a genuine EVD disc

Check	Genuine EVD	DVD labelled EVD
Publisher mark	Jindian Global (今典环球), Zhongkai (中凯), China Film (中影), China Record (中唱), 山力, 飞仕, 盈艺	Any
Logo	EVD logo on disc and case	Often “EVD” only in listing text
Period	2004-2008	Any
Standard DVD player	Should refuse or show no playable title	Plays normally
PC file listing	Non-VIDEO_TS structure (expected; undocumented)	VIDEO_TS with IFO/VOB
版号 / ISRC	Present on legitimate releases	–

The modern retail keyword “EVD” on Chinese DVD players is not evidence of a genuine 2004-2008 EVD deck with LSI Logic decode silicon. The same caution applies to discs. A listing that only types “EVD” into the title field while the photographs show ordinary DVD artwork is a DVD until proven otherwise. Ask for publisher marks, an EVD logo on the disc face and case, and a short playback note on a known ordinary DVD player. A genuine title should fail or show nothing playable on that ordinary deck; a mislabelled DVD will play.

On a PC, expect a non-VIDEO_TS layout. The exact directory and file names remain undocumented, so the first public file tree from a commercial disc would itself be a research contribution. Presence of VIDEO_TS with IFO/VOB files is strong evidence that the object is ordinary DVD Video, regardless of how many times the seller wrote EVD in the advertisement.

Imaging an EVD disc on Linux

EVD is physically a DVD with a UDF file system, so ordinary DVD tools can image it. The commands below are standard DVD-imaging procedures. They have not been tested on an EVD disc by any source found for this series; treat them as a reasoned starting procedure, not as a verified EVD cookbook.

# 1. Identify the drive and disc
lsblk
sudo dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/sr0

# 2. Make a sector image with error logging
sudo ddrescue -b 2048 -r 3 /dev/sr0 evd_title.iso evd_title.map

# 3. Hash the image
sha256sum evd_title.iso > evd_title.iso.sha256

# 4. List the UDF directory tree without mounting
7z l evd_title.iso > evd_title_filelist.txt
# or mount read-only:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/evd && sudo mount -o ro,loop -t udf evd_title.iso /mnt/evd
find /mnt/evd -printf '%pt%sn' > evd_title_tree.txt

# 5. Probe any large media files found
for f in $(find /mnt/evd -type f -size +10M); do
  ffprobe -hide_banner "$f" 2> "$(basename "$f").probe.txt"
done

If the disc uses CSS-style drive authentication, ddrescue will report read errors on protected sectors. Record those errors rather than retrying indefinitely. Publishing the output of the file-tree and probe steps would be the first public documentation of the EVD file system. That publication value is why imaging belongs ahead of aggressive playback experiments that might leave a marginal disc worse than you found it.

Imaging on Windows

ImgBurn: Mode, Read, select the drive, choose a destination .iso, then Read. Keep the log. IsoBuster can inspect the UDF structure, export a file list (right-click, Extract / File list), and record sector ranges of large files. 7-Zip can open the .iso to list files. MediaInfo or ffprobe should be run on any large files to see whether they parse as MPEG-2 program or transport streams. Even a “does not parse” result is archival evidence when paired with the file tree and hash.

Documentation package for each disc

Raw ISO image with read log and SHA-256 hash.
File tree listing with sizes.
ffprobe / MediaInfo output for all large files.
Photographs of disc (both sides, including inner-ring matrix/SID codes), case, inlay and any EVD logo.
Publisher, 版号, ISRC, price and purchase source.
Playback test results on a genuine EVD player and on an ordinary DVD player.

The dual playback note is the cheapest authenticity filter. Ordinary DVD behaviour plus VIDEO_TS layout means you imaged a DVD. Refusal on a standard deck plus a non-VIDEO_TS tree plus a period publisher mark is the evidence pattern the identification table predicts for genuine EVD. Hashes and probe sidecars let later researchers compare finds without shipping discs.

