CONFUSED BY HD and Blu-ray DVD formats? Wondering which player you'll want to buy?

Worry a little more, because according to a report in today's Taiwan Economic News, Microsoft and the Isle of Taiwan want to develop a third format and the unlikely partnership is throwing millions at the project.

The newspaper said that Microsoft and key Taiwanese organisations and players are developing the forward versatile disk (FVD), and there's $57 million of cash sluicing around the cunning plan.

ROC is close to hard placeRitek, CMC Magnetics, U-Tech Media, Lite On, Quanta, the government quango Industrial Technology Research Institute and others are cooperating on the plan, with players based on red laser high definition rather than the blue laser approach.

First generation disks will only store 6GB for single sided, and 11GB for double sided disks, with resolutions of up to 1280 x 720. Second generation disks will support over 15GB, the paper said.

But China is promoting EVD, which stands for the enhanced versatile disk.

Like we said, confused you're going to be. Taiwanese manufacturers will be happier with FVD than Blu-ray and HD formats, because they won't have to pay royalties to the different consortia hoping to collect, big time."