What is Blu-ray and What Was HD-DVD?

Blu-ray is one of the two major High Definition disc formats that were vying to replace the current DVD standard in the U.S. market. As of February 19, 2008, only Blu-ray is left. However, information on both formats is being included here for historical reasons, and the fact that there still HD-DVD player owners and several hundred films available in the format.

Blu-ray is now supported on the hardware side by all major manufacturers and movie studios including: Denon, Funai, Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Onkyo, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, HP, Dell, Apple, TDK, Thomson, and Yamaha. Blu-ray is also supported on the software side by Sony/Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, MGM, Paramount, Warner, and Universal, and others. Apple Computer also supports Blu-ray.

HD-DVD was the second major High Definition Disc format (see Blu-ray, above) that was vying to replace the current DVD standard in the U.S. market, and was a direct competitor of Blu-ray for two years.

HD-DVD was supported, during its brief time on the scene, by Toshiba (its major developer and backer), LG (also supported HD-DVD), NEC, Sanyo, Thomson (Note: Thomson also supported Blu-ray), New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, and Universal Pictures. Microsoft was also a major supporter of HD-DVD. It is interesting to note that although HD-DVD has been discontinued, Toshiba has not switched to the Blu-ray camp and is perusing its own course with a re-emphasis on improving standard DVD upscaling technology and other products.

In terms of technology, Blu-ray and HD-DVD both utilize Blue Laser and sophisticated video compression to achieve high definition video playback on the same size disc as a standard DVD. However, neither format is compatible with the other.