China just plunged into the High-Def controversy by announcing its own CH-DVD standard. The news came from Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (OMNERC), an optical lab at Tsinghua University. CH-DVD is based on HD DVD and has the full backing of the Chinese government. This is supposed to demonstrate that Chinese-manufactured optical discs are world class, but the announcement hits you on another level: 1.5 billion Chinese consumers. Now, if they can get CH-DVD miniaturized for the PMP market it will be a showdown (CH-DVD vs. Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD) they can actually win.

[press release via engadget]