Warner Brothers have announced several interesting HD DVD titles for October 10th, the long awaited ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride’, ‘The Polar Express’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and the original starring Gene Wilder ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’.

I for one am very happy to see the original Willy Wonka on HD DVD, Johhny Depp just didn’t nail this role as well as Wilder in my opinion. After all these years those bright colors and lo-tech stage sets should look fantastic in HD.

‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ on HD DVD will feature the interactive ‘In Movie Experience’ (IME), no mention on other features or extras at this time. The October 10th HD DVD titles will be available for $28.99.

R.Hollis

Before anyone jumps for joy (or panics) the additional layer in the 3-layer HD DVD discs announced today, aren?t for Blu-ray, they’re for DVD. This new 3-layer disc from Toshiba and Memory-Tech can be configured as a 30GB HD DVD plus 4.7GB DVD or as an 8.5GB dual-layer DVD with a 15GB HD DVD layer.

Applications you ask? The first and most welcome use (at least in my book) are single sided HD DVD/DVD combo discs, no more flippers! Another use could be HD video and advanced audio only on the 30GB HD layers while the SD extras round out the 4.7GB DVD layer.

But this does present one other interesting option. As anyone who’s already experimented with authoring their own HD DVD content on a standard DVD knows, the Toshiba players already recognize HD content on a standard DVD. So in theory at least this new disc manufacturing technique could push HD DVD’s (short term) theoretical limit to 34.7 GB.

As interesting as all of this is, it begs the question; how far away are we from seeing the 45GB triple-layer HD DVD disc approved by the DVD Forum and put into the HD DVD specification? Well according to Toshiba’s Jim Armour “probably mid-next year”.

R.Hollis

Well folks there you have it, ever since the launch of both Blu-ray and HD DVD many have wondered when the big Hollywood blockbusters would make their way to the fledgling HD formats and prove the studios were serious about their success.

It looks like November 14th is that date for HD DVD owners. Let’s hope this is the first of many big titles that will propel the format forward.

King Kong on HD DVD is available for pre-order now ($29.98) the discs details are somewhat limited at the moment; here is what Universal has up so far:

Run Time: 3 Hours 8 Minutes
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Picture: Widescreen (2.35:1)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
CARA Reasons: For Frighting Adventure Violence and Some Disturbing Images

Audio
•English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround
•French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround
•Spanish Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround

R.Hollis

Some rather interesting revelations have come to light surrounding the European launch of the Toshiba HD-E1 and HD-XE1 HD DVD Players. According to Heise Online the players benefit from several refinements, features and additions over their predecessors:

The translation is a bit rough but after going back and forth between Google Language Tools and Babel Fish a few times, I think it?s pretty accurate.

?Intel CPU?s have been replaced with CE, SoC (Software on Chip) processors.
?Start-up and disc load times have been “shortened”.
?Both units include a revised ‘easier to read’ remote control.
?The higher end HD-XE1 includes 1080p output and HDMI 1.3

Could some or all of these features and improvement make their way into HD DVD players for the United States? I’d have to say the chances are very high. Veering off into a bit of speculation for a moment, I also expect that when the replacements for the Toshiba HD-A1 and HD-XA1 appear in the U.S., they’ll retail for a bit more than their predecessors, but this isn’t necessarily bad news.

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Toshiba has announced two HD DVD players for the European market, The HD-E1: Available in November for 599 euros supports 480p, 720p and 1080i as well as Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD

The HD-XE1 goes for 899 euros and will be available in December. The HD-XE1 supports 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p and again audio support for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. The XE1 includes HDMI 1.3 output.

More from Reuters.

R.Hollis