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Blog EVD Guides Technical Specifications
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EVD Technical Specifications

What can and cannot be specified

The full text of SJ/T 11299.1-4-2005 was not obtained for this research. The picture below is assembled from the standards platform record, 2003 and 2006 EE Times/EDN reporting, On2 SEC filings, Wikipedia (English, Chinese, Japanese) and E-World promotional material. Where a value comes only from alliance marketing it is labelled as such. Conflicting figures are kept side by side rather than forced into a single number.

120 mm DVD disc; EVD uses DVD-5 and DVD-9 media with a 650 nm red laser
EVD is not a new optical geometry: it uses standard 120 mm DVD discs and a 650 nm red laser. Photo: William Hook, CC BY-SA, via Openverse and Flickr.

Physical disc

Parameter Value Source
Diameter 120 mm English Wikipedia
Construction Two bonded 0.6 mm polycarbonate substrates, 1.2 mm total Japanese Wikipedia
Laser 650 nm (red) Japanese Wikipedia; TechRadar
Capacity 4.7 GB (DVD-5); 8.5 GB (DVD-9) Japanese Wikipedia
Relationship to DVD Is simply a DVD disc Chinese and English Wikipedia
Standard part SJ/T 11299.1 (disc) Standards platform sister record
Claimed playing time Two-hour HD movie on one disc / about 105 minutes of HD EDN 2003 / Zhang Baoquan

Manufacturing claims conflict. TechRadar (2006) and Baidu (HD-EVD, 2008) say production cost and process matched ordinary DVD and avoided expensive retooling. A 2019 Sohu retrospective says EVD discs needed single-sided multilayer processes much more complex than ordinary DVD. Both strands are kept. Playing-time claims (two hours versus about 105 minutes) are likewise left open.

Capacity and bitrate arithmetic

No official EVD video bitrate was published. The table below is calculation from the marketing claims, not documentation.

Case Calculation Implied average total bitrate
DVD-5, 2 hours (EDN) 4.7×10⁹ bytes × 8 ÷ 7,200 s ≈ 5.2 Mbit/s
DVD-9, 2 hours 8.5×10⁹ × 8 ÷ 7,200 ≈ 9.4 Mbit/s
DVD-9, 105 minutes 8.5×10⁹ × 8 ÷ 6,300 ≈ 10.8 Mbit/s
DVD-5, 105 minutes 4.7×10⁹ × 8 ÷ 6,300 ≈ 6.0 Mbit/s
DVD 1× channel / DVD-Video max mux 11.08 Mbit/s / 10.08 Mbit/s DVD-Video spec

E-World claimed EVD raises the stream rate by nearly double over DVD. An MPEG-2 1080i stream at 5-11 Mbit/s would sit well below period broadcast HD rates (typically 15-19 Mbit/s for ATSC MPEG-2). If the two-hour claim and EE Times’ MPEG-2 MP@HL description are both correct, commercial titles were heavily compressed, often 720p, or both. None of this is confirmed by a measured disc.

File system and data structure

Item Detail
File system UDF, as DVD
Standard part SJ/T 11299.2-2005 高密度数字激光视盘文件系统规范
Drafting units Beijing E-World; Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group
Named drafters 徐翔, 秦志尚
Directory names / VIDEO_TS relationship Not documented in retrieved sources

This is the largest public gap. Mounting a genuine EVD disc in a PC DVD drive and listing the UDF tree would document the directory structure for the first time in an English-language source. An academic paper, Comparisons of EVD and DVD (Communication University of China), emphasises logic structure but only an abstract was retrieved.

