HD DVD
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Key facts
- Media type
- High-density optical disc
- Encoding
- VC-1 , H.264 , and MPEG-2
- Capacity
- 15 GB (single layer), 30 GB (dual layer)
- Read mechanism
- 405 nm laser: , 1× @ 36 Mbit/s & 2× @ 72 Mbit/s
- Write mechanism
- 405 nm laser: , 1× @ 36 Mbit/s & 2× @ 72 Mbit/s
- Developed by
- Toshiba DVD Forum
- Usage
- Data storage, 1080p high-definition video
- Extended from
- DVD , DVD-Video
- Released
- March 31, 2006 ( 2006-03-31 )
- Discontinued
- March 28, 2008 ( 2008-03-28 ) , (1 year, 11 months and 28 days)
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
HD DVD (short for High Density Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format, but lost out to Blu-ray, which was supported by Sony and others.
HD DVD employed a blue laser with a shorter wavelength (with the exception of the 3× DVD and HD REC variants), and it stored about 3.2 times as much data per layer as its predecessor (maximum capacity: 15 GB per layer compared to 4.7 GB per layer on a DVD). The format was commercially released in 2006 and fought a protracted format war with its rival, the Blu-ray Disc. Compared to the Blu-ray Disc, the HD DVD was released earlier by a quarter year, featured a lower capacity per layer (compared to 25 GB of Blu-ray), but saved manufacturing costs by allowing existing DVD manufacturing equipment to be repurposed with minimal modifications, and movie playback was not restricted through region codes.