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 recording modes the data, and closed by a lead-out area. The data is addressable in sectors of 2048 bytes each, with the first sector address being zero. There are no run-out blocks as in DVD-R disc-at-once. Session-At-Once (SAO) recording allows multiple sessions to be recorded and finalized on a single disc. The resulting disc can be read by computer drives, but sessions after the first are generally not readable by CD Audio equipment. Audio Master Quality Recording was introduced by Yamaha in 2002. This recording mode significantly reduces jitter levels causing noise and clicks (-30% according to Yamaha) and improves audio and