Video codec: the central dispute

Position Source Date
Will use On2 VP5 and VP6 EDN (Junko Yoshida) 18 Nov 2003
Launch players used MPEG-2 MP@HL-based encoding on LSI Logic; On2 an alternative; long-term AVS EE Times (Clendenin) Nov 2003
EVD uses MPEG-2 MP@HL secured with proprietary encryption EE Times (Cai Yan) Nov 2006
Improved MPEG-2 coding with LSI; no Chinese chip supplier Chinese Wikipedia 2005 snapshot
Original plan was VP5/VP6 English Wikipedia (undated summary)
VP6 port to contract DSPs never completed; minimum royalties not triggered On2 SEC filings 2005-2009
Patents concern filter transforms and encode/decode optimisation E-World via PjTime 2007
Relies on China’s AVS (unsupported by other sources) Grokipedia 2026

Reading of the evidence from methodical cross-checking: the On2 licence was real and partly paid, but On2’s filings show VP6 was never ported to the chips in shipping players. Two EE Times reports three years apart, plus Chinese Wikipedia’s improved MPEG-2 wording, point to MPEG-2 MP@HL-derived video with proprietary pre/post-processing and encryption. AVS was a declared future direction (2003 and September 2005) with no documented AVS-based EVD player. That conclusion should still be tested against SJ/T 11299.3 or a real disc. All codec positions remain open disagreements until then.

Resolutions and output

E-World claimed 1920×1080i and 1280×720p, 16:9, more than 720 TV lines, and eight quality levels from VCD to HD. Players passed MII’s HD test in September 2004. Marketing contrasted true HD (source, disc, player and output all HD) with upscaling fake HD DVD players. 1080p discs were promised by end of 2007 and reappeared as HD-EVD output claims in 2008. The Shinco EVD-8700 offered component (YPbPr) HD output.

Audio, subtitles and protection

Audio. ExAC / EAC (Enhanced Audio Codec) is specified in SJ/T 11299.4 as a multichannel surround enhanced audio codec: mono, stereo and 5.1, claimed better than Dolby AC-3 at the same bitrate, with an MII listening-test score of 4.7/5 marketed as 0.2 above Dolby. Bitrates were not published. An AC3-EAC conversion tool implies titles were typically transcoded from existing Dolby Digital masters. English Wikipedia attributes EAC 2.0 to Coding Technologies; Chinese sources and the MII part-4 title treat it as E-World’s own codec. Both origin stories are kept.

Subtitles. E-World describes 256-colour floating overlays with transparency, inherited from Super VCD research and superior to DVD’s four-colour sub-pictures. One of five E-World software packages was an OGT authoring system.

Protection. Shipping scheme: proprietary encryption (EE Times 2006). Marketing claimed a 128-bit key that passed Hollywood testing (unverified). Jindian Global announced AACS for new titles on 11 December 2005; no documentation was found that any EVD title actually shipped with AACS. LSI DoMiNo product briefs list CSS/CPRM/CPPM/DES capability, which shows silicon features, not EVD’s actual scheme.

Menus, compatibility and tooling

No primary documentation of EVD menus, navigation commands or region coding was found. CBS/Xinhua launch coverage mentioned no region code. Backward compatibility was marketed across DVD, Super VCD, VCD, CD and MP3; the EVD-8700 also listed CD-R/RW, JPEG and AC-3/DTS decoding for DVD. E-World named five professional software packages (DVD-to-EVD conversion, AC3-EAC conversion, OGT authoring, disc mastering, PC player); none has been found in a public archive.

Next-generation plans that did not ship

Plan Detail Status
AVS-based EVD Agreement 26 Sep 2005 No product found
H.264 EVD E-World-ST letter of intent, 2 Jul 2005 No product found
VMD-EVD NME multilayer red-laser; 50 GB shown at CeBIT Mar 2006 No mass release
1080p / HD-EVD Promised end 2007; 2008 rename Slipped; no model numbers found

Working specification summary

Until SJ/T 11299.3 is obtained or a commercial disc is imaged, treat the following as the practical technical envelope for research and collecting:

