As is things weren't full enough with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, another format is attempting to enter the fray.

Read up on it first.

Its an interesting approach, however I sincerely doubt we'll see any real mainstream adoption of it here, given most companies have already thrown their weight behind Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD. Their movie catalog is relatively small right now, with some bigger names (Saw II, Saw III, Lucky Number Slevin, etc) along with stuff you probably won't see at your local cinema center. At launch there might be 20 titles here, although if you're into Bollywood stuff there might be an additional 50 titles.

When Arstechinca covered the format originally New Medium Enterprises, the company behind HD-VMD, stated they were shooting more for India and China with the product, aiming to be the HD version of VCD. If nothing else, the new format still plays normal DVD's, so if the machines drop in price enough, they could well become the last DVD player some people buy, complete with HDMI and upscaling.

I like the idea, and the while the normal HD-VMD discs are about 20g (four layers), supposedly the format can go up to 50g with 10 layer discs. If " ...the hardware is essentially a DVD player with new firmware that can address the multiple layers in VMDs" statement is true, then its entirely possible we might see the DVD format continue on for a good while longer for PC's if VMD burners and media can be released at a reasonable price and level of performance.

Chances are this will be a footnote in the HD battle here in the US, but its an interesting one. Of course, if one considers the price (the players are $200), its possible the format might discover a niche somewhere, somehow, especially if existing players can take a simple firmware upgrade to play the HD-VMD discs. Similarly, if thats all it would take to upgrade an existing DVD drive, then Microsoft might well want to take note...