Chapter 471: Standard War: Wanshang DVD Suddenly Appears

In July 1991, Shenzhen was hot as a red-hot iron plate.

The air conditioning at the South Mountain Research and Development Center was turned up to max, but the lab's thermostat stubbornly pointed at thirty-four degrees.

Zhang Wei's white coat was soaked through a large patch on the back, clinging tightly to his spine like a second layer of skin.

He stared fixedly at the jumping waveforms on the oscilloscope screen, his eyes bloodshot, as if he'd stayed up three days and three nights—in fact, he had indeed not left the lab for seventy-two hours.

"Chief Zhang, the chip temperature is alarming again." A young engineer's voice trembled with tears, "This is already the seventh time today……"

"Shut it down and start over." Zhang Wei's voice was hoarse yet unusually calm, "Add another 0.5 millimeter to the heat sink."

On the workbench lay three prototypes.

The one on the left was the latest Japanese VCD player on the market—silver-white casing, streamlined design, indicator lights glowing a faint blue.

Scattered nearby were several pirated discs—'Ancient and Modern War: Qin Terracotta Warriors Love' and 'God of Gambling'—the most popular films on the market.

The one in the middle was Wanshang's own VCD prototype, code name CDK-320—a dull iron shell with exposed screws, like junk just picked up from a scrapyard.

The one on the right was what they had poured half a year's blood and sweat into—the DVD prototype code-named 'Dragon Core No. 1'.

Three months earlier, Li Ping'an had brought back from Hong Kong the latest Panasonic VCD player.

At the group's senior leadership meeting, he set the machine on the table and pressed play.

On the TV screen a blurry image appeared, snowflakes crackling, the sound like it was coming from a tin can.

"Just this thing," Li Ping'an pointed at the machine worth eight thousand Hong Kong dollars, "the Japanese sell it to us for eight thousand. What's the cost? Zhang Wei, give me an estimate."

Zhang Wei pushed his glasses up: 'At most fifteen hundred.'

A hiss of indrawn breath rose in the meeting room.

"Our CDK-320 can go into production next month, cost can be cut to twelve hundred, and the picture quality will be better than this."

Xu Jiaming interjected, 'The market price can be set at twenty-five hundred; it will definitely sell out.'

Li Ping'an said nothing, just pulled another disc out of his briefcase.

This disc differed from an ordinary CD, its surface shimmering with an odd iridescence.

"This is a test disc leaked from Sony's lab, DVD spec."

He looked around the crowd, 'Resolution is four times VCD's, audio can reach five-channel surround. The Japanese will begin mass production next year.'

He tossed the disc to Zhang Wei: 'Can we do it?'

Zhang Wei caught the disc, his hand shaking slightly.

He wasn't afraid, he was excited—the kind of excitement a shark feels smelling blood.

"The MPEG-2 compression algorithm is open-source; in theory anyone can use it."

He spoke quickly, 'But the decoding chip, optical head, error correction algorithm… these are patent walls. The Japanese have built them up over ten years; for us to get past is hard.'

"How hard?" Li Ping'an asked.

"As hard as building a skyscraper on tofu." Zhang Wei spoke frankly, "Our VCD hasn't even hit the market, yet switching to DVD now is like fighting on two fronts. R&D investment will at least triple, and… it's very likely to fail."

The meeting room fell into silence.

Sunlight slanted in through the window, illuminating the dust dancing in the air.

"Do." Li Ping'an said only one word.

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the endless construction site below: 'VCD is the present, DVD is the future. We can make money now, but we cannot abandon the future. The Japanese have built a wall; we will dig a tunnel. No matter how high the patent wall, there will always be a gap.'

He turned, eyes sharp as a knife: 'Engineer Zhang, however much money you need, I'll give you that much. However many people you need, I'll allocate that many. Just one thing——'

"By this time next year, I want to see Wanshang-brand DVDs on the counters of the Wangfujing Department Store."

