Guide Note

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are high-definition formats for DVDs and CDs. Although they are both high-definition, there are significant differences in the two. They were in a war with one another, each trying to be the standard for high-definition media. The war ended in February 2008 with Blu-Ray being victorious.

Fast Facts

1. Toshiba abandoned the HD-DVD player on February 19, 2008, thus ending the "format wars"

Blu-Ray uses a blue-violet laser to read and write discs. It uses a shorter shorter wavelength of 405 nm compared to 650 nm that a regular DVD, giving it the ability to hold a much larger amount of data.

HD-DVD is a high-density disc format designed by Toshiba. It uses a shorter, blue laser with a shorter wavelength, allowing for them to hold more than 3.25 times more data than a normal disc.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were in a format war, fighting to be the standard for high-definition discs. The war ended in January 2008, after Warner Brothers stated they will only use Blu-Ray after May 2008. HD-DVD had been the preferred type until the release of the PlayStation 3, which doubled as a Blu-Ray player. The year after the PlayStation 3 was released, the sale of Blu-Ray movies more than doubled those of HD-DVD.