China’s home-grown high-definition disc format, China Blue HD, received a boost from Warner Bros. following the Hollywood studios’ announcement that it plans to support CBHD with a number of its films during the first half of 2009, including 'Harry Potter' titles, 'Blood Diamond,' 'Golden Compass' and 'Speed Racer.'

CBHD was developed under the supervision of The Ministry of Industry & Information Technology (MIIT) and the Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (OMNERC) at Tsinghua University, in cooperation with leading local Chinese CES manufacturers such as TCL, Shinco and TongFang, and local filmmakers and distributors such as China Record, China Film and Huayi Brothers.

According to Warner's Chinese-language announcement, the CBHD Warner and New Line discs released by will be priced between 50 and 70 yuan (about $7.25 to $10.15), and player prices will start at about 1,999 yuan ($290).

Converting a DVD production line to CBHD is estimated to cost only $800,000, compared to the $3 million that it would cost to convert to a Blu-ray production plant. Being mostly home-grown, the technology benefits from lower licensing fees.

Because of the cheaper pricetag than competitor Blu-ray, Warner must hope it will extend its reach to an estimated 27 million high definition television Chinese households in 2009, growing rapidly to 47 million in 2010 and 72 million in 2011.

In an ironical twist, Warner is thus helping propel CBHD – formerly known as CH-DVD (China High Definition DVD) – a format essentially based on Toshiba’s HD DVD which the studio fatally wounded outside of China by siding with Sony’s Blu-ray. As Warner Bros. already publishes in Blu-ray worldwide, the studio’s titles will be available in China on both Blu-ray as well as CBHD.

Story filed 04.03.09