HD-DVD and Blu-Ray launched in the summer of 2006. The launches were a little slow to start with hardware players being delayed and also studio movie releases. By late summer, both formats were shipping in full force with HD-DVD quickly pulling ahead due to image quality. The HD-DVD camp is primarily using VC-1, a codec development by Microsoft several years ago with the release of Windows Media Player 9. Over the past few years several companies have joined the VC-1 camp and the codec has been improved (many times).