UK based New Medium Enterprises (NME) has launched in India its High Definition Versatile MultiLayer Disc (HD VMD) Player, which aims to be a competiter to Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the next generation disc and player format designed to provide the best quality images on your High Definition television at a very affordable price. The company also started selling an HD VMD Bundle box, featuring the player and five HD VMD titles in Hindi, Tamil, English.

Bollywood film distributor Eros is among content partners committed to supplying titles in HD VMD in India. It also expects film content distributors AP International, Ultra and Eagle to be partners for South Indian and Hollywood content.

HD VMD is a red-laser high-definition technology, which utilizes more traditional DVD manufacturing solution than the blue-laser Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. That similarity to DVD is considered to help keep HD VMD production costs relatively low. HD-VMD technology is based on a high-capacity red laser optical disc designed by NME, who have developed the world’s first commercially produced multilayer disc by mastering the process to increase the number of layers for information storage, with typical storage capacities of 5GB per layer.

HD-VMD can be called a true HD format as it comes with 1920×1080i/p resolution, up to 40 Mbps bitrate playback and DVD upscaling, which together allow users to watch their existing DVD collection and achieve premium picture quality through their HD TV monitors. HD-VMD’s seamless and cost-effective manufacturing solutions for High Definition products are based on the existing DVD production and industrial infrastructure. HD-VMD prices and costs are very close to DVDs and bring a quality that rivals both Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Despite the proliferation of HD LCD and plasma displays, many consumers, including those in India, have little or no access to High Definition content. It would be some time before HD becomes a true global offering. By introducing HD-VMD, NME promises to revolutionize the home entertainment market in Asia with the first HD red laser format available to consumers.

HD-VMD is currently being adopted by content providers and distributors in more than a dozen regions worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Central Europe, China, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, Scandinavia, Middle East, Russia and the United States.

Priced close to Rs 10,000, the HD VMD will be available next month, while the bundle box including 5 HD titles will be available at Rs 11,500, through retailers and e-commerce sites.

Written by Mahesh Chawla in Gadgets