  • Physical: red-laser 120 mm DVD-5 or DVD-9; not Blu-ray, not HD DVD capacity.
  • File system: UDF; directory layout unknown in English secondary sources.
  • Video (most likely shipping): MPEG-2 MP@HL-derived stream with proprietary encryption and possible E-World pre/post filters; On2 VP5/VP6 licensed but not completed on shipping DSPs.
  • Resolutions claimed: 1080i and 720p output; eight quality levels advertised; 1080p for late HD-EVD claims.
  • Audio: ExAC/EAC mono, stereo or 5.1; often mastered via AC-3 conversion.
  • Subtitles: 256-colour floating overlays from Super VCD OGT research.
  • Protection: proprietary encryption in shipping titles; AACS announced, not documented on discs.
  • Players: LSI Logic DoMiNo-class decoders; backward play of DVD/SVCD/VCD/CD/MP3.

Bitrate arithmetic from marketing claims implies roughly 5-11 Mbit/s total. That is calculation, not a measured bitstream. Manufacturing complexity (same as DVD versus more complex multilayer) remains an open disagreement between contemporary Western/HD-EVD marketing and a 2019 Chinese retrospective.

What a real disc would settle

Anyone holding a commercial EVD disc can close several gaps in one afternoon: mount the UDF tree and photograph the top-level directories; sample a programme stream and identify the video start codes and elementary stream types; note whether audio looks like a proprietary ExAC/EAC framing or a renamed conventional stream; and test whether the encryption prevents a naïve sector dump from yielding playable media on a PC without E-World’s licensed player. Until those observations exist in English, secondary sources will keep recycling launch-week claims. This post therefore ends as a research brief as much as a specification sheet: firm on physical DVD identity and LSI-era playback reports, deliberately open on directory layout, exact bitrates and the precise boundary between MPEG-2 and proprietary filtering.

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 Technical Specifications
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CVD Technical Specifications

What can and cannot be specified

The original C-Cube/consortium CVD specification is not publicly available, and the full text of SJ/T 11196-1998 was not obtained for this research. Almost every published CVD “specification” is therefore inferred from SVCD (Philips SVCD 1.0 / IEC 62107 / the Chinese Super VCD regime) plus the known resolution and subtitle differences. Values below are marked as directly attested for CVD where the 1998 Chinese press or Western tooling documentation says so, and otherwise inherited from the SVCD stack that CVD shares.

Physical disc and sector formats

A CVD is a standard 120 mm CD or CD-R using the CD-ROM XA / CD-i Bridge layout defined in the White Book. Track 1 is Mode 2 Form 1 with an ISO 9660 file system holding the metadata files (INFO, ENTRIES, PSD, LOT, SEARCH, TRACKS) and, optionally, the segment play-item area. Tracks 2 onwards are Mode 2 Form 2 MPEG tracks, one per sequence (up to 98). Form 1 sectors carry 2,048 bytes of user data with EDC and Layer-2 ECC; Form 2 sectors carry 2,324 bytes with EDC but no Layer-2 ECC-about 14% more payload. Guangming Daily’s 3 November 1998 comparison states that CVD and SVCD were “completely identical in physical format and file format, both following the relevant international and national standards.”

Disc anatomy follows the VCDImager description of Super Video CD layout: lead-in and TOC; a mandatory 150-sector pregap; an ISO 9660 track with the Primary Volume Descriptor at LSN 16 and the VCD info area at 00:04:00; an optional segment area of up to 1,980 segments of 150 sectors; then the MPEG Form 2 tracks, each preceded by a pregap of at least 150 sectors; a 150-sector postgap; and the lead-out. CVD players used 2× mechanisms; Guangming Daily associates CVD hardware with a Philips double-speed mechanism and CD7 digital servo, against a Sony double-speed mechanism on the SVCD side in the same comparison.

