Long after Blu-ray seemed to have crushed its competitor in the latest format war, the old enemy may be making a comeback in China.
It works like this: A new home video format called the China Blue Hi-Definition Disk is gaining popularity in the world's most populous country.
Despite the confusion that might arise from the presence of the word "blue" in its name, this format is actually just the HD DVD format in a new outfit. Toshiba, purveyors of HD DVD, licensed the technology to the CBHD company for its own use.
The new format (and its players) enjoy the backing of the Chinese government, a support structure that's helped the new machines outsell their Blu-ray competitors by 3-1. Tech website ZDNet.com predicts that the format will sell the most HD units in the world within one year.
In the world of adult, the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war followed a different trajectory than the VHS/Betamax war. Most adult companies came down on the side of HD DVD, mainly because Sony, the company behind Blu-ray, made it so difficult for adult companies to manufacture Blu-ray disks.
After HD DVD fell by the wayside, Blu-ray production got a lot easier for adult, but still, not many adult companies offer titles in the HD format.
But as of now, CBHD is a Chinese phenomenon. Will it make it to U.S. shores? Possibly. Hollywood studio Warner Bros has already signed on to produce titles in CBHD, and tech analyst Matt Hickey of CNETNews suggested that the sheer need to answer the threat of piracy may spur all the studios to follow suit.
"Given the size of the Chinese audience and its appetite for Hollywood movies — any street corner in Shanghai will net dozens of pirate copies of U.S. blockbusters — it would be foolish for the other studios to ignore the format for long."