Preserving players

Keep the original remote, manual, warranty or repair card and box. Those objects document model and date when the chassis sticker is incomplete. Record the LSI Logic chip marking and any firmware version shown in the setup menu. Store laser pickups away from heat; DVD-era pickups lose output with age. Test component HD output at 1080i and 720p with a display that still accepts analogue component video, and write down which timings worked.

Again, modern shop listings that print “EVD” on a portable DVD player are not substitutes for a documented 2004-2008 model with LSI Logic decode. Preservation notes should name the chip marking you saw, not the marketing keyword on a 2020s carton.

What would unlock EVD

The texts of SJ/T 11299.1-4 (disc, file system, A/V data, ExAC audio).
A copy of E-World’s EVD authoring system or the 影海风雷 PC player.
A published file tree and sample streams from a commercial disc.
The LSI Logic decoder part number and firmware from a genuine player.

Those four unlocks map directly onto the gaps that stop authoring guides and soft playback. Standards texts would define containers and audio; authoring or PC-player binaries would show how encryption and menus were applied; a published file tree would end speculation about directory layout; LSI Logic part numbers would tie living-room hardware to silicon documentation. Until they appear, EVD preservation work is imaging, photographing, hashing and refusing to invent playable DIY burns.

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 CVD Guides Home Authoring

CD-R, Chaoji VCD, China, China Video Disc, CVD, DeVeDe, FFmpeg, historic video formats, hobbyist encoding, home authoring, mplex, optical disc, physical media, vcdimager, Video CD, 超级VCD

Home Authoring CVD Discs

Authoring CVD means non-standard SVCD

Every practical home-authoring path for China Video Disc (CVD) builds an SVCD-structured disc that carries 352-wide MPEG-2 video. No mainstream tool implements a separate, fully documented CVD disc type except DeVeDe, and DeVeDe cannot make menus for it. “Standard SVCD” presets will either refuse 352-wide video or silently rescale it to 480, so user or non-standard SVCD modes must be used. The goal is a Mode 2 Form 2 CD that Chinese and many Asian players treat as CVD/SVCD-family media, not a unique ISO type stamped “CVD” in the imager.

Route summary

Route	Platform	Menus	Chapters	Subtitles	Best for
DeVeDe / DeVeDeNG	Linux	No	Limited	Burned-in / rendered	Quick discs from files
ffmpeg + vcdimager	Any	No	Via splits	Burned-in	Scriptable single-title discs
mjpegtools + vcdimager	Linux/macOS	No	Via sequence splits	Burned-in	Fine encoder control, interlaced sources
vcdxgen / vcdxbuild XML	Any	Yes	Yes	Muxed streams	Full PBC discs
Windows period toolchain	Windows	Yes (VCDEasy, Nero)	Yes	CVD-style or OGT	2002-era community recipes

Target parameter sheet

Setting	PAL CVD	NTSC CVD	NTSC film CVD
Frame size	352×576	352×480	352×480
Frame rate	25	29.97	23.976 with 3:2 pulldown flags
Display aspect	4:3 or 16:9 anamorphic	4:3 / 16:9	4:3 / 16:9
GOP	≤15, closed	≤18, closed	≤18 (display), closed
Video rate	CBR 2,520 or VBR avg 1,800-2,300, max 2,516-2,520	same	same
VBV buffer	1,835,008 bits (ffmpeg) / 230 KB (mplex)	same	same
Audio	MP2, 44,100 Hz, stereo, 224 kbps	same	same
Pack size	2,324 bytes	same	same

The “2,520 CBR, closed GOPs, max 15 (PAL) / 18 (NTSC)” recipe comes from VideoHelp CCE workflows and SatStorm’s guide. It is community convention, not a quoted specification clause. A 2,520 kbps video peak plus 224 kbps audio stays under the 2,778 kbps mux ceiling with headroom. If the material may later move to DVD, keep a 48 kHz master and resample to 44.1 kHz only for the CD.

