Amoi Electronics and Sichuan Changhong Electric, the two top DVD player manufacturers in China have voiced support for the HD-DVD format. This marks the first victory for the HD-DVD group in their competition with the Blu-ray Disc (BD) group led by Sony.
The major reason that has led the Chinese DVD manufacturers to support the HD DVD format over its rival Blu-Ray, is the easier implementation of the HD DVD technology in hardware compared with the Blu-Ray, since the former is inherently related to the current DVD format. In addition, the HD DVD format is expected to have a wide support by the majority of media manufacturers and OEMs, due to the lower production costs of the HD DVD media. Most of Taiwan's media makers are currently investing in new DVD production lines, capable of manufacturing/replicating both DVD and HD DVD media.
The news came out just a few days after the decision of Microsoft and Intel to support for the the HD DVD format.
Marty Gordon, vice president of Blu-ray backer Philips Electrics said: "This announcement does little to shift the momentum that's been building for Blu-ray Disc. It has dramatically more support from the consumer electronics industry, the PC manufacturers and the games hardware manufacturing side, as well as strong support form movie studios, music companies and game software developers."
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