| HD DVD (high definition DVD) was a high density optical disc format that lost the format wars to Blu-ray in February 2008. The HD DVD format had a short existence of only two years and was spearheaded by Toshiba. The company released their first consumer HD DVD player in Japan in March 2006. After yielding the format wars to Blu-ray and officially halting any future development of HD DVD players in February 2008, Toshiba formally dissolved the HD DVD consortium the following month. The demise of HD DVD can be attributed to two main factors. First, loss of support by major film studios and retail distributors struck a keen blow against Toshiba. Secondly, Sony's decision to make the Blu-ray disc player standard on its Playstation 3 video game console resulted with nearly ten times the number of Blu-ray players over HD DVD players. These days, just over two years after the demise of HD DVD, the defunct HD DVD player and optical discs are no longer available except in perhaps bargain bins or on eBay. There is no more support for these types of players as well. Former owners of HD DVD players and discs have mostly migrated to the high density standard of Blu-ray. For those who wish to own actual optical disc media for high definition video and movies, this is the only choice now readily available. However, if one doesn't mind not handling or owning the actual media, there is also the option of downloading and watching streaming high definition movies now. Home internet speeds can more readily handle the large bandwidth associated with such movies these days. But with such a delivery method, an HD movie is not easily accessible to others if one wishes to lend a movie to a friend or family member. In the end, the HD DVD short life span and loss to the Blu-ray format ended up unfortunately costing a lot of monety for those consumers who were on board with HD DVD initially. However, Warner Bros film studios is offering an exchange of HD DVD movies to Blu-ray at a cost of $4.95 per disc plus shipping and handling ($6.95 within the continental US and $8.95 per order within Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico). For the consumer today, the main options for high definition video are Blu-ray players and media or online streaming video content. | 
E-mail
Post