Special Coverage: HD DVD

After years of development and delays, HD DVD has finally arrived. Here’s the lowdown on America’s first highdef optical-disc format. By Scott Wilkinson

Introduction

As all our readers know by now, there’s a format war a-brewin’ and the first shot has just been fired. The April shipments of Toshiba’s HD-A1 ($499) and HD-XA1 ($799) flew off the shelves as soon as they appeared, leaving many back orders in their wake.

Of course, a player is nothing but an expensive boat anchor without content to play on it, and the opening salvo from that brigade was, shall we say, underwhelming. A total of three Warner titles ("The Phantom of the Opera," "The Last Samurai," and "Million Dollar Baby") became available on April 18, with one from Universal ("Serenity") following a few days later. Naturally, this is a temporary situation; by some counts, there are about 200 titles scheduled for release by the end of the year, which is very good news for the holiday shopping season.

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