High-Def DVD Part II - Taiwan Challenger

This article is the second in a series.

Other articles in this series:
Part 1: Hi-Def DVD? - Blue laser? Well, what else is out there?

This article is a small excerpt on the full coverage of Hi-Def DVD in a section included within my "State of HDTV Technology, 2006 Review". The article continues with the subject of Part I "Well, what else is out there?" covering another HD red laser format, this one coming from Taiwan. Taiwan's Forward Versatile Disc (FVD) Over the past couple of years, I have written on these reports (as well as in the pages of DVDetc and HDTVetc Magazines) about the four Hi-def DVD formats in the China/Taiwan market, three from China (EVD, HVD, and HDV), and one from Taiwan (FVD). On this opportunity, I met at CES 2006 with Mr. Job Liu, Managing Director of POSO (Power Source Group Limited), who was representing the FVD format at CES. Mr. Liu introduced also Margaret Fan, General Manager of Idar Electronics Co., a company involved with the FVD players and format. They showed the player, the movies, the FVD format efforts, and we discussed about specifications and technical capabilities of the format, discs, and players. At the end of our long meeting, I was offered if I wanted to take the player with me after the show. It took me by surprise, I declined politely, but I certainly accepted an FVD disc demo as my after show teaser. FVD discs and players are already available for sale. The player MSRP is $250, and FVD movies were quoted as about $6 per disc, although I have not seen an official price list as I did with Chinese EVD companies the year before. FVD is a red laser solution that supports FVD-video and WMV-9 HD video codecs, and WMA, LPCM and ITRI-Audio codecs. The disc can store 135 minutes of HD full-length movies in 720p/24/30 (SL), or in 1080i60/p24 (DL, or 3 hrs TL), in addition to 720x480 and 320x240 regular video resolution at 60i. The FVD player is suited with DVI/HDMI and component analog connections, optical and coax for 5.1 or 2-channel audio, peak bit rate 15Mbps. According to the company at CES the player is able to output 1080i over component analog because the format uses its own content protection system (ITRI-AES, Innovative Technologies Research Institute - Advanced Encryption Standard). There is a PC playback software version (Super FVD, in beta now) that allows the use of existing DVD-ROM drives for HD FVD playback of movies without any additional hardware. There is no need for Microsoft's Media Center in the PC because as mentioned above the format uses its own content protection system, no DRM. There are 29 companies and ITRI in the AOSRA (Taiwan Advanced Optical Storage Research Alliance), an organization founded in January 2002. There are several FVD disc producers like RiTek Corporation, Prodisc Technology Inc., U-Tech Media Corporation, Leaddata, Infodisc, Giga Storage, Optodisc, Nan-Ya, and CMC Magnetics Co. (their discs are pictured above on the left). Players are being manufactured by TATUNG, BenQ, LITE-ON, Actima, Mustek, PROTOP, Arima, MSI, QSINC, Ultima, and A-DATA. Chip-set manufacturers include VOS, ALI, MTK, SUNPLUS, and CHEERTEK. Video software content includes Newsoft, Deltamac, and Cine-Asia Entertainment. In addition to the existing titles, and WM9, fourteen FVD films were planned to be released soon: Air Panic, Avalanche, City of Fear, Death Train, Edges of the Lord, The Order, Us Seals, The Confession, Earthquake, Fire, Volcano, A Wobot Christmas, The Opponent, Diary of a City Priest, Buried Lies, Combustion, Malie.

Idar Electronics Co. below

FVD was introduced on April 5, 2004 in Taipei Taiwan. The first FVD players were made available in May 2005 for $175 with 10 free movies in Taiwan.
With a sales promotion in Europe and the US, the global volume was estimated to reach 100,000 players in 2005, 3 million in 2006, and 5 million in 2007. Later, Taiwan's Kolin offered in November 2005 an initial sales promotion period for their first KVD-1080 player with an HDMI cable included, and three 1080i FVD movie discs, all for $240. Content is available mainly from independent studios but the alliance is doing efforts to expand to 100 the initial offering of titles by including other major studios.

Comparison of Formats
	DVD	FVD	HD DVD	BD
Leading Organization	DVD Forum	Taiwan's AOSRA	DVD Forum	Blu-ray Association
Physical Capacity (single side)	(SL) 4.7GB (DL) 8.5GB	(SL) 5.4/6GB (DL) 9.8/11GB (TL) 15GB	(SL) 15GB (DL) 30GB (TL) 45GB	(SL) 25GB (DL) 50GB (4L) 100GB(TDK)
Laser	Red Laser (650nm)	Red Laser (650nm)	Blue Laser (405nm)	Blue Laser (405nm)
Resolution	720x480i60	1280x720p24 1920x1080i60 1920x1080p24	1280x720p 1920x1080i/p	1280x720p 1920x1080i60 1920x1080p24

Chart sourced from FDV with my additions/corrections Stay tuned to my next article on this series, Hi-Def DVD Part III, the Blue battle.