Bitrate planning for an 80-minute CD-R (about 836.6 MB payload less roughly 2% for ISO track, gaps and mux overhead) runs approximately: 40 minutes → ~2,730 kbps mux, CBR 2,400-2,520 video; 50 minutes → ~2,190 kbps, VBR avg ~1,900 max 2,520; 60 minutes → ~1,820 kbps, avg ~1,550; 70 minutes → ~1,560 kbps, avg ~1,300; 80 minutes → ~1,370 kbps, avg ~1,100 (or drop audio to 160 kbps). These are planning estimates derived from CD capacity figures, not measured encodes.

DeVeDe / DeVeDeNG

Classic DeVeDe (Python 2 / PyGTK) was rewritten as DeVeDeNG (Python 3 / GTK3) by Sergio Costas (rastersoft). The old GitHub repository was archived on 31 January 2019; development moved to GitLab. DeVeDe’s FAQ defines CVD as “an alternative format to SuperVCD, using a resolution of 352×480 (or 352×576 in PAL)… compatible with DVD standard.” Back-ends include MPlayer/MEncoder or FFmpeg for conversion and VCDImager for VCD/SVCD/CVD imaging. Missing back-ends grey out disc types.

Typical flow: install devede and vcdimager, choose CVD in the disc-type dialog, set PAL or NTSC, add files, set aspect and bitrate, optionally burn in SRT subtitles (custom font via $HOME/.spumux/devedesans.ttf), then burn the BIN/CUE with cdrdao, K3b or Brasero in disc-at-once mode. Known limits: no menus for VCD/SVCD/CVD; 99-file limit; newer versions speed 24 fps film to 25 fps (~4% faster); do not work on FAT32 volumes; subtitle flavour (CVD-style vs OGT) is undocumented-test on hardware.

ffmpeg, mjpegtools and VCDImager

ffmpeg has -target presets for vcd, svcd, dvd and related types, but no cvd target. The documented PAL SVCD preset uses 480×576; documentation states that any user-set parameter overrides the preset, so CVD is the SVCD target with a 352-wide scale. Community recipes use -target pal-svcd or ntsc-svcd, scale=352:576 or 352:480, setsar=1, closed GOPs (-flags +cgop), maxrate about 2516k, bufsize 1835008, MP2 at 44100 Hz / 224k, and for interlaced sources +ilme+ildct with matching field order. Burned-in subtitles should be rendered before scaling. Long titles can be split with segment muxing, checking GOP boundaries with ffprobe.

mjpegtools treats profile -f 5 as user-rate SVCD-bitrate, buffer, GOP and frame size may be non-standard-which is the legitimate CVD path. Profile -f 4 is standard 480-wide SVCD only. A typical pipeline pipes scaled yuv4mpeg into mpeg2enc -f 5, encodes MP2 audio separately, then mplex -f 5 -V -b 230 -r 2750. Do not confuse this with mjpegtools’ anytovcd.sh “cvd” profile, which is half-D1 DVD (mpeg2enc -f 8, AC-3 at 48 kHz), not CD CVD.

Quick mastering without menus:

vcdimager -t svcd -l "MY_CVD" -c cvd.cue -b cvd.bin --update-scan-offsets cvd_pal.mpg

There is no -t cvd. VCDImager documents only 480-wide SVCD resolutions as officially supported, so expect a non-compliance warning for 352-wide video. Use --update-scan-offsets so scan placeholders from the encoder become real FF/REW offsets. If a player rejects a compliant image, --broken-svcd-mode is a last resort.

Menus, chapters and subtitles with vcdxbuild

For PBC menus, generate a starting XML with vcdxgen -t svcd, edit videocd.xml (class=”svcd”), then vcdxbuild. Sequence entry times (seconds) become chapters only if the encoder placed a sequence header, GOP header and I-frame at each entry-closed GOPs help; keep relaxed APS off. Still menus use SVCD still profiles (mpeg2enc -f 7) referenced as segment items; a disc must still contain at least one motion sequence.

