Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD or HD VMD) is a high-capacity red laser optical disc technology designed by New Medium Enterprises, Inc.. VMD is intended to compete with the blue laser HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats and has an initial capacity of up to 30GB per side. At CeBIT in March 2006, NME demonstrated a prototype VMD player and announced that they were expecting to launch the format in the third quarter of 2006. At the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association trade show in September 2007, NME exhibited two players set for release in October 2007. There will be 20 US titles available at launch time, including many from Icon Productions. They have also signed a deal with Bollywood production company Eros Group who intend to release 50 Bollywood features on the format. The two initial players to be released are the ML622S and the ML777S. The ML622S will cost approximately $150 USD. The ML777S costs currently (2008-01) USD 200 and includes USB ports (for connection to external storage devices) and a media-card reader.[1], similar to standard DVDs. The larger formats come from adding more layers. Whereas DVDs hold up to 2 layers per side, standard VMDs can use 4 layers, for 20 GB of storage. There are also reports of 8- and 10-layered versions which can hold 40 and 50 GB, respectively. [2] The manufacturer list up to 20 layers on a disc being possible in the future. [3] The Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats use blue-violet lasers, rather than VMD's red laser, which means they can store more information per layer. However, those formats have so far only utilized 1- and 2-layered versions. In May 2005 Toshiba announced a triple layer HD-DVD (45gb). In January 2007 they announced the capacity would be 51GB. There has also been discussion of experimental 4-layer versions some way ahead. Therefore, a standard 4-layer VMD stores 20 GB which is comparable to a 1-layered HD DVD (15 GB) and 1-layer Blu-ray Disc (25 GB).
The HD VMD format is capable of HD resolutions up to 1080p which is comparable with Blu-ray and HD DVD. Video is encoded in MPEG-2 and VC-1 formats at a maximum bitrate of 40 Megabits per second. This falls between the maximum bitrates of HD DVD (36 Mbit/s) and Blu-ray (48 Mbit/s). There is the possibility that VMD discs may be encoded with the H.264 format in the future.[1] The HD VMD format supports up to 7.1-channel Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS audio output, though it will not offer Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audiosurround sound codecs.
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