EVD receives cold shoulders
8/1/2004 17:57
With higher prices and shortage of movie discs, EVD, or enhanced
versatile disk has received cold shoulders in Shanghai since it debut after the
New Year's Day this year, the Shanghai Morning Post reported today.
The
home-developed EVD (enhanced versatile disc), a prerecorded disc purportedly
offering five times higher image definition than DVD and complementing China's
growing market for HDTV sets, is a next-generation disc format that will
hopefully replace the currently popular DVD (digital versatile disc).
There
is not much difference between the appearance of EVD and DVD players, and only
tens of EVD players were sold to date, far less than the DVD sales, said a
seller with the Shanghai Guomei Electronics Appliances Co Ltd.
"Many
consumers consult the EVD players, but the price of 1,980 yuan (US$238) flinched
most of them," said the seller, adding that a popular DVD player is only priced
at 500-600 yuan on average.
Small output and high technological content is
cited as the main reason for the high prices of EVD players, said an industry
analyst.
People can enjoy higher image definition through EVD players, the
analyst added.
The shortage of EVD movie discs is another reason for the
sluggish sales of EVD players. Eight major movie companies around the world have
granted the copyright of more than 1,000 movies to EVD producers, with a batch
of movie discs expected to hit the market before the Spring Festival, the
analyst said.
Each EVD movie disk is predicted to be priced at 50
yuan.
EVD players can hardly win popularity among common families in a short
run, while they are targeting at those with high-definition TV sets, he pointed
out.
Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news
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