HD DVD or High-Definition/Density Digital Versatile Disc is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.[1] HD DVD was designed principally by Toshiba, and was envisaged to be the successor to the standard DVD format. However, in February 2008, Toshiba abandoned the format, announcing it would no longer develop or manufacture HD DVD players or drives[1].
HD DVD is derived from the same underlying technologies as DVD. Since all variants except the 3× DVD employed a blue laser with a shorter wavelength, it can store about 3¼ times as much data per layer as its predecessor (maximum capacity: 15 GB per layer instead of 4.7 GB per layer).