In a move to skirt licensing fees charged by DVD technology owners, 19 Taiwanese DVD manufacturers are in talks with counterparts in China to create a new disc format called EVD (enhanced versatile disc), with discs and players using the format scheduled to hit the market in the third quarter, according to a head researcher at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).
An umbrella organization called the “Advanced Optical Storage Research Consortium” will be set up by DVD disc and player manufacturers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to promote EVD, said Derray Huang, deputy general director of the Opto-electronics and Systems Laboratories (OES) at ITRI. Specifications of EVD are being studied and will be finalized in the coming two months, Huang said.
Though Chinese DVD makers and researchers are developing an alternative standard called AVD (advanced versatile disc), they have agreed that EVD will be the sole future optical storage standard to be used in the Greater China region, Huang noted.
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