HD DVD HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is a discontinued 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. On 19 February 2008, after a protracted format war with rival Blu-ray, Toshiba abandoned the format, announcing it would no longer manufacture HD DVD players and drives. The HD DVD Promotion Group was dissolved on March 28, 2008. The HD DVD physical disc specifications (but not the codecs) were still in use as the basis for the
Optical disc drive inexpensive, are suitable where read/write capability is required. Disc recording is restricted to storing files playable on consumer appliances (films, music, etc.), relatively small volumes of data (e.g. a standard DVD holds 4.7 gigabytes) for local use, and data for distribution, but only on a small scale; mass-producing large numbers of identical discs is cheaper and faster than individual recording. Optical discs are used to back up relatively small volumes of data, but backing up of entire hard drives, which typically contain many hundreds of gigabytes or even multiple terabytes, is less practical. Large backups are often instead made on