HD DVD

History [edit]

Two blue lasers

Both next-generation discs used a blue-violet laser to pack more data onto a DVD-sized disc, and both camps had good arguments. HD DVD, developed by Toshiba and NEC and adopted by the DVD Forum in 2003, kept the physical structure of the DVD so existing factories could press discs cheaply. Blu-ray, from Sony, Panasonic, Philips and others, needed new production lines but held 25 gigabytes per layer against HD DVD's 15. Attempts to merge the formats in 2005 failed, and the industry walked into a war it had already fought once with VHS and Betamax.

Toshiba shipped first: the HD-XA1 player in Japan on 31 March 2006 and the $499 HD-A1 in the United States that April, months ahead of Blu-ray and at half the price. Universal backed HD DVD exclusively, Warner and Paramount released on both, and Microsoft sold an HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 from November 2006. In August 2007 Paramount and DreamWorks Animation went HD DVD-only, a deal reported to be worth $150 million to the studios, and for a moment the cheaper format looked like it might win on price.

Six weeks in 2008

Blu-ray had a player HD DVD could not answer: the PlayStation 3, which put a Blu-ray drive into millions of homes as a side effect of buying a games console. Disc sales tilted toward Blu-ray through 2007, and on 4 January 2008, the day before CES opened, Warner Bros. announced it would go Blu-ray exclusive from June. Toshiba cancelled its CES press conference. Netflix said on 11 February it would stock only Blu-ray, Best Buy began recommending Blu-ray the same day, and Walmart dropped HD DVD on 15 February.

On 19 February 2008 Toshiba's president Atsutoshi Nishida announced the company would cease development, manufacturing and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders, with shipments ending by the end of March, saying a swift decision would "best help the market develop". Universal and Paramount switched to Blu-ray within days. The HD DVD Promotion Group voted to dissolve on 28 March 2008, and the format that had reached the shops first was gone before its second birthday.

Afterlife

Toshiba promised to keep supporting the players it had sold, sold a few HD DVD laptop drives through 2008 and, in 2009, quietly launched its own Blu-ray players. HD DVD discs became a collectors' curiosity, roughly 500 US titles that will only ever play on aging Toshiba hardware and the Xbox 360 add-on.

The domain today

hddvdprg.com, the HD DVD Promotion Group's site, was let go after the group dissolved. It still carries the title "HD DVD Promotion Group" in the browser tab, and behind it is a page selling hotel rooms in Pattaya, Thailand. Toshiba's press release announcing the end is still on the company's site.