Fuh Yuan to make 2M HD-DVD players for Walmart; Wal-Mart denies rumor

[wei2008]

The following site is in Chinese. It basically says that Fuh Yuan electronic corporation from Taiwan just built a new factory to manufacture blue laser HD-DVD cores. This core is independently developed by Fuh Yuan, and is a joint project with TDK. The production will be handled by Great Wall corporation in China. An interesting thing is that it mentioned that Fuh Yuan got a two million units order from Wal-Mart, worth USD$100 million. Since Wal-Mart does not sell blue laser core, I assume it would be players. Fuh Yuan's stock will be released by July 12th, and will be publicly traded next March. It is a press release.

Fuh Yuan has a similar news on its Chinese website, but not on its English version.

Link: http://www.ettoday.com/2007/04/16/320-2082635.htm

Fuh Yuan website: http://www.fuhyuan.com/

Edit: Possible price: $299, see link here (again, Chinese): http://www.udn.com/2007/4/16/NEWS/ST.../3804769.shtml
Edit: The price link edited. It works now,

[GmanAVS]

Interesting news, ty

[Scoob]

If this is true, it could really push J6P to adopt sooner than later.

[venk]

$299 seems like a bit much since the A2 streets for $300-$350. Hopefully, this player will street at $199.

[Scoob]

Originally Posted by venk

$299 seems like a bit much since the A2 streets for $300-$350. Hopefully, this player will street at $199.

Agreed.

[geko29]

Count on these to be WELL under $200 by the time they hit shelves. Wal-Mart is buying them for $50 apiece, they're not going to be reselling them for $300. High volume and low prices with razor-thin margins is their entire business model. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they sold for $99, which would still allow for a bit of profit even after UL registration, packaging and delivery.

[hikinokie]

I just hope it ends the stupid format war.

[venk]

Walmart may have just purchased the core for $50, they would still have to pay FY or another OEM the rest of the money for assembly and manufacturing of the actual player itself.

[madpoet]

It won't.

[JWhip]

If these hit the selves in the US in 2007 at a price of around $199 it will be really hard for the likes of Fox and Disney to ignore the sale of such a machine if it sells in big numbers. It could really even out the PS3 factor, especially given that these machines will be purchased to play HD-DVD discs. It makes one wonder if Samsung was aware of this and whether this is behind their decision to announce the Duo hybrid player at this time. Interesting news indeed.

[gooki]

And the big thing to concentrate on is

This core is independently developed by Fuh Yuan, and is a joint project with TDK.

TDK in the past have been solely implementing BD technology - good to see them moving into HDDVD development.

[Urza]

Two million players, and a new factory.

I thought HDDVD lost the war

[wei2008]

Originally Posted by Urza

Two million players, and a new factory.

I thought HDDVD lost the war

It says there could be more orders from Wal-Mart, totaling $300 million for next year. So more is coming,

[dad1153]

If there are HD-DVD players selling for under $200 in Walmart stores in time for Black Friday this war is so over. I'm serious. Is it me or is this bigger than we're making it out to be?

[hikinokie]

Originally Posted by dad1153

If there are HD-DVD players selling for under $200 in Walmart stores in time for Black Friday this war is so over. I'm serious. Is it me or is this bigger than we're making it out to be?

If this turns the tide there will be dancing in the streets. Imagine Sony folding by CES 2008! (I can dream can't I?)

[Slim GoodBooty]

Originally Posted by hikinokie

If this turns the tide there will be dancing in the streets. Imagine Sony folding by CES 2008! (I can dream can't I?)

Why do you guys need Sony to fold? It should be enough that HDDVD will get more studios involved. No matter what happens we are years from SOny offering HDDVDs, even if everyone else deserts them.