Capacity, data rate and playing time

Quantity Result
Raw 2× Form 2 throughput 150 sectors/s × 2,324 bytes × 8 ≈ 2,788.8 kbps
80-minute CD-R capacity (Form 2) ≈ 836.6 MB (≈ 798 MiB)
74-minute CD-R capacity (Form 2) ≈ 773.9 MB
Playing time at full 2×, 80-min blank ≈ 40 min (less ISO track and gaps)
Playing time at full 2×, 74-min blank ≈ 37 min
At ~1,800 kbps video + 224 kbps audio ≈ 53 min on an 80-min blank

The raw 2× figure explains why the combined audio-video ceiling is usually quoted as about 2.7 Mbps (Wikipedia) or 2,778 kbps (technical summaries). The ubiquitous “35-45 minutes per disc” figure is simply CD capacity read at 2×. Longer programmes need lower average VBR rates, typically 1.5-2.0 Mbps for sixty to eighty minutes.

Video and audio parameters

Parameter CVD value Basis
Codec MPEG-2, Main Profile @ Main Level 1998 press (“same decompression technology as DVD”); Western references
Resolution (NTSC) 352×480 at 29.97 fps Wikipedia; DeVeDe FAQ; VideoHelp
Resolution (PAL/SECAM) 352×576 at 25 fps same
Film content 23.976 fps with 3:2 pulldown flags Inherited from SVCD
Also permitted in 1998 2/3 D1 (480-wide) sources Guangming Daily 3 Nov 1998
Rate control VBR (CBR allowed) Guangming Daily; inherited
Maximum video rate ≈ 2,600 kbps (2,516-2,520 in practical recipes) Inherited; ffmpeg SVCD preset; SatStorm
VBV buffer 1,835,008 bits (224 KiB) in ffmpeg’s SVCD preset; 230 KB in mplex Tool defaults
Aspect ratio 4:3 or 16:9 (anamorphic) Inherited

Whether CVD was strictly 352-wide or also allowed 480-wide video is not settled. Western sources define CVD by its 352 width. Guangming Daily says CVD “suits both 1/2 D1 and 2/3 D1” sources while SVCD suited only 2/3 D1. Both claims are kept. Pixels per bit favour CVD: 352×576 is 202,752 pixels per frame against SVCD’s 480×576 at 276,480, so at the same bitrate CVD spends roughly a third more bits per pixel. That is the engineering argument for the format. Marketing-era horizontal resolution claims ranged from “up to 400 lines” (makers, July 1998) and “350-400 lines” (Jinzheng) to “about 280 lines” for early 1/2 D1 discs in a December 1998 Wenzhai Bao piece written from a pro-SVCD framing.

Audio is MPEG-1 Layer II at 44.1 kHz, typically 224 kbps within a 32-384 kbps range inherited from SVCD documentation. Up to two stereo or four mono tracks were marketed for karaoke (vocal/instrumental) or four language dubs. MPEG-2 multichannel 5.1 is allowed in the SVCD family but rarely supported; Guangming Daily notes that a “5.1-channel CVD scheme” had already been announced by November 1998. One AnandTech forum user in 2002 described CVD as “basically an SVCD with 352 × 240 VCD resolution and 48 KHz audio.” Every other source gives 352×480/576 and 44.1 kHz. VideoHelp users report that some players accept 48 kHz on CD and some play it too slowly (a Sony S560D is named). Both strands are kept. For DVD use, 44.1 kHz audio is not legal and must be resampled to 48 kHz.

File system, metadata and MPEG constraints

CVD uses the SVCD directory tree. From the GNU VCDImager manual the important paths are /SVCD/INFO.SVD (system ID “SUPERVCD”), ENTRIES.SVD, LOT.SVD, PSD.SVD, SEARCH.DAT, TRACKS.SVD, plus /MPEG2/ (or legacy /MPEGAV/) sequence tracks, /SEGMENT/ play items, and optional /EXT/ scan or caption files. VCDImager lists “SUPERVCD” as the INFO.SVD system ID for SVCD, XVCD and CVD, and “HQ-VCD” for HQ-VCD. There is no documented CVD-only identifier. Wenzhai Bao’s December 1998 report that CVD and SVCD players used different “disc identifiers” (识别码) to lock each other out suggests proprietary variants existed in practice, but no documentation of those identifiers was found.

