The Dark Knight On HD-DVD

In one of the biggest announcements in HD-DVD's short life, WarnerBrothers has confirmed that Batman Begins will be battling its way onto the format come October 10th.

The Batman Begins HD-DVD will include all of the bonuses on the standard 2-disc special edition release, as well as a brand-new "In Movie" experience created exclusively for this HD-DVD release. The "In Movie" experience is a video commentary that runs along with the feature film and includes interviews and behind-the-scenes footage with the cast and crew.

Batman Begins is currently available for pre-books.

Warners Creating Dual HD-DVD/Blu-ray Discs?

In one of the more interesting rumors to come out of the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps this week is the word that Warner Bros. may be developing a triple-layer DVD that would be able to put the standard, HD-DVD and Blu-ray versions of a movie all onto the same disc.

This news, if true, would be great news for fans of hi-def, who may be delaying their purchase of a player because they want to wait and see which format "wins" the hi-def war. If Warners was able to create such a format, it would also give other studios incentive to support both formats, since they still would only have to release one version of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray to consumers.

Toshiba To Release 2nd Generation Players

Toshiba has announced the release of their second generation of HD-DVD players: the $500 HD-A2, and the $1000 HD-XA2. Both models will replace the current HD-A1 and HD-XA1, which will stop being produced when these two models are released.

The new models speed up load time, and feature support for Dolby TrueHD audio right out of the box. The more expensive HD-XA2 model also will support HDMