Now the world's electronics industry is about to face competition from Chinese brands of video disc players that have risen on the back of the pirate market. As any foreign visitor who has stocked up on China's cheap pirate copies will relate, the discs do not always play when you put them on your machine at home.
Enter the caoqiang jiuchuo or "super-correcting" Chinese model of DVD player. Developed by the Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group and selling for about half the cost of brands such as Philips and Sony, it is designed to cope with the poor quality of pirated video discs.
Jiangsu Shinco even commissioned Sony to design and produce parts to its "super-correcting" specifications. Because their own players could not sell in China, Sony went along with this "outsourcing", Professor Zeng said. "The only way Sony can make money in this market is by supplying to Shinco the key components."
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