China has super corrective DVD player made for pirated goods

This is hard to believe, the Sunday Morning Herald is reporting that a very hot selling DVD player in China is designed from the ground up to play poor quality, pirated materials, even if they are riddled with errors. They are available at half the cost of legitimate Sony and Phillips players.

The player is marketed by Jiangsu Shinco. Which is a secretive, unlisted company that refuses to divulge its financial figures. They admit their customers use pirated software. "Where there is a need, there is a supply," said the senior manager, who gave his name only as "Mr Fan".

That
isn't all. The caoqiang jiuchuo or "super-correcting" Chinese model of DVD
player, outsourced their parts from Sony to Jiangsu Shinco's super
correcting specs. Why would Sony do this? Because Sony can't sell their
legitimate players there, the black market is too tough a competitor. A
Professor Zeng, who is studying this situation said. "The only way Sony can
make money in this market is by supplying to Shinco the key components."
Amazing.

Now the world's electronics industry is about to face competition from Chinese brands of video disc players that have risen on the back of the pirate market. As any foreign visitor who has stocked up on China's cheap pirate copies will relate, the discs do not always play when you put them on your machine at home.    Enter the caoqiang jiuchuo or "super-correcting" Chinese model of DVD player. Developed by the Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group and selling for about half the cost of brands such as Philips and Sony, it is designed to cope with the poor quality of pirated video discs. Along with half a dozen domestic brands that have followed its lead, the company's Shinco brand has grabbed about 80 per cent of the Chinese market. Its factories produce 5 million DVD players a year, and, says Zeng Ming, a management expert who has studied the company, its annual sales are about $ US1 billion ($ 1.35 billion).

The reason is simple, Professor Zeng says. "If you buy a Sony or Panasonic DVD player, you have to buy the real or authentic disc, and most people in China can't afford them."

Legal discs run about 20 yuan, a pirate disc is half the cost. Enough of a savings to lure otherwise honest citizens to justify their actions. People on a typical urban weekly wage of 1000 yuan, hardly have a lot of money to throw around.

China legally imports only about 20 foreign films a year, to the rescue with the pirate market which offers a much more current and uncensored viewing menu. What a mess.

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Source: The Sunday Morning Herald