Subtitle choice is a trade-off. CVD-style (I-Author format) has the widest support on legacy Chinese and Asian players according to forum users, but the format is reverse-engineered and no maintained open-source muxer is identified-period EnReach I-Author is the named professional path. SVCD OGT (0x70-0x73) is specification-compliant and supported by VLC and many later DVD players; some legacy decks ignore it. Burned-in text plays everywhere but costs bitrate and switchability. Period OGT workflows used SubRip BMPs and winsubmux before VCDImager mastering.

Windows period toolchain and burning

TMPGEnc Plus 2.5: start from the SVCD template, change size to 352×480/576, MPEG-2 around 2,520 kbps, MP2 224 kbps at 44.1 kHz, system stream “Super Video-CD.” Kwag’s KVCD.net templates include XCVD/CVD variants. CCE: 352-wide, CBR 2,520 or multipass VBR, closed GOP, max 15/18; RoBa (“RSVCD”) was the Doom9-era CCE SVCD recipe. VCDEasy (GUI over VCDImager): digitalFAQ notes SVCD, XSVCD and CVD should use SVCD 1.0 type; tell VCDEasy to ignore CVD-related error messages; enable CDRDAO integration. Nero SVCD projects include a compliance check that VideoHelp users say can pass over-rate streams. DVD2SVCD’s authors pushed VCDImager to accept OGT IDs 0x70-0x73 in 2001. Burn BIN/CUE disc-at-once with ImgBurn, CDRWin or cdrdao-never as a data-file project.

cdrdao on Linux/macOS is typically cdrdao write --device /dev/sr0 --speed 4 against the CUE; Linux.com SVCD tutorials preferred even lower speeds for player compatibility. Test CD-RW first: many DVD players prefer one media type over the other for CD-R versus CD-RW.

Troubleshooting and CVD-to-DVD

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix direction
“No disc” / data CD	Burned as data files	Re-burn BIN/CUE disc-at-once
PC yes, player no	No CD-R support or Philips-only SVCD	Try CD-RW / other player / 480-wide
Half-width picture	Aspect / display-size signalling	Correct `-aspect`; try mpeg2enc SVCD HDS options
High-motion stutter	Peaks above 2× mux ceiling	Cap maxrate ≤ 2,516-2,520
FF/REW dead	Missing scan offsets	`--update-scan-offsets`
Chapters ignored	Entry not at access point	Closed GOPs; no relaxed APS
No subtitles	Wrong flavour or high bitrate	CVD-style vs OGT; lower max (~1,800 kbps anecdote)
Audio slow / pitched	48 kHz on CD	Resample to 44.1 kHz

Pre-burn software checks catch many of the same failures. vcd-info against the CUE or BIN dumps INFO/ENTRIES/TRACKS structure; vcdxminfo reports how the imager library sees an MPEG; ffprobe should confirm 352×576 or 352×480, mpeg2video and mp2 at 44100 Hz before you spend a blank. If vcdimager rejects the stream, remux with pack size 2,324 and MP2 at 44.1 kHz before blaming the burner.

Because CVD video is DVD-legal at half-D1 sizes, a CVD can move to DVD-Video without re-encoding the picture: demux, resample audio to 48 kHz (often AC-3), mux as DVD program stream and author with dvdauthor. VideoHelp users recommend that path for VHS archives-capture once at 352×576/480, keep CVD for CD copies and DVD for longer-running sets. Home authoring CVD is therefore less inventing a format than forcing SVCD tooling to keep the 352-wide picture Chinese players expected in 1998.

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 Firmware & Drives Guides

CBHD, China, China Blue, China Blue High-Definition, cross-flashing, drive compatibility, firmware, HD DVD player, high definition, historic video formats, Novatek, optical disc, optical pickup, physical media, SoC

CBHD Firmware, Cross-Flashing and Drive Compatibility

What nobody has documented

No research pass found a documented, successful firmware cross-flash in either direction-HD DVD → CBHD or CBHD → HD DVD-or any region/DRM hack, ripping report, directory dump or MediaInfo log from a CBHD disc. No public consumer firmware updates or hacks were released to cross-convert between HD DVD and CBHD. What exists is speculation from 2008-2009 and three different technical arguments that only partly agree.

Contemporary speculation (2008-2009)

AVSForum thread “Latest news – China turns HDDVD into CBHD” (2008): early debate over whether HD DVD drive firmware could handle CBHD modulation. Richard Paul argued HD DVD players are physically incapable.
See You Next Wednesday blog (28 May 2009): Western hopes for an HD DVD → CBHD firmware hack.
Gizmodo (2008): CH-DVD player essentially an HD DVD player “whose laser is set at a different modulation”; manufacturing could share processors and optical pickups.
AVSForum master thread: an HD-XA2 owner promised to test HD DVD discs in a CBHD player in a store; no follow-up result found.
What Hi-Fi forum (16 Oct 2009): confirms CBHD discs will not play in HD DVD players because of AVS/DRA and new copy protection.

Argument 1 – modulation and channel hardware

A firmware change could potentially alter codec support, navigation, DRM, file-system interpretation and software decoding. It cannot make a pickup/servo/channel decoder support a different modulation system unless the signal-processing hardware already supports that mode. The Novatek NT90912 explicitly lists FSM alongside ETM/EFM/EFM+. Patents CN201549222U and CN102682801B show optical systems engineered around CBHD’s specific requirements, including BD vs CBHD NA differences.

Scenario	Assessment
Ordinary Toshiba/Onkyo/Microsoft HD DVD player → CBHD by firmware	No evidence of successful conversion
HD DVD firmware conversion in general	Potentially possible only on hardware already containing CBHD channel support
Later Chinese universal optical drive (Novatek FSM-capable)	Much more plausible because chips existed that supported CBHD

Argument 2 – SoC decoders and firmware structure

Another pass treats late HD DVD and CBHD optical pickups as functionally interchangeable (405 nm diode, same focal lengths, tracking servos and RF stages for 0.6 mm substrates) but calls cross-flashing an HD DVD player into a CBHD player architecturally impossible at the SoC level:

Hardware ASIC decoders: Toshiba HD DVD players used Broadcom (e.g. BCM7411) or NEC SoCs with hard-wired logic for MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264 video and Dolby Digital, DTS and E-AC3 audio; they had no programmable microcode capable of AVS or DRA decoding.
Firmware structure: A CBHD disc in an HD DVD player mounts only as a raw ISO/data disc; the player cannot find HVDVD_TS execution scripts or AACS certificates and reports unrecognised media.
Bricking risk: Flashing a Toshiba HD DVD player’s EEPROM with a dumped Shinco or TCL firmware binary will permanently brick it-memory maps, GPIO, display drivers and front-panel microcontrollers share no register alignment across manufacturers.

Source tension: the claim that a CBHD disc mounts as a data disc in an HD DVD player, and the claim that HD DVD PC drives read CBHD sectors, conflict with the modulation argument and with findings that HD DVD players cannot read CBHD because of FSM. Also, the TCL THBD-1008 is built on a Toshiba HD-A30 board with an NEC EMMA3 SoC, which softens a pure “no shared hardware” story for at least one commercial CBHD model.

Argument 3 – shared Toshiba platform

Because the THBD-1008 reuses a Toshiba HD-A30 motherboard with changed firmware and power supply, a theoretical route exists: changing modulation/demodulation in the front-end channel IC or firmware, plus the navigation layer, might make an HD DVD drive read CBHD. Nobody has shown this. Drive firmware would still have to handle FSM 4-6 instead of ETM 8-12. Shinco’s CBHD-9100 is only “likely” HD-A35-derived in forum discussion, not confirmed by a service manual dump.