[Snickering Hound]

Got to be careful with these since alot of Fuyuan players are listed as HD-DVD when they are just DVD players that do upconversion over HDMI.

http://www.globalsources.com/manufac...HD-Player.html

But a blue laser factory with a big Walmart order is news

[Slim GoodBooty]

Originally Posted by Snickering Hound

Got to be careful with these since alot of Fuyuan players are listed as HD-DVD when they are just DVD players that do upconversion over HDMI.

http://www.globalsources.com/manufac...HD-Player.html

But a blue laser factory with a big Walmart order is news

The fact is that the only technology at the moment that is readily and cheaply replicated is HDDVD. There are still serious doubts that BD25 can be manufactured in DVD type numbers and BD50 damn sure can't. HDDVD players are also much cheaper to manufacture and are scaling better than their BD cousins. At any rate, both sides have way too much invested to stop any time soon. If there were a million HDDVD players in homes and every studio but Fox and Sony went neutral, Sony would still make only BD because of the money they felt they got screwed out of with DVD.

[Technicolor]

Launching the PS3 with BD drives and taking a loss just to push adoption: $1 billion

Issuing a PR campaign saying the war is over and Blu-ray won: $ 100 million

Watching Walmart selling HD DVD stand alone players at $199: priceless.

[Paul Cordingley]

Originally Posted by Technicolor

Launching the PS3 with BD drives and taking a loss just to push adoption: $1 billion

Issuing a PR campaign saying the war is over and Blu-ray won: $ 100 million

Watching Walmart selling HD DVD stand alone players at $199: priceless.

LOL. Brilliant.

[Snickering Hound]

Ran the first link through an online chinese to english translator:

Link: http://www.ettoday.com/2007/04/16/320-2082635.htm

With 2 million orders, it looks like Walmart has chosen an HD format.

In lucky Yan the branch factory is completed blue light HD the DVD cassette mechanism official birth

Reporter Zhang Yiming the/Taichung reported

Taiwan electronic technology industry knocks at the gate once again to the world! In the lucky Yan electron company the branch factory finishes at the same time which begins using, also the foreign publication researches and develops the manufacture by the people “blue light HD DVD” the cassette mechanism official birth. This director of company Deng Hongji indicated that after the fine resolution “blue light HD DVD” the cassette mechanism researches and develops successfully, this year immediately receives the American WALMART 2,000,000 order forms, expected the end of next year the total output value may arrive at the dollar 10,100,000,000.

In the lucky Yan electron company the branch factory is having been through repeatedly one year construction, yesterday morning held finishes the launching ceremony, first supervised party politics important people and so on Chair Qian Fu Mr. and Mrs. to attend this grand meeting. Chairman Deng Hongji in the new factory begins using in the ceremony, also outward publishes the new product “blue light HD DVD” the cassette mechanism, but this is also first fine resolution blue light HD DVD which researches and develops voluntarily by the people.

Deng Hongji releases the advantage multi-news to point out that at present this blue light HD the DVD cassette mechanism with the Japanese TDK cooperation, will be responsible by the mainland Great Wall to produce, therefore after the product is born obtains the American WALMART 2,000,000 order forms immediately, expected the end of this year, the output value may amount to 100,000,000 Yuan dollars, if will add on the next year to estimate the value again, the output value on looked that 300,000,000 Yuan dollars, will be equal to the dollar 10,100,000,000 Yuan. Also therefore the lucky Yan stock will distribute in this July 12, in next year March cabinet.
　
Deng Hongji also mentioned that blue light HD the DVD cassette mechanism for the high-capacity, Gao Huazhi, the high analysis's new field of vision, may let the phantom be more lifelike, the picture to be more gorgeous. Its superiority is easier and the present DVD disc maintains the compatibility, and may continue to use the existing DVD disc's production equipment, is advantageous expands the disc and objective lens' distance, does not need the disc card chest and so on, reduces largely from the existing DVD transition the cost which needs to HD DVD, the cost which from DVD causes the small dish piece production manufacturer to transform to HD DVD when needs to be able 夠 to fall lowly. In addition, although HD the DVD small dish piece record capacity is small, but against blows, the antifouling ability to be good, does not need the card chest, therefore the production system regulation is easy, and the cost is low.

