On February 19, 2008, Toshiba abandoned the format,[7] announcing it would no longer manufacture HD DVD players and drives.

In the late 1990s, commercial HDTV sets started to enter a larger market, but there was no inexpensive way to record or play back HD content.

Shuji Nakamura invented practical blue laser diodes, but a lengthy patent lawsuit delayed commercial introduction.

Although today's Blu-ray Discs appear virtually identical to a standard DVD, when the Blu-ray Discs were initially developed they required a protective caddy to avoid mis-handling by the consumer (early CD-Rs also featured a protective caddy for the same purpose.)

[14] In March 2002, the forum voted to approve a proposal endorsed by Warner Bros. and other motion picture studios that involved compressing HD content onto dual-layer DVD-9 discs.

[15][16] In spite of this decision, the DVD Forum's Steering Committee announced in April that it was pursuing its own blue-laser high-definition solution.

[23] On August 22, 2005, the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum announced that the negotiations to unify their standards had failed.

They were The Last Samurai, Million Dollar Baby, and The Phantom of the Opera by Warner Home Video and Serenity by Universal Studios.

These closeout sales lasted less than a day each due to both limited quantities and high demand at that price point.

[citation needed] On January 4, 2008, citing consumer confusion and indifference as a reason for lackluster high-definition software sales, Warner Bros. publicly announced it would stop supporting HD DVD by June 2008, and the company would release HD titles only on Blu-ray Disc.

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 (including firmware updates), effectively making the platform obsolete.

[46] Pan's Labyrinth is also notable as New Line Cinema's only film to be released on HD DVD, as the studio quickly shifted to Blu-ray.

Death Proof was released on HD DVD format as a special-release steelbook by Senator Films in Germany on December 15, 2008.

[50] The deal required the HD DVD's original sleeve art to be returned to Warner as proof of purchase.

[51] Toshiba-branded HD DVD players use open source software such as Linux as the GPL appears in the manuals.

[77] The processing key was widely published on the Internet after it was found and the AACS LA sent multiple DMCA takedown notices with the aim of censoring it.

[78] This caused trouble on some sites that rely on user-submitted content, like Digg and Wikipedia, when administrators tried to remove any mentions of the key.

In comparison, Blu-ray Disc content is authored using either a scripting environment (BDMV) or a Java-based platform (BD-J).

DVD video discs use pre-rendered MPEG segments, selectable subtitle pictures, and simple programmatic navigation which is considerably more limited.

Due to the structure of the single-lens optical head, both red and blue laser diodes can be used in smaller, more compact HD DVD players.

Third-party player software for Windows and Linux have successfully played HD DVD titles using the add-on drive.

The first drives also included Peter Jackson's King Kong or Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins on HD DVD.

On February 26, 2008, Microsoft "officially" announced that the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on drive would reflect a heavily discounted price down to $49.99.

[84] In 2007, LG and Samsung released standalone consumer players that could read both HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs.

Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD share most of the same methods of encoding media onto discs with each other, resulting in equivalent levels of audio and visual quality, but differ in other aspects such as interactive capabilities, internet integration, usage control and enforcement, and in which features were mandatory for players.

A 51 GB triple-layer spec was approved at the DVD Forums 40th Steering Committee Meeting (held on November 15, 2007).

[90] NEC,[91] Broadcom,[92] Horizon Semiconductors, and STMicroelectronics[92] have separately developed a single chip/laser that can read both the HD DVD and the Blu-ray Disc standard.

Broadcom and STMicroelectronics will be selling their dual-format single chip/laser solution to any OEM willing to develop a product based on the chip.

Due to its much greater resolution, HD-Video also has significantly more redundant information than DVD which newer compression standards can encode more efficiently.

It is technically possible for consumers to create HD DVD compatible discs using low cost DVD-R or DVD+R media.