Firmware archive leads

No CBHD firmware files, update discs (升级光盘/固件) or dumps were found. Explicit dump target: TCL THBD-1008 Spansion S29GL256N 32 MB NOR flash. Recommended dump motivation: CETC parser, file-system parser, codec libraries, DRM implementation, hardware register definitions and strings naming internal file structures.

HD DVD firmware resources useful for comparison (not CBHD): hddvd-revived firmware catalogue; hd-dvd.org firmware page; Internet Archive “HD-DVD Firmware Update Archive: Toshiba”; AVForums European Toshiba firmware threads; Reddit r/HDDVD “HD DVD Emulator Firmware.” Generic cross-flashing material (LG/Renesas tutorials, MakeMKV UHD drive flashing, DVDFab, LTO autoloader guides) teaches technique without supplying CBHD binaries.

Optical compatibility is not firmware compatibility

Patent CN102682801B (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, priority 17 March 2011) describes a freeform objective lens focusing 405 nm for both BD (NA 0.85) and CBHD (NA 0.65). Patent CN201549222U discusses pickups that must handle incompatible CBHD and Blu-ray geometries. These documents show optical engineers treated format coexistence as a lens and pickup problem. Firmware alone does not invent NA 0.65 behaviour on an NA 0.85 head, and does not invent FSM demodulation on an ETM-only channel ASIC.

Donor strategy for repair therefore separates layers: Toshiba HD-A30/A35 family parts may supply PSUs, loaders and possibly boards for THBD-1008 / CBHD-9100 lineage machines; pickups should be matched by photographing labels on a real CBHD unit before buying; firmware should not be expected to cross-flash. PHR-803T-family HD DVD pickups are plausible candidates only after label comparison.

Working conclusions

No successful consumer cross-flash is on record.
FSM channel support is the hard gate for reading pressed CBHD.
AVS/DRA ASIC absence blocks many HD DVD SoCs even if sectors somehow appeared.
THBD-1008’s Toshiba motherboard makes it the most interesting firmware-comparison target, not a proven flash candidate.
Novatek FSM-capable front ends are the more plausible base for any future universal drive work.
Dumping CBHD firmware is higher value than hunting mythical HD DVD→CBHD update discs.

Forum hopes from 2009 assumed China had merely re-skinned HD DVD. The engineering record-FSM, CETC, DKAA/AACS split, AVS/DRA-says otherwise. Cross-flashing remains a research question with negative empirical results so far, not a weekend project with a USB-TTL cable.

How the three arguments interact

Argument 1 (modulation hardware) blocks any plan that treats firmware as omnipotent: without FSM in the servo/channel ASIC, a flashed EEPROM cannot invent a demodulator. Argument 2 (SoC codecs) blocks plans that assume AVS/DRA can run on Broadcom/NEC HD DVD silicon that only hard-wires MPEG-2/VC-1/H.264 and Dolby/DTS/E-AC3. Argument 3 (shared Toshiba platform) keeps a narrow door open for the THBD-1008 specifically, because that machine already pairs a Toshiba-derived board with CBHD firmware-but the door opens onto front-end channel work, not a consumer update disc.

Pickups may be the least of the problems if Gemini’s interchangeability claim holds for late 0.6 mm blue-laser heads. Even then, channel coding and navigation diverge. Patents CN201549222U and CN102682801B further show that CBHD versus Blu-ray optics needed deliberate lens and pickup engineering; they do not license wishful HD DVD→CBHD flashes.

What a responsible dump campaign looks like

Acquire a working TCL THBD-1008 and photograph the Spansion package before desoldering or clip-reading.
Acquire a Shinco CBHD-9100 for comparison strings and loader behaviour.
Store raw dumps hashed; do not redistribute decrypted movie keys if present.
String-search for CETC, CBHD_TS, HVDVD_TS, DKAA, AVS, DRA, FSM and UDF identifiers.
Diff against public Toshiba HD-A30 firmware only as a map, never as a write source.
Document Novatek or other front-end part numbers from board photos before scavenging donors.

