Yet more format war news...

In a story from DVD Town, it seems that the Chinese government has picked HD-DVD to be their format.

Apparently, the Chinese version of HD-DVD will be "100% identical to the US HD-DVD format but will use the same optical technology."

A disc from China will not work on a US based HD-DVD player, but Chinese players
"will play their HD format as well as regular US and European HD-DVD releases."

The goal is to have HD-DVD as their national format "in place before the 2008 Olympics which will be held in Beijing."

What this is all means in the scheme of the format war is anybody's guess but it's certainly looking like, despite better sales of Blu-ray discs, HD-DVD is trying to become more ubiquitous.

Also...

The DVD Forum has approved a new HD-DVD disc that will be able to hold 51 GB of content.

The plan is for the disc to "be a triple layered... with 17GB on each layer."

Blu-ray disc had leading HD-DVD in storage capacity with 50 GB as the maximum amount of data it could hold.