A month after taking the nation's lead to unveil its Enhanced Versatile Disk (EVD) players, Shanghai General Electronic Digital Technology Co Ltd will start to market the first 10,000 SVA-branded products in two weeks at a price around 2,000 yuan (US$242), the company announced yesterday at the opening ceremony of Shanghai Shopping Festival.

Market analysts show full confidence in market prospect for the all-China-patent EVD technology, betting the EVD players will soon replace DVD players with Chinese households. If so, it will provide a strong remedy for the country's DVD industry, which is harassed by hefty patent charges slapped by DVD technology's overseas patent owners, they say.

Source of disks will not be a problem for popularization of EVD players, according to Wang Lijun, supervisor of SVA's advertising department. He said SVA has arranged more than 400 types of EVD disks of domestic and Hong Kong produced movies as well as concerts of overseas pop stars.

EVD has more advanced technical characteristics and fuller functions than the existing DVDs. For example, its definition is 5 times of DVDs. "What's more, EVD technology is compatible with DVD and VCD technologies so that people can play DVDs and VCDs on their EVD players," Wang added.