Hualu, Panasonic-Made Blu-Ray Players Launched To Counter CBHD In China

The Format War might have ended many moon's ago, but Blu-ray never took control of the world's largest market, and in fact, China has its own HD format (China Blue High-Definition) to counter foreign license fees from BDA. Darn CBHD is much more resilient than HD-DVD despite having zero studio endorsements. Nevertheless, recent setback; the Taiwanese pullout, and now the China made Blu-ray for Chinese market could finally put this issue to rest, or could it?

A joint venture between China Hualu and Panasonic have released three new Blu-ray players for the first time in the China market with the announcement of BDP0801, BDP0810 and BDP0821.

"BDP0801 is an entry-level model, while BDP0821 supports Internet-based BD Live, the sources indicated. BDP0801 is much less expensive than Sony's entry-level BD player model BDP-S300, whose retail price has dropped to 3,990 yuan currently from 4,990 yuan in early 2008, the sources pointed out."

The prices of these players are actually more expensive than comparable models that are being sold at North American markets. According to DigiTimes, the move is to put pressure on CBHD and its supporters with plan to launch the CBHD hardware before the year ends. Seriously, 1.3 billion supporters behind its back are not to be ignored, it's hard to go though another Format War.