China is a very important market to any product trying to get established in the world because of its humongous size. However, will the largest potential consumer market give in to the Blu-ray technology? The Blu-ray Disc Association is investing a lot of time negociating with Chinese hardware manufactures to start producing cheaper Blu-ray player and content. China has been known for its government strong influence, many times preventing companies and services from doing business in the country.

Frank Simonis, head of the Blu-ray Disc Promotion Group for Europe, told CDRinfo.com that entering the growing Chinese market is regarded as key by the Blu-ray Disc Association. Offering the Blu-ray technology in China would be a prestigious move, while it would further help the establishment of the Blu-ray format.

Besides the government, the Blu-ray format faces a Chinese HD format known as CH-DVD (China High Definition DVD) based on the dead HD-DVD technology but with Chinese intellectual property (IP). Despite Toshiba’s war loss, the Chinese format is still being developed and supported in the country. The good news is: the Chinese government has expressed interest on Blu-ray and the Blu-ray Disc Association is currently evaluating Chinese codecs for the format. Riding on this wave is Sony, that apparently is taking the lead and allegedly started producing Blu-ray titles exclusively for the Chinese market.

China would be a great step towards a worldwide acceptance of the Blu-ray format but in my opinion the Standard Definition DVD is still the biggest Blu-ray opponent and unfortunately from what we’ve been seeing, it will be for a while until Blu-ray gets a more accessible price and more product availability.

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