From that day on, the South Mountain Research and Development Center entered a 'wartime state.'

Zhang Wei recruited seventeen master's and PhD students from universities nationwide in relevant fields, added to the original team, forming a thirty-eight-person task force. The lab lights have never been off since, working in three shifts around the clock.

Problems are more numerous than imagined.

The first roadblock is the MPEG-2 decoding chip. Imported chips are expensive and have export quotas limited; the only way out is to design our own.

"Chief Zhang, the seventh version design drawing failed again." The female engineer in charge of chip design, her eyes red-rimmed, said, "Power consumption won't go down; it overheats as soon as it runs."

Zhang Wei took the drawings, stared at the dense lines, and suddenly asked: 'Are we being too superstitious about textbooks?'

He grabbed a red pen and drew circles around several key nodes: 'Can we cut half of these redundant verification units? Use software error correction to compensate.'

"But theoretically——"

"Theory is meant to be broken." Zhang Wei interrupted her, "The Japanese pursue perfection in design; we pursue usability. First solve going from nothing to something, then solve going from good to better."

The second difficulty is the optical head.

The CD pickup used in VCD lacks sufficient precision to read DVD's high-density discs. Meanwhile, high-precision optical heads are only produced by three Japanese companies, which are under an embargo against China.

"I'll go to Changchun." Zhang Wei picked up his luggage and left.

Three days later, he returned with two veteran engineers—these were the first-generation optical instrument experts of New China, who had worked their whole lives at the Optical Machinery Institute before retirement.

"Young man, your drawing is wrong." The veteran engineer put on his reading glasses, pointed at the design, "The curvature of this lens group can't be ground. It needs to be changed."

"How to change it?"

"Change it according to the precision we can achieve."

July 15, 3:00 a. m.

The waveform on the oscilloscope finally stabilized into a perfect smooth curve.

The cooling fan hummed, the prototype's casing temperature held at forty-two degrees—although hot to the touch, at least it wouldn't burn.

Zhang Wei pressed the play button.

The TV screen lit up with a 'shh'.

No snowflakes, no flickering; the characters' hair strands on screen were clearly visible. Sound came simultaneously from the five speakers—front left, front right, center, rear left, rear right—truly forming surround stereo.

The lab was so quiet you could hear a heartbeat.

Then, nobody knew who started clapping first.

The applause went from sparse to enthusiastic, and in the end everyone jumped up like crazy, hugging and slapping each other's shoulders, some even burst into tears.

Zhang Wei didn't move.

He simply slumped in the chair, tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, and let out a long, long breath.

Six and a half months of torment, one hundred ninety‑six days and nights of battle, finally—

It was done.

At eight o'clock the next morning, Li Ping'an rushed into the laboratory.

He wasn't wearing a suit, just an ordinary white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, his eyes also bloodshot—Zhang Wei knew that this boss certainly hadn't slept at all last night.

"Play it for me," Li Ping'an said in a single sentence.

Zhang Wei pressed the play button. This time he played a test disc, a clip of the founding ceremony from "Founding of the Nation." When the chairman announced "The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China is established today," the deep voice surged from five directions, as if transporting people back to Tiananmen Square in 1949.

The picture was so clear that every red flag on the city tower could be seen trembling in the wind.

Li Ping'an stared at the screen, watching for a full ten minutes.

Then he turned, grasped Zhang Wei's hand tightly, squeezing hard: "You've worked hard."

Just three words, but Zhang Wei felt that all the fatigue of the past six months was worth it.

"What next?" Xu Jiaming asked, "Start mass production immediately?"

"Not yet," Li Ping'an shook his head, "First apply for patents, international patents."

Everyone in the conference room was stunned.

In China in 1991, it was still novel for companies to apply for international patents. Most manufacturers thought about how to copy and cut costs; no one considered proactively building patent barriers.

"The DVD standard is still being formulated now."

Li Ping'an took out a stack of documents, "The Japanese are promoting their standard, the Americans another, and the Europeans have their own ideas. This is an opportunity."

He looked at Zhang Wei: "What original technologies do we have?"

"Full-format Hard Decoding Compatibility," Zhang Wei replied immediately, "Our chip can automatically identify PAL and NTSC formats without manual switching. The Japanese haven't done this."

"Super‑strong error‑correction algorithm," a young engineer added, "For scratched and pirated discs, our error‑correction capability is thirty percent stronger than existing algorithms."

"And Karaoke Function Integration," Xu Jiaming said, "We've implemented reverb, pitch shift, and vocal removal at the chip level, hardware‑realized, with only a five percent cost increase."

Li Ping'an wrote each of these down.

"That's it, apply for international patents," he tapped the table, "We must not only apply, but do so with great fanfare. Get Xinhua to issue a press release, have People's Daily write a report, and let the whole world know—Wanshang, China, has produced a DVD with its own original technology."

The patent‑application process is more grueling than the R&D itself.

Chen Anbang and Zhang Wei led the team on three trips to Beijing and two to Hong Kong, staying together with the patent‑agency people, translating the technical documents into English, Japanese, and German. Those obscure technical terms drove the translators nearly mad.

"Engineer Zhang, how do we translate 'dual-level dynamic error compensation algorithm'?" the young translator asked with a frown.

"Just translate it as... Dual‑levelDynamicErrorCorrection," Zhang Wei coined a name on the spot, "After all, patent terms are better the more intimidating."

At the end of August, the first batch of international patent applications was submitted.

Almost simultaneously, Xinhua issued a press release: "China's Independent Development of DVD Player Successful, Multiple Technologies Reach International Advanced Level."

The article specifically mentioned "Full-format Compatibility" and "Super‑strong error‑correction," calling them "innovative designs tailored to the characteristics of the Chinese market."

The Japanese responded quickly.

On September 3, people from Sony's China branch came to the door, saying they wanted a "technology exchange."

The exchange meeting was arranged in the conference room of Wanxiang Dasha.

Five people came from the Japanese side; the leader was named Tian Zhong, in his early forties, his hair meticulously combed, speaking courteously, but with knives hidden in his eyes.

"Mr. Li Ping'an, Mr. Zhang Wei, congratulations on your company's breakthrough," Tian Zhong began politely, "We have noticed that some technologies in your patent documents may overlap with ours. To avoid future disputes, we hope for an opportunity for cross‑licensing."

It sounds flattering, but the translation is: you used our technology, you have to pay.

Li Ping'an smiled, "Mr. Tian Zhong, all our patents are original technologies. If you think there is overlap, you can present evidence, and we will compare them line by line."

Tian Zhong's smile stiffened.

Of course he couldn't produce evidence—Wanshang's patents truly are the marginal innovations the Japanese haven't done.

But these marginal innovations, when combined, form a complete solution that is more suitable for the Chinese market.

"Then, regarding standard setting..." Tian Zhong shifted direction, "The international DVD standard is still under discussion. We hope your company can support the Japanese proposal; in return, we can provide a supply channel for optical pickups."

That is the real killer move.

Without high‑precision optical pickups, a DVD is just a pile of scrap metal.

The conference room fell silent.

Everyone looked at Li Ping'an.

Li Ping'an leisurely took a sip of tea.

"Mr. Tian Zhong, we are already cooperating with the Changchun Institute of Optics to build our own optical pickup production line," he set down his cup, "It will be operational by year‑end, with a monthly capacity of fifty thousand, enough for our own use."

Tian Zhong's complexion changed.

"As for the standard," Li Ping'an continued, "We believe international standards should consider the needs of different markets. For example, Chinese families like to sing karaoke, so Karaoke Function should be included in the basic standard. Also, because the Chinese market has many discs of various formats, Full‑format Compatibility is a necessary feature."

He produced the prepared proposal: "These are the supplemental clauses we intend to submit to the standards committee. If the Japanese proposal adopts these clauses, we will support it."

This is a general.

Tian Zhong stared at the proposal, his hand trembling slightly.

If adopted, the Japanese proposal will increase costs. If not, it will lose the support of China, the future largest market.

"I need... to report back," Tian Zhong said with difficulty.

In October, Wanshang DVD entered full mass production.

The production line was set up in Longgang Gongye Yuan, operating twenty‑four hours nonstop. Xu Jiaming personally supervised the workshop, watching each component assembled into a complete unit, labeled "Wanshang DVD-1000".

The first batch output was five thousand units.

"Isn't that too few?" someone asked.

"Not many." Li Ping'an shook his head. "First, let's test the water."

On November 1, Wanshang DVD was launched simultaneously at the Beijing Wangfujing Department Store, Shanghai First Department Store, and Guangzhou Southern Building.

Price: 3,888 yuan.

This price is half that of a Japanese VCD, yet its performance is four times that of a VCD.

On the day of launch, a long queue formed at the entrance of the Wangfujing Department Store.

Among the crowd waiting, there was a middle‑aged man wearing glasses who had been waiting since six a. m.

He was a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy, teaching photography. Having heard that Wanshang DVD's picture quality could approach that of film, he came specifically to buy one for teaching.

At exactly ten o'clock, the mall opened its doors.

The crowd surged toward the electronics counter.

"Give me one!"

"I want two!"

"Do you have stock? I'll pay extra!"

The sales clerk, sweating profusely, shouted, "Everyone, calm down, we have them, we have them…"

The middle‑aged man finally squeezed to the front, pulled out a stack of cash—that was his half‑year's worth of manuscript fees.

The device was heavy in his hands.

He rushed home, hooked up the Television, and inserted a disc of "Red Sorghum"—a legitimate copy brought back from Hong Kong, whose picture quality far surpassed that of a pirated version.

The screen lit up.

When Gong Li, wearing a red jacket, stood in the sorghum field and turned back with a smile, the middle‑aged man was stunned.

That image truly looked like film.

The colors were rich, the details abundant, and even the veins of the sorghum leaves were clearly visible.

Sound poured out of five speakers, the suona blaring high‑pitched and fierce, as if it would lift the roof off.

He sat on the sofa, unmoving, and watched the entire film through.

Then he picked up the Telephone and called the department head: "Head, our teaching equipment needs updating. I suggest we replace everything with Wanshang DVD."

Within a week of launch, five thousand units were sold out.

An additional order of ten thousand units sold out in three days.

Another two‑ten‑thousand‑unit order followed…

By the end of December, Wanshang DVD had sold eighty thousand units, with orders queued through March of the following year.

Media coverage was everywhere. The headline in the Economic Daily read: "From VCD to DVD, China's Enterprises Achieve a Brilliant Leap." The Science and Technology Daily offered a detailed analysis of Wanshang's technological innovation, calling it a "model of market‑driven innovation."

What pleased Li Ping'an the most was the recognition from within the industry.

On December 28, the International DVD Standards Committee sent a notice: it would adopt China's Wanshang‑proposed "Full‑format Compatibility" and "Basic Karaoke Function" as standard annexes.

Although merely an annex, it marked the first time a Chinese enterprise voiced its opinion in international standards drafting and was heard.

That evening, Li Ping'an set up several tables in the group cafeteria and treated all R&D staff to a meal.

There were no exotic delicacies, just a simple four‑dishes‑and‑a‑soup menu.

He raised his glass and said only one sentence: "Today, we have stood up. From now on, we must stand even steadier."

Everyone lifted their glasses.

The clink of glass was crisp and pleasant, like the footfalls of an advancing era.

Outside the window, the last snowfall of 1991 drifted down slowly.

And Shenzhen's winter night, warmed by the passion in this house, felt less cold.

The story of Wanshang DVD has only just begun.

More intense market competition and harsher technological iteration still await ahead.

But at least tonight, this group of Chinese can proudly say—

On the road to the future, we have not been absent.