[xboxboi]

Originally Posted by wei2008

The following site is in Chinese. It basically says that Fuh Yuan electronic corporation from Taiwan just built a new factory to manufacture blue laser HD-DVD cores. This core is independently developed by Fuh Yuan, and is a joint project with TDK. The production will be handled by Great Wall corporation in China. An interesting thing is that it mentioned that Fuh Yuan got a two million units order from Wal-Mart, worth USD$100 million. Since Wal-Mart does not sell blue laser core, I assume it would be players. Fuh Yuan's stock will be released by July 12th, and will be publicly traded next March. It is a press release.

Fuh Yuan has a similar news on its Chinese website, but not on its English version.

Link: http://www.ettoday.com/2007/04/16/320-2082635.htm

Fuh Yuan website: http://www.fuhyuan.com/

Edit: Possible price: $299, see link here (again, Chinese): http://udn.com/NEWS/STOCK/STO5/3804769.shtml
Edit: The price link no longer work now. I wonder why,

OMG - 100mil/2mil = (((( $50 )))))

[Andrikos]

$199 for a chinese player sold at crapmart is waaaaaaay too high a price for J6P to swallow.

Now if the player came in at $99 bundled with a $500 HDTV, now we're talking.
You have reached the masses and therefore critical mass.

This would seriously tip the scales in the format war but it's all theoretical right now...

Movie prices need to go to the ~$15 range and lower for J6P to start stocking up.

PS Oh yeah, change the name (Fuh Yuan) to something less, ahem, strange. Something like blue dragon...

[roma_victor]

IMO this is a very significant development if true; fyi I have a post in the insider's thread asking for verfication and further information, and I'll post any response here.

Also, I'm not sure if the dollar figures cited are supposed to be US dollars or Taiwanese Yuans which IIRC are approximately 1/38 of US dollar

[tundrSQ]

am I the only one that bristles at the term "j6p"

[trgraphics]

I guess these players aren't vaporware after all!

Orders for 2 million from Wal-Mart of all places is very serious business! They barely sell them now. Apparently they see a bright future for HD DVD.

This is going to be a very interesting year and this news is the biggest so far for HD DVD.

[Django]

I think this war is about to end!!!

[FoolintheRain]

Hmmmm,

Matrix Trilogy pseudo HD DVD exclusive
LOTR pseudo HD DVD exclusive
Harry Potter franchise pseudo HD DVD exclusive
Back to the Future HD DVD exclusive

2 MILLION cheap HD DVD players to Walmart

If all of these happen before the end of 2007...

That, ladies and gentlemen WINS the format war!
True, BD will hang around like Betamax did, but everyone will have jumped neutral except SONY...

Just an idea...but everyone should send the highlights of this tasty little news blurb to s all the BD only studios via email and mention the price impact, mass adoption impact, etc. Just an idea. A type of consumer driven "things that make ya go Hmmm" thing.

[xboxboi]

the article appeared to be a press release for some sort of IPO. Me likey

[Django]

Originally Posted by FoolintheRain

Hmmmm,

Matrix Trilogy pseudo HD DVD exclusive
LOTR pseudo HD DVD exclusive
Harry Potter franchise pseudo HD DVD exclusive
Back to the Future HD DVD exclusive

2 MILLION cheap HD DVD players to Walmart

If all of these happen before the end of 2007...

That, ladies and gentlemen WINS the format war!
True, BD will hang around like Betamax did, but everyone will have jumped neutral except SONY...

Just an idea...but everyone should send the highlights of this tasty little news blurb to s all the BD only studios via email and mention the price impact, mass adoption impact, etc. Just an idea. A type of consumer driven "things that make ya go Hmmm" thing.

Don't think that, for one second, the studios are not aware of what is happening.

Want to tell me what is going on with FOX???
I think they might just support HD DVD yet.