Chinese legacy variants documented in VCDImager’s svcd vcd30 build options include the non-compliant /MPEGAV folder (EnReach I-Author) instead of /MPEG2, the deprecated ENTRYSVD signature, and a “chinese /SVCD/TRACKS.SVD format which differs from the format defined in the IEC-62107 specification.” The vcd-info tool also contains a heuristic “CVD interpretation (probably)” when parsing TRACKS.SVD, confirming that real CVD discs were seen with a distinct TRACKS layout.

Programme streams must be packed in 2,324-byte packs aligned to sector boundaries. Every I-frame must be preceded by a GOP header and a sequence header in the same sector, or entry points and scan tables break. SVCD requires scan-information user data in every I-picture so players can fast-forward and rewind; encoders write placeholders and VCDImager fills them with --update-scan-offsets. Official SVCD streams should signal 540 (4:3) or 720 (16:9) in the display horizontal size field; what CVD streams should carry here is undocumented. Peaks above the 2× ceiling cause stutter on real players even when a software compliance check passes.

Subtitles, menus and “protection”

CVD’s subtitles are the one on-disc feature besides resolution that most clearly separates it from IEC SVCD. CVD-style bitmaps travel in MPEG-PS private_stream_1; they are interlaced 2-bit RLE with a four-entry YUV palette plus highlight palette, metadata after the image data, and up to four streams. They are not in IEC 62107. SVCD OGT (Overlay Graphics and Text) uses Philips’ layout with private_data_id 0x70 and sub-stream IDs selecting channels 0-3; VCDImager notes that OGT is “sadly not part of the IEC62107 specs” either, even though it is the Philips SVCD format. VCDImager’s CVD subtitle documentation was reverse-engineered from submux sample code and “a couple of samples of dubious origin,” documenting tags for duration (0x04), coordinates (0x17/0x1f), palettes (0x24-0x27, 0x2c-0x2f), transparency and even/odd row offsets. VLC’s MPEG-PS demuxer is widely understood to map private_stream_1 sub-IDs 0x00-0x03 to CVD subtitles and 0x70-0x73 to SVCD OGT; that mapping was not confirmed from VLC source in the material used here. The 1998 makers marketed “four languages and four on-screen text choices” and “high-definition overlay subtitles.”

Menus inherit SVCD playback control: play lists, selection lists, end lists and (SVCD-only) command lists, with entry points in ENTRIES.SVD acting as chapters. Menu stills are MPEG-2 stills in the segment area at 480×480/576 or high-resolution 704×480/576 under SVCD rules. Makers described this as “two-way interactive playback control” (双向交互式控播); Guangming Daily said SVCD’s VCD 3.0 compatibility gave it an edge in interactivity.

CVD had no documented copy-protection system of its own-no CSS-style encryption, no region code and no Macrovision flag in the standards. The only documented “protection” is the 1998-1999 practice of adding proprietary identifiers and interference codes (干扰数码) so rival makers’ players could not read discs, and the counter-practice of fitting decryption components to players. These were compatibility weapons, not anti-piracy measures. The exact mechanism-modified INFO fields, deliberate errors, or non-standard TRACKS/ENTRIES data-is undocumented.

Further reading on historic video formats

If you want to learn more about historic video formats, get The History of Physical Video Formats from the Frontier by Stephen Driver on Amazon:

Blog CBHD Guides Technical Specifications
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CBHD Technical Specifications

Physical disc geometry

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

CHDA comparison: CBHD vs DVD vs Blu-ray

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

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

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

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

Why DVD factories could convert

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

Modulation: 4-6 FSM

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

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

File system and disc structure

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

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

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

Three software layers on a commercial disc

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

CETC navigation

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

Video and audio codecs

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

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

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

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

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

DKAA, AACS, region and packaging

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

Understood versus still needing a disc

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

Understood versus still needing a disc on the bench

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

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

Further reading on historic video formats

If you want to learn more about historic video formats, get The History of Physical Video Formats from the Frontier by Stephen Driver on Amazon: