A blue-laser HD DVD-ROM format will be introduced by the DVD Forum which plans to draw it up specifically for (and only available in) the China market in response to the request by two China-based organizations, the government-sponsored Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (OMNERC) and the state-run China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), according to industry sources in Taiwan quoted by Digitimes.

The plan was announced by the forum at its latest conference in Japan. OMNERC and CETC hoped that the DVD Forum to specify a special version of the global HD DVD standard for the China market, in a bid to fight prevailing piracy of optical discs there.

It seems the China-specific format will differ from the global HD DVD-ROM format only in modulation codec, for the latter adopts ETM (8 data bits/12 channel bits modulation) while the China-specific version will use FSM (4 data bits/6 channel bits modulation). The Working Group 11 under the forum is drawing up the China-specific version, to be termed part 1 Version 10.0, and expects to finish it in the coming December, which probably means it will be ready sometime next year.

Partly because of China's population number and due to the large market potential in China, the DVD Forum and leading Chinese makers plan to promote the HD DVD format there. But since the purchasing power of consumers in China is lower than in the US, Europe and Japan, the China market has demanded a less expensive version of the HD DVD format. The China-specific version of HD DVD-ROM will meet this purpose as well as prevent an outflow of HD DVD players/recorders and pre-recorded discs from China to markets elsewhere. We'll see when the new format will be delivered if others will be interested as well.