New Medium Enterprise and Beijing E-World Technology

CDRinfo visited the New Medium Enterprise (NME) and Beijing E-World Technology Co. booth where we met with Alexander Bolker-Hagerty, Chief Operating Officer at NME and Li Hai, Beijing E-World Technology Vice-President.

NME has acquired the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) intellectual property assets, a Red laser optical storage disc that delivers the capacity to store up to 20 layers of content on one side of a disc and store from 20 to 40GB of content. Beijing E-World is a Chinese optical storage company that produces an HD storage format, the Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD).

Both companies announced their merger in December which is to be finalized in April under the name NME-World, which will become the unique owner of the High-definition Red laser technology.

According to the company, the technology would be capable of storing up to 100GB of data content. The VMD technology is compatible with today's standard CD and DVD formats.

"Without making a drastic shift from Red laser technology, researchers at NME have found a means of exploiting the unused or wasted space between the existing layers of a standard DVD through its unique multilayer technology. This brilliantly innovative technology, is evident in Versatile Multilayer Discs or VMD, starting with a minimum storage capacity of 20GB today, 40 GB in the 3rd quarter and expandable further in the future," reads the company's press kit.

NME has already signed content agreements in India, China, Russia and South America. Through an agreement with Eros Group, a distributor of Indian movies, NME will acquire the rights of more than 2600 Bollywood films, of which 50 will be available in the VMD format by the end of 2006.

Mr.Bolker-Hagerty from NME explained to CDRinfo that VMD technology requires only minor modifications to current manufacturing equipment, which avoids the high costs involved in switching to Blue laser technology.

He adds that NME's technology could eventually be adapted to the Blue laser technology when it will become flawless and more affordable. A Future Blue Laser VMD would deliver a potential 200GB optical storage capacity, he says.

NME also claims that VMD has maximum data transfer rate of 40 Mbps and delivers the 1024 bit VMDCPS content protection scheme.

Several feature-length films in High Definition (1920/1080 resolution) were exhibited at CeBIT.

NME and Beijing E-World were also showcasing a stand-alone player from Chinese manufacturer Shinco, as seen in the picture above, that will sell for approximately US$150.

Two bundled packages for High-Definition viewing were showcased. The home cinema package which consists of an EVD player with VMD technology combined with a 42-inch HD LCD screen and will sell for US$3000. The same home cinema package with a 37-inch HD LCD screen as seen in the picture above, will sell for US$2000.

A digital public theatre package playing VMD pre-recorded discs combining an EVD HD player, a JVC HD projector and surround sound will sell for approximately US$30,000. All products will be available in the third quarter of 2006.

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