China started development on it in1999, because DVD and MPEG-2 licence costs are relatively high at over $13 USD per video player. On the EVD, the codecs VP5 and VP6 from On2 Technologies are being used. These are more efficient then MPEG-2 and enable the disk to store HDTV resolutions, a feature the DVD cannot offer. With EVD, royalties to On2 for the VP6 codec will be about $2 USD.
The audio codec comes from Coding Technologies, the EAC (Enhanced Audio Codec) 2.0. It is the successor of EAC and works on the basis of spectral band replication and supports mono, stereo and 5.1 surround sound.
The development is supported by the Chinese government and is developed by the Beijing company E-world Technology. It reports to the press, that problems in development, chip-design and production are overcome. The team has applied for 25 patents, which of seven have been granted already.
See also: Ogg Theora