No pass found 升级光盘, vendor update download pages or Taobao firmware sellers for CBHD models. Generic LG/Renesas or MakeMKV UHD flashing tutorials teach electrical practice only. The archival outcome to seek is understanding-parsers, register maps, file-structure names-not a mythical “enable CBHD” checkbox on a Western HD DVD player.

Store-test anecdotes remain incomplete: an HD-XA2 owner promised to try HD DVD discs in a CBHD deck and never reported back; What Hi-Fi readers were told CBHD discs would not play in HD DVD players because of codecs and copy protection. Those fragments align with commercial incompatibility even where hardware DNA is shared.

Even shared Toshiba DNA on the THBD-1008 does not license casual EEPROM swaps. Memory maps, GPIO wiring, display controllers and front-panel microcontrollers differ enough across manufacturers that flashing Shinco binaries onto Toshiba-derived boards-or the reverse-is described as a permanent brick risk. Read-only dumps remain the productive path; write experiments belong last, after string analysis and channel chip identification.

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 EVD Guides PC Playback

authoring tools, China, decoder, DVD, E-World, E-World software, Enhanced Versatile Disc, EVD, historic video formats, optical disc, PC optical drive, PC playback, physical media, red laser, software packages, Windows, 增强型多媒体盘片系统

EVD on the PC: Software Playback Realities

PC playback was promised, then politically toxic

Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) was sold as a living-room format, but E-World also listed a PC player among its five software packages. That software mattered commercially and strategically. Contemporary Chinese coverage names a product line that included a “VCD/DVD/EVD播放器” package, and English Wikipedia notes that prototype software players were already being presented in April 2004. By late 2005 a licensed unofficial beta existed under the 影海风雷 EVD player name, developed by Beijing Shengshi Longtian under licence from E-World and released as an unofficial beta on 29 October 2005. Chinese Wikipedia records that no official release had followed by 10 December 2005.

The same December 2005 window is when the PC player became a political problem inside the EVD camp. Zhang Baoquan feared that a working PC player would expose EVD’s encryption. Jindian Global announced a switch toward AACS. That split is treated in the history and standards posts of this series; the practical consequence for software archives is blunt. No copy of either the E-World-linked PC player or the 影海风雷 beta has been found in public software archives. Collectors therefore cannot today verify period PC behaviour against the discs they hope to preserve.

Official and licensed software that is missing

Software	Detail	Source
“VCD/DVD/EVD播放器”	One of E-World’s five software packages	PjTime
影海风雷 EVD player	Licensed beta from Beijing Shengshi Longtian; unofficial release 29 Oct 2005; no official release as of 10 Dec 2005	Chinese Wikipedia
Prototype software players	Presented April 2004	English Wikipedia

PjTime’s 2007 overview of EVD lists five E-World software packages that together describe how the format was supposed to be mastered and consumed: DVD-to-EVD conversion, AC-3-to-EAC conversion, the OGT subtitle authoring system, the EVD digital video disc authoring system, and the PC player package. Only the player row belongs in this post, but the full set explains why the missing PC software is not a minor collector inconvenience. Without the player binary, encryption behaviour, container expectations and ExAC audio handling remain opaque even if a disc image exists.

The April 2004 prototype presentations and the October 2005 unofficial beta prove that a PC path was under active development during EVD’s commercial years. They do not prove that ordinary buyers ever received a finished, supported desktop player. Absence from public archives is not proof that no private copies survive in old OEM bundles or collector hard drives; it is only proof that researchers working from open repositories cannot reproduce the period soft-player experience.

