MUSEUM OF THE FALLEN
Dominance is not eternal.
The Wall/ Lost Technology/ HD DVD
An HD DVD case beside a Blu-ray case, the two rival high-definition optical disc formats side by side.

Jason Curtis, Museum of Obsolete Media, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Lost Technology

HD DVD

2006 CE 2008 CE

Toshiba's high-definition disc that lost a brief, bitter format war to Blu-ray and died at two years old.

Born
2006 CE
Died
2008 CE
Lived
2 years
Dead for
18 yrs
At its peak
Discontinued less than two years after launch
Cause of death
Replaced
Replaced by
Blu-ray Disc
The Obituary

HD DVD, launched by Toshiba in 2006, was one of two rival successors to the DVD for high-definition video. Backed by Toshiba, NEC, and Microsoft, it fought Sony’s Blu-ray for studio and retailer support in a war that confused consumers and stalled both formats. The decisive blow came in January 2008 when Warner Bros. announced it would release exclusively on Blu-ray; retailers and studios followed within weeks. Toshiba ended HD DVD production in February 2008, making it one of the shortest-lived consumer formats on record.

Worth remembering

  • It was backed by Toshiba and Microsoft, with an add-on HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360.
  • Warner Bros. switching to Blu-ray in January 2008 collapsed the format within weeks.

Sources

  1. HD DVD launched in 2006 and Toshiba abandoned it in February 2008 after losing to Blu-ray Wikipedia
  2. Warner Bros. dropping HD DVD in January 2008 effectively ended the format war Wikipedia

A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.

Buried nearby
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Bethlehem Steel
1857 CE — 2003 CE
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Blockbuster
1985 CE — 2010 CE
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1998 CE — 2000 CE
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