VMD elbows its way into High Definition
Given the household names noisily backing one or the other next-generation high-definition DVD formats – Blu-ray and HD-DVD – you will be forgiven for thinking that it is a two-horse race.
A newcomer, New Medium Enterprises (NME), is working hard at making sure that is not the case. DVD intelligence's Jean-Luc Renaud was invited in London at the world’s first demonstration of the company’s ground-breaking high definition technology – Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD).
In a nutshell, the HD material is sourced from a single-sided disc with several layers. The demo disc staked four layers providing a capacity in excess of 20Gb, but the format roadmap calls for up to 20 layers providing 100GB of storage. The company reckons that, currently, up to eight layers is economically feasible.
On the hardware side, the built-in decoder of a standard DVD player is to be replaced by an HD decoder that enables variable bitrate readout of up to 40Mbs, though the medium bitrate is 19.7Mbs which is the standard HDTV broadcasting bitrate. Combined with “routine†software modification, the player’s controller mechanism focuses the pick-up lenses with greater precision on each of the VMD layers, more-closely staked (20 microns) than in a DVD-9 (250 microns).
Mahesh Jayanarayan, a consultant to the company, is keen to emphasise that VMD is not a competing new standard, but an enhancement of the standard DVD format. Indeed, VMD uses the existing red laser technology, the same pick-up lenses and the manufacturing process utilises only existing DVD manufacturing technologies and equipment. Furthermore, the player is fully compatible with standard DVD and other types of optical discs.
NME’s philosophy is to bring to market packaged HDTV at a price consumers have come to expect – and indeed are now used to – with DVD players. Dr Sergey Magnitskiy, one of the VMD developers, estimates that changing the decoder and controller software chips would add “only a few dollars†to the price of a DVD player.
HD recording is not seen by NME as a consumer priority and, while plans for recordable drives (and blue laser applications) are on the roadmap, the company focus is currently on playback-only machines.
The HD system is based on MPEG-2 decoder chip Sti7710. It relies on today’s accepted 1080i/p HD production/distribution format and stays away from 720p. The chips and drives are being manufactured in China. NME intends to licence its technology to OEMs. Jayanarayan will only say that they are under discussion with a number of CE manufacturers.
MNE will jump-start disc production at PrimeDisc Technologies' plant, located at Wiesbaden, Germany. The yield should be comparable to that of DVD-9. The company claims the VMD disc will cost $2 ex-factory, whereas a Blu-ray disc would fetch “$35-50 apiece.â€
20GB VMD discs will be mass-produced in time for Christmas. The 30GB version should be ready for Summer 2006, according to the company.
A market that could be key in VMD’s take-up and reaching economies of scale is India over which NME has set its sight. “Fiber optics networks are being built to accommodate HD services later this year,†says Jayanarayan. “We will be active there.â€
The publicly-listed company carries out R&D in Israel, Russia and Ukraine. It is owned for 35% by its scientists and the rest by individuals and institution. One of the major shareholders is Australia’s media magnate Kerry Paker.
In January 2004, NME acquired all of the Versatile Multilayer Disc intellectual property assets from MultiDisc in London and TriGm in Belgium. The company has one patent pending and four provisional patents filed to date. It is not in a hurry to firm them up yet as “specs disclosure could give ideas to others too early,†says the company.
The scientific team behind VMD knows one or two things about multilayer optical discs. At a DVD conference in Dublin in 1998, DVD Intelligence remembered a demo of a 7-layer CD disc. The technology was called Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD) and the company behind it, Constellation 3D, which had ambitious plans for 50-layer discs and cards. The Chairman and CEO was Dr Eugene Levich, now the scientific advertiser to New Medium Enterprises. Dr Sergey Magnitskiy a key VMD developer is also an ex-Constellation 3D scientist. [At least now we know what happend to C3D]
Less technologically ambitious than FMD or other very high storage holographic approaches or even, for that matter, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, VMD has the considerable advantage of offering the same high-quality HD experience at a fraction of the price, and now.
DVD Intelligence can attest to the stunning quality of the CBS and Warner-produced HD material shown on a plasma screen and via HD projection.
But the success of a new entertainment format depends less on technology than on economics, content, partnership and timing, and not necessarily in this order.
While the Hollywood studios have officially sided with one or the other of the two main next-generation contenders, Jayanarayan is keen to point out that “these commitments are not exclusive.†Also, a number of independent publishers and distributors, with whom NME is in talks, remain on the sideline waiting to see from which direction the wind will blow. The company is looking at special-interest material as well. It remains that, as the saying goes, content is king and the locomotives are Hollywood titles.
While it is unlikely that Blu-ray and HD-DVD can co-exist as consumers are not going to commit to expensive machines and discs in a climate of uncertainly, VMD on the other hand could well live side by side with either of the costlier contenders.
If the company is forthright about how little fitting an HD decoder would add to the retail price of a DVD player, OEMs may well adopt the technology the same way they have readily paid for DTS licences. In other words, VMD-capable players could become the default DVD playback machine, especially if Blu-ray or HD-DVD fail to establish a hold on the market quickly enough. Only time will tell.
