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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting is the editor of ContentAgenda.com and a columnist for Video Business. He has covered the home entertainment industries since 1985 for Billboard, Variety, Publishers Weekly and other leading business publications. He is based in Washington, DC.


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Paul Sweeting

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High-def hijinks - October 10, 2007

Amazon.com quietly began selling two HD-VMD player models this week. The ML622S sells for $189 and comes in silver and black. The ML777s goes for $199 (black only). The players are shipped directly from the manufacturer, U.K.-based New Medium Enterprises.

Curiously, Amazon is not currently offering any HD-VMD titles, of which there are currently over 100 listed on NME's web site, including several movies released by major studios in the U.S. NME licensed the titles from their European distributors, ostensibly for release on HD-VDM only in those territories. However, the format contains no region restrictions, so the discs would be playable in the U.S. by anyone with an HD-VMD player.

HD-VMD is a red-laser format that uses multilayering technology to pack 30GB or more of data onto a single disc.

The ML622 and 777 will also handle upconversion duties from standard DVD via HDMI connection and can read all DVD recordable formats. They support MPEG-1 and 2, VC-1 and H.264.

And you think consumers are confused now about high-def now...

Meanwhile, the BD+ playability glitch crossed over the mainstream press this morning courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. The story noted that two recent Fox titles, "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer," (which the study won't officially confirm are BD+ encrypted but obviously are) do not play correctly on certain Blu-ray Disc players from LG Electronics and Samsung.

That's one way to prevent copying, I suppose, but not the sort of stumble the format needs at this stage. Firmware updates are supposed to fix the problem.

UPDATE: On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled a new "Customer Knowledge Center" called High-Def 101, which is meant as a one-stop shop for information and resources on HDTV sets, high-def movie players, cables, set-top boxes, etc. The section on high-def movies and disc players includes a comparison chart on HD DVD and Blu-ray, but makes no mention of HD-VMD.
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October 13, 2007
Response to:
High-def hijinks

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