EVD: A sandstorm

On November 18, 2003, a news story shook up the market: China was proposing a high-definition format that outperformed DVD in applications and features. In the midst of the debate over which high-definition formats should succeed DVD, China unveiled a solution that on paper was very coherent and had two important advantages: complete backward compatibility and a very affordable price.

This new format was christened the Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD), and its features included the ability to display images at a resolution of 1,920x1080i, multichannel digital sound, a price of 230 dollars per player and the promise that there would soon be more than 1,000 titles on EVD. China currently manufactures 70% of the DVD-Video players sold in Europe, and at the time we asked ourselves: will EVD become a worldwide standard?

After six months, we can now study EVD's impact on the market, its plans for the future and its acceptance by users. As we will see, everything suggests that it was just a sandstorm.

The "invention" was presented by E-World Technology, a Chinese government corporate entity based in Beijing (formerly known in Spanish as Pekín), whose partners include companies such as SVA, Shinco, Xiaxin, Yuxing, Skyworth, Nintaus, Malata, Changhong and BBK.

EVD is not a format that appeared out of nowhere. In fact, E-World has been working on an alternative to the DVD format since 1999. But why look for that alternative?

As we have already pointed out, China is the world's largest manufacturer of players, and, as a striking example, 70% of the players sold on our continent come from that country (including both entry-level and very high-end products). But like all player manufacturers, every time they make one they must pay between 20 and 30 dollars to the "owners" of the format, basically Philips, Sony, JVC and Matsushita (Panasonic). Note that, with the exception of Philips, all these manufacturers are Japanese, something that already irritates the Chinese community. This levy represents a significant outflow of capital from the country, money that many would like to keep in their coffers. What better solution than to develop their own format and avoid paying these fees.

A brief aside to give us pause for thought: if a player costs barely 80 euros in our country, and we subtract the cost of shipping it from China to the Spanish store, the manufacturer's supposed profit, and the 20-30 dollars in royalties for its compatibility with DVD-Video discs and for the Dolby Digital and DTS formats, what is left to spend on all the electronics (transport mechanism, pickup, decoders, analog preamplifiers, etc.)?



Let's improve DVD



This subheading probably sums up the goal that was set so that, in addition to avoiding the payment of these royalties, EVD would be attractive: it could not be a copy of the DVD-Video standard; it had to add an interesting extra.

For a start, the most interesting thing was for the format to be capable of handling high-definition signals, an essential step in the short and medium term. But they also took into account that users would probably not want several different players in their living room, so an EVD player had to be backward compatible with all standardized media: DVD-Video, Audio-CD, CD-R/RW, Video-CD, SVCD, etc., including MP3 and JPEG. They achieved this too. In fact, the EVD specifications require this high level of compatibility, without the need to display the corresponding DVD logo (that is, without having to pay the 20-30 dollars required). Incidentally, anyone wishing to manufacture an EVD player will also have to pay a "levy", albeit an almost insignificant one: 2 dollars.



An alternative to Dolby DIGITAL and DTS



While they were at it avoiding unnecessary payments, the backers of EVD even eliminated the need to use the most popular (and equally expensive) multichannel digital audio standards.

An EVD disc uses the VP5 and VP6 coding system developed by On2 Technologies, curiously a Californian company. VP6 is presented as a more efficient video coding system than the well-known MPEG-2, in that it allows a higher compression ratio without losses, suitable for high-resolution video. Video resolution can reach 1,920x1,080i (or 1,280x720p). VP6 is not an unknown system since, for example, it is used by the BBC.

For audio, Coding Technologies' solutions were chosen, specifically the second version of its EAC, which supports mono, stereo and surround sound in a 5.1-channel configuration.

For greater reliability, during the development of the first prototypes, E-World Technology contacted another electronics giant: LSI Logic. This company contributed the PerfectView coding algorithm, which belongs to its DoMiNo architecture.

As a curious, but not insignificant, detail, EVD works with the traditional red laser, instead of the violet/blue laser of the Blu-Ray or AOD formats, which were destined to be approved by the DVD Forum as media and technologies for high definition.

An EVD player is capable of delivering high-resolution video (for both PAL and NTSC displays), and features motion-compensated deinterlacers and HD to SD (standard definition) converters. All of this can be configured through interactive, high-resolution on-screen menus. There are even solutions that allow high-resolution JPEG images to be viewed together with EAC-encoded sound (stereo or multichannel).



EVD: where is it today?



At CES in Las Vegas last January, LSI showed the full potential of this format at its booth. But the news went unnoticed. At around the same time, those in charge of the format stated that only a few dozen players had been sold, even though the retail price (230 dollars) was half that of a conventional DVD-Video player. Where is the problem?

Although in November they were speculating about the imminent introduction of up to 1,000 movie titles, today this list is merely anecdotal. The interests of the big consumer electronics giants are enough to keep the equally powerful film industry, Hollywood, from showing the necessary interest. There is no software. Despite EVD's backward compatibility, DVD-Video remains the most standardized format, pending the adoption by the major industry players of what is to be the new high-definition standard. Any alternative proposal will probably not be considered by the giants, who, it seems, also hold all the cards.



Fluorite and FVD



The best format does not always become the standard (remember the story of Beta2000 and VHS?).

In the late 1990s, an emerging Russian company presented FMD, an optical disc based on fluorescent technology which, with the same size as a CD or DVD, was capable of storing up to 1 Terabyte of information. Enough space to hold the entire Star Wars saga in high definition with uncompressed surround sound, together with its extras and a host of other things.

For a while it seemed that the format could become an attractive solution, but it fell into complete oblivion.

Another Asian manufacturing country is Taiwan, which also presented its own high-definition video format, backward compatible with current audiovisual media. It was christened FVD (Finalized Versatile Disc), with features very similar to China's EVD. The main difference is that this format was presented to (and rejected by) the DVD Forum.

FVD was designed mainly for exclusively domestic use. It was developed by the Optoelectronics and Systems Laboratories of ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute, with the participation of the Taiwanese government), in collaboration with the Advanced Optical Storage Association, which groups together up to 29 companies in the country.

FVD comes in two versions: a single-layer, single-sided version capable of storing up to 6 GB of data, and a dual-layer, double-sided version with a capacity of up to 11 GB (the single-sided version of Blu-Ray reaches 25 GB). Like EVD, it uses the red laser. This presentation, made public a few months ago, has also been consigned to oblivion.