About 500 movies on EVD (enhanced versatile disk), a new video format technology promoted by China's domestic companies, are expected to be sold on Chinese market this year, said sources with E-world Technology, a Beijing-based company in charge of EVD development.

The image quality of an EVD player is reportedly five times better than that of a DVD player. Also, the discs can store more data.

E-world Technology has recently forged an alliance with Guomei, China's largest electronics retailer. According to their agreement, EVD videodisks will be sold nationwide through Guomei's far-flung sales network. Twelve EVD movies were distributed by Guomeinationwide for the first time early this month, each costing 28 yuan (about 3.4 dollars) or even less during the promotion period.

At the end of last year, nine domestic electronics enterprises including Fujian Amoi and Sichuan Changhong started putting EVD players on the markets, but the comparatively high prices and shortage of disc supplies have prevented many consumers from purchasing.

To tackle this problem, E-world Technology has recently founded a 200-million-yuan (24 million US dollars) EVD disk joint assembly with Antaeus Group, a real estate investor.

High patent fees for DVD prompted domestic companies to switch to EVD technology.

Chinese businesses must pay the 6C patent licensing alliance --Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, JVC, Mitsubishi and Time Warner -- 4.50 US dollars for each DVD player they produce. They are therefore eager to promote the EVD standard, to which they hold most of the intellectual property rights, including sound, navigation system and copyright protection technologies.