What the encryption fear implies for soft decode

Zhang Baoquan’s reported fear that a PC player would expose EVD’s encryption is the clearest period statement that shipping discs were not meant to be casually demuxed on a PC. If that fear was well founded, then even recovering a 影海风雷 installer would not automatically yield a clean open description of the container. It might still be the best available oracle for how titles, keys and streams were arranged. Until such a binary surfaces, open-source tooling can only attack the pieces that are already public: VP6 decode, generic MPEG-2 High Level decode, and ordinary UDF disc imaging.

Open-source support today

Component	Status	Source
VP6 decoder	libvp62 appeared March 2006; part of FFmpeg stable from 0.5 (March 2009)	VP6 Wikipedia
MPEG-2 MP@HL decoding	Supported by FFmpeg, VLC, mpv	Common player stacks
ExAC / EAC audio	No open decoder known	–
EVD encryption	No open implementation known	–
EVD container / file layout	Undocumented	–

If shipping EVD video is MPEG-2 based, as later EE Times coverage of the 2006 relaunch argued, the video elementary stream itself would be decodable once decrypted and demuxed. The blocking problems named in the research set are the proprietary encryption, the undocumented container and ExAC (also written EAC in some E-World material) audio. Those three gaps sit in front of any FFmpeg or VLC success story. Soft-decode support for MPEG-2 MP@HL in modern players is therefore necessary but nowhere near sufficient.

VP6 support in FFmpeg has a clear chronology: libvp62 appeared in March 2006, and VP6 landed in FFmpeg stable from version 0.5 in March 2009. That timeline is only relevant to EVD if a VP6-based EVD disc exists. Launch-era English press (EDN, November 2003) announced On2 VP5/VP6 as the video story; later EE Times reporting described MPEG-2 MP@HL for commercial discs. Those are source disagreements kept side by side elsewhere in this series. For PC playback planning, the practical rule is simple: the VP6 decoder in FFmpeg does not prove that any pressed EVD title will open as VP6, and an MPEG-2 High Level path does not prove that an encrypted EVD file will demux cleanly.

What a modern PC can and cannot do

A modern PC can image an EVD disc as ordinary DVD/UDF media, list files once the image exists, and probe large objects with ffprobe or MediaInfo. Those steps belong to the preservation post. They are not the same as playback. Playback requires decrypting whatever protection the disc uses, understanding the undocumented layout, and decoding ExAC/EAC if that is the audio track in use. None of those three capabilities has an open implementation in the sources reviewed for this series.

VLC, mpv and FFmpeg can play ordinary MPEG-2 High Level streams and can play VP6 when the container is known. They cannot substitute for the missing E-World PC player when the input is still an encrypted EVD title. Collectors who mount a disc and see unfamiliar directories should treat that as useful file-system evidence, not as a playable VIDEO_TS DVD. Genuine EVD discs are expected to use a non-VIDEO_TS structure; ordinary DVD labelled “EVD” in a modern shop listing will usually show VIDEO_TS with IFO/VOB and will play on any DVD deck.

Research posture for software hunting

The highest-value missing artefacts for PC work are copies of the 影海风雷 beta, any finished E-World “VCD/DVD/EVD播放器” package, and any OEM disc that bundled either. Secondary targets are screenshots, installer hashes, Help-file text and registry notes from period Chinese PC magazines. Tertiary targets are forum posts that describe menu trees or error messages from those players, even without the binary. Each of those classes can constrain how the undocumented container behaved without requiring a full reverse-engineering effort.

Until such material appears, the honest summary of EVD on the PC is: soft-player development was real in 2004-2005; an unofficial licensed beta existed; fear of encryption exposure helped fracture the content camp in December 2005; and no public archive currently holds the player. Open-source stacks cover VP6 and MPEG-2 High Level video in the abstract, but they do not cover EVD encryption, the EVD container or ExAC audio. PC playback of genuine 2004-2008 EVD titles therefore remains a research problem, not a weekend VLC recipe.

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: