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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 CVD Guides Related Formats
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CVD Related Formats: SVCD, Chaoji VCD and Neighbours

CVD in the family of CD video formats

China Video Disc (CVD) is easiest to understand as one neighbour among several CD-based video formats rather than as an isolated invention. It inherits White Book Video CD’s physical geometry and disc-bridge conventions, fights government and Philips Super Video CD (SVCD) over resolution and subtitles, shares a Chaoji VCD player-compatibility umbrella in China, and later collides in hobbyist language with XVCD, XSVCD, KVCD templates and half-D1 DVD. This post keeps those relatives distinct: what each name means, which parameters actually differ, and which naming collisions still confuse collectors.

Philips CD-i player - White Book / CD-i Bridge lineage
CVD sits on the White Book / CD-i Bridge physical stack that also underpins Video CD. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Philips CD-i), CC BY-SA (via Openverse).

White Book VCD: the baseline CVD set out to beat

Video CD was defined in 1993 by Sony, Philips, JVC and Matsushita. VCD 2.0 (1995) added playback control, still images and clearer PAL/NTSC variants; a VCD-Internet extension followed in 1997; SVCD was published as a White Book extension in 1998. The White Book itself is not freely available and must be licensed from Philips.

Parameter VCD 1.1 / 2.0
Video MPEG-1, constant bitrate 1,150 kbps (1,151.9 max)
Resolution 352×240 at 29.97 or 23.976 fps (NTSC); 352×288 at 25 fps (PAL)
Audio MPEG-1 Layer II, 224 kbps CBR, 44.1 kHz stereo
Playing time About 74-80 minutes per disc
Directory /VCD (INFO.VCD, ENTRIES.VCD, PSD.VCD, LOT.VCD), /MPEGAV, /SEGMENT, /CDI, /EXT
PBC VCD 2.0 onward
Chinese quality perception (1998) About 240-280 lines horizontal; “similar to watching TV” (Jinzheng)

VCD’s resolution is a quarter of standard-definition television-the problem CVD set out to fix. In China the White Book was complemented by domestic “VCD 3.0” player features, which 1998 press credits SVCD (not CVD) with supporting. CVD therefore improves picture by moving to MPEG-2 at half-D1 while keeping the same CD Form 2 world that VCD already occupied in Chinese living rooms.

Three things called “SVCD”

It is important to keep three different SVCD-labelled objects apart, plus the later international text:

Name What it is Date
Government SVCD (超级VCD draft) MII / National Recording Standards Committee programme, ESS-supported Draft mid-1998
Philips / VCD Consortium SVCD 1.0 Government SVCD after HQ-VCD features were merged; White Book extension distributed by Philips 1998
SJ/T 11196-1998 “Chaoji VCD” Chinese industry standard and player-compatibility regime covering SVCD and CVD discs Announced 29 Sep 1998; effective 1 Nov 1998
IEC 62107 International standard for SVCD (and VCD) 15 Jul 2000

SVCD parameters-the base from which CVD differs-are MPEG-2 VBR video at a maximum of about 2.6 Mbps, 480×480 (NTSC) or 480×576 (PAL), MPEG-1 Layer II audio at 44.1 kHz with up to two stereo or four mono tracks (MPEG-2 multichannel allowed), up to four OGT subtitle streams, and about 35-45 minutes per CD at full rate. Chinese press claimed about 350 lines of horizontal resolution. Philips later added an SVCD logo to its Compact Disc logo family. Western “SVCD-compatible” DVD player claims usually referred to the Philips disc format, which is why Region 1 players could claim SVCD support without CVD support.

HQ-VCD

HQ-VCD (High-Quality Video CD) was the Video CD Consortium’s own proposal, released in March 1998 and merged into SVCD in July 1998. It survives as a disc-type variant: VCDImager can build HQ-VCD images (-t hqvcd) carrying INFO system ID “HQ-VCD”, system profile tag 1, mandatory /EXT/SCANDATA.DAT and optional SEARCH.DAT. No commercial HQ-VCD title releases were found in the gathered material. For identification work, “HQ-VCD” in INFO is therefore a rare system-ID cousin of SUPERVCD, not a synonym for CVD.

CVD versus SVCD: the engineering trade-off

Factor CVD SVCD Comment
Horizontal resolution 352 480 SVCD has 36% more columns
Pixels per frame (PAL) 202,752 276,480 CVD spends the same bits on 27% fewer pixels
Bits per pixel at 2.5 Mbps ≈ 36% more than SVCD baseline Fewer blocking artefacts in motion
Scaling to DVD-player output (720/704) Exact ×2 Non-integer ×1.5 SVCD “foldover” aliasing on many players
DVD-legal video Yes No CVD video can move to DVD without re-encoding
Interlace Full lines kept Same Both better than VCD, which discards a field
Visible detail on 1998 CRT TVs Close to TV limit (makers’ claim) Above what many TVs resolve noulakaz argument
Player support outside China Lower Higher Community reports vary
1998 line-count claims 280 (hostile) to 400 (makers) 350+ Partisan figures

The 1998 Chinese makers argued that CVD’s resolution was “exactly at the upper limit of the TV set,” so the extra pixels of SVCD-or even DVD-would only show on fully digital televisions (Shenghuo Shibao, 29 July 1998). A later VideoHelp user with a large player-testing background summarised the practical bitrate result: DVD at 720×576 “will almost always look better than CVD… except at below 4,000 kbs bitrates at which point CVD can look better than SVCD and DVD is likely to show macroblocks.” Those claims are kept as community engineering arguments, not as laboratory measurements.

Community variants: XVCD, XSVCD, KVCD and “CVD on DVD”

These names are not standards but community labels for non-compliant variants.

  • XVCD (eXtended VCD): VCD structure with MPEG-1 (or MPEG-2 at VCD resolution) above 1,150 kbps, often up to about 2,500 kbps. Uses SUPERVCD-style or VCD INFO; player tolerance varies.
  • XSVCD (eXtended SVCD): MPEG-2 in Mode 2/XA at SVCD resolution but not meeting the SVCD standard (higher bitrate, larger GOPs, custom matrices). A 352-wide XSVCD is structurally a CVD.
  • KVCD / KSVCD / KDVD: Kwag’s TMPGEnc templates with custom quantisation matrices, long GOPs and low VBR rates (examples include 528×480 and 352×240). Marketing claims of “near DVD quality” for 120+ minutes are the template author’s, not measured results.
  • MVCD (Mole VCD): an XSVCD variant from the MVCD template set.
  • “CVD on DVD” / half-D1 DVD: 352×480/576 MPEG-2 authored as DVD-Video with 48 kHz audio-fully DVD-compliant, used for VHS archives and packing several films per DVD.

mjpegtools’ anytovcd.sh script has a cvd profile that actually means half-D1 DVD (mpeg2enc -f 8, AC-3 at 48 kHz, up to 7,500 kbps, with SARs 20:11 / 59:27 for 4:3 or 80:33 / 236:81 for 16:9). That is “CVD-resolution DVD,” not a CD-based CVD. The naming collision causes confusion in tutorials and must be read carefully whenever a guide says “author CVD.”

DVD-Video and why 352 is legal

DVD-Video permits MPEG-2 at 720×480/576, 704×480/576, 352×480/576 and 352×240/288 (MPEG-1 is also allowed at 352×240/288). The 352×480/576 case is the half-D1 resolution C-Cube already supported in its CLM4400 encoder. Audio for DVD must be 48 kHz (LPCM, AC-3, MPEG audio or DTS), so the only change needed to move CVD video to DVD is audio resampling and DVD authoring (IFO/VOB structure). As one VideoHelp user put it: “CVD, if done correctly, complies to the DVD standard (low res DVD video streams).”

Master comparison

Format Status Video NTSC / PAL Typical ceiling Time / 80-min CD DVD-legal video
VCD 1.1/2.0 White Book (1993/1995) MPEG-1 CBR 352×240 / 352×288 1,150 kbps ~80 min Yes (audio no)
CVD C-Cube/OEM 1998; inside Chaoji VCD MPEG-2 VBR 352×480 / 352×576 ≤~2.6 Mbps (2.52 typical) 35-45 min Yes (audio no)
SVCD IEC 62107; SJ/T 11196 MPEG-2 VBR 480×480 / 480×576 ≤~2.6 Mbps 35-45 min No
HQ-VCD IEC 62107 variant MPEG-2 as SVCD as SVCD as SVCD No
XVCD / XSVCD Non-standard MPEG-1/2 VCD or SVCD (or other) above White Book / SVCD varies Depends
KVCD family Templates MPEG-1/2 e.g. 528×480, 352×240 low VBR claimed 120+ min KDVD yes
DVD-Video DVD Forum MPEG-2 (MPEG-1 allowed) 720/704/352×480; 352×240 ≤9.8 Mbps n/a (4.7 GB) –
EVD (2003) Chinese VP5/VP6 (On2) up to HD – n/a (DVD disc) No
CBHD (2009) Chinese AVS / H.264 / VC-1 up to 1080 up to ~28 Mbps video n/a (blue laser) No

CVD sits between VCD and SVCD on the CD-era ladder: same physical CD and roughly the same bitrate budget as SVCD, half-D1 instead of 2/3 D1 video, and a path into DVD-Video without re-encoding the pictures. Chaoji VCD is the Chinese player-compatibility umbrella that required both CVD and SVCD discs to play; IEC 62107 is the later international SVCD text that does not include CVD-style subtitles. Later Chinese formats-EVD and CBHD-repeat the political pattern of seeking domestic control over the next optical generation, but they leave the CD Form 2 world entirely. For collectors and archivists, the practical neighbour set is VCD for installed-base context, SVCD for file-system identity, HQ-VCD for the rare system-ID variant, and half-D1 DVD for the modern reuse of CVD’s resolution.

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: