Toshiba

If a publisher wishes to restrict use of their HD DVD content, they may use the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) although this is not required for normal disc playback. AACS is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management. It is developed by AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA), a consortium that includes Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Matsushita (Panasonic), Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba and Sony. One of the advantages over CSS, the content restriction system for DVDs, is that AACS allows content providers to revoke an individual player device if its cryptographic keys have been compromised (meaning that it will not be able to decrypt subsequently released content). There is no Region Coding in the existing HD DVD specification, which means that titles from any country can be played in players in any other country. This was likely to give the format some advantage in Europe and other places where consumers are now used to using multi-region players to play DVDs purchased in the US or through the extensive grey market.

The HD DVD format supports a wide variety of resolutions, from low-resolution CIF and SDTV, all video resolutions supported by the DVD-Video standard, and up to HDTV formats such as 720p, 1080i and 1080p. HD DVD supports video encoded in MPEG-2 which is what is used in DVDs as well as the new formats VC-1 and AVC which are more efficient. All movie titles released so far have had the feature encoded in 1080p, with most supplements in 480i or 480p. Almost all titles are encoded with VC-1, and most of the remaining titles encoded with AVC

HD DVDs support encoding in up to 24-bit/192 kHz for two channels, or up to eight channels of up to 24-bit/96 kHz encoding. For reference, even new big-budget Hollywood films are mastered in only 24-bit/48 kHz, with 16-bit/48 kHz being common for ordinary films.

All HD DVD players are required to decode linear (uncompressed) PCM, Dolby Digital AC-3, Dolby Digital EX, DTS, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD. A secondary soundtrack, if present, can be stored in any of the aforementioned formats, or in one of the HD DVD optional codecs: DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.

For the highest-fidelity audio experience, HD DVD offers content-producers the choice of linear PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Due to the high-bandwidth requirements of linear-PCM, lossless audio on HD DVD movies has thus far been delivered in the lossless format Dolby TrueHD.

As with previous optical disc formats, HD DVD supports several file systems, such as ISO 9660 and Universal Disk Format (UDF). Currently all HD DVD titles use UDF version 2.5 as the file system.

HD DVD-ROM has a single-layer capacity of 15 GB, and a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB.

HD DVD-R and HD DVD-RW have a single-layer capacity of 15 GB, a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB. HD DVD-RAM has a single-layer capacity of 20 GB. Like the original DVD format, the data layer of an HD DVD is 0.6 mm below the surface to physically protect the data layer from damage. The numerical aperture of the optical pick-up head is 0.65, compared with 0.6 for DVD. All HD DVD players are backward compatible with DVD and CD.

The final HD DVD releases in the United States from a major studio were Warner’s P.S. I Love You and Twister, on May 27, 2008. In June, the two final HD DVDs to be released were Disco Pigs from Vanguard Cinema and Freedom: 6 from Bandai Visual. Disco Pigs was, however, postponed, with no new date announced for release. Bandai Visual acknowledges the demise of HD DVD, but says that it wants to complete the release of the seven-part Freedom Project of which six parts have already been released. The final part will be released in August 2008.

On 4 January 2008 citing consumer confusion and indifference as a reason for lackluster high-definition software sales, Warner Bros. announced it would stop supporting HD DVD by June 2008, and the company would release HD titles only on Blu-ray Disc. This was followed by news of Netflix phasing out support for the format, and Best Buy’s decision to recommend Blu-ray Disc over HD DVD in its retail locations and to remove HD DVD players as part of its ongoing “HDTV advantage” promotion. Finally, retailer Wal-Mart announced that it would be supporting only Blu-ray by June 2008. On February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced plans to discontinue development, marketing and manufacturing of HD DVD players while still providing product support and after-sale service to consumers of the format. The company cited “recent major changes in the markeToshiba will continue support by holding spare parts for eight years after sales have stopped.Shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers were reduced and eventually stopped by the end of March 2008.

In December 2006 Toshiba reported that roughly 120,000 Toshiba branded HD DVD players had been sold in the United States, along with 150,000 HD DVD add-on units for the Xbox 360

On April 18, 2007, one year after the first HD DVD titles were releasedthe HD DVD group reported that they had sold 100,000 dedicated HD DVD units in the United States.

In the middle of 2007, the first HD DVD Recorders were released in Japan.

In November 2007, the Toshiba HD-A2 was the first high definition player to be sold at a sale price of less than US$100; this was done through several major retailers to make room for the new HD-A3 models. These closeout sales lasted less than a day each due to both limited quantities and high demand at that price point. In the same month, the HD DVD promotion group announced that 750,000 HD DVD players had been sold, which included stand-alone players and the Xbox 360 add-on.

In January 2008 Toshiba announced that close to one million dedicated HD DVD players had been sold.

As of February 12, 2008, 386 HD DVD titles had been released in the USA As of 29 April 2008, 236 HD DVD titles had been released in Japan, with 4 titles pending to be released, with release date to be determined.

On March 31, 2006 Toshiba released their first consumer-based HD DVD player in Japan at ¥110,000 (US$934), beating Blu-ray to the market by about three months. HD DVD was released in United States on April 18, 2006, with players priced at $499 and $799.

The first HD DVD titles were released on April 18, 2006. They were The Last Samurai, Million Dollar Baby, and The Phantom of the Opera by Warner Home Video and Serenity by Universal Studios. The first independent HD film released on HD DVD was One Six Right.

In an attempt to avoid a costly format war, the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum attempted to negotiate a compromise in early 2005. One of the issues was that Blu-ray’s supporters wanted to use a Java-based platform for interactivity (BD-J based on Sun Microsystem’s Java TV standards), while the DVD Forum was promoting Microsoft’s “iHD” (which became HDi). A much larger issue, though, was the physical formats of the discs themselves; the Blu-ray Disc Association’s member companies did not want to risk losing billions of dollars in royalties as they had done with standard DVD.An agreement seemed close, but negotiations proceeded slowly and ultimately stalled.

On August 22, 2005, the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum announced that the negotiations to unify their standards had failed.Rumors surfaced that talks had stalled; publicly, the same reasons of physical format incompatibility were cited. In the end of September, Microsoft and Intel jointly announced their support for HD DVD

Hewlett Packard (HP) made a last ditch attempt to broker a peace between the Blu-ray Disc Association and Microsoft by demanding that Blu-ray association adopt Microsoft’s HDi instead of its own Java solution and threatening to support HD DVD instead.However, the Blu-ray Disc group did not accept HP’s proposal.