HD DVD Players DelayedManufacturers of HD DVD players are delaying their launch until there's content available to play on them. Toshiba, the co-developer of the format and the first to announce two HD DVD players, the a target="new" href=" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000E1PTGK/masterdvd-20">HD-A1 and HD-AX1 at the CES show in January, said it would now ship them in April rather than March.
The first three HD DVD titles will be launched on 18 April by Warner Borthers and will include Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby. Another seventeen titles are scheduled for release in the weeks following. The other HD DVD development partner, NEC is also set to release its HD DVD players soon, though no date has been set. NEC demonstrated an HD DVD recorder at the European Cebit electronics show in March, burning high definition video onto write-once 15GB discs. The drive, the HD-1100 also writes to DVD and CD media and will support dual-layer HD DVD discs when they become available. The HD-1100 doesn't support re-writeable media, theough NEC is currently working on a re-writeable drive. Toshiba also demonstrated HD DVD burning at Cebit, showing off its Quosmio laptop, which will be the first portable computer to shop with a built-in HD DVD burner. In addition to Toshiba and NEC, LG and Fujitsu Siemens have also said they will bring out HD DVD products, though they are more likely to be computer drives than HD DVD players. Microsoft and Intel also back HD DVD over Blu-ray. In addition to Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema have all said they will release miovies in the HD DVD format, and Disney is reported to be considering supporting it too. Online DVD rental giant Netflix is planning on offering HD DVD titles for rental, meaning that when DVD players eventually become available, consumers will be able to rent as well as buy movies to play on their HD DVD players.
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