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DVD

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DVD is a standardised optical storage format invented in 1995 and released in Japan on 1 November 1996. It stores any digital data. Its key advance over CD is higher capacity—up to 17.08 GB—achieved within identical physical dimensions via tighter pit geometry and layering. It succeeded commercially for video and software distribution but failed to unify playback due to format wars (DVD±R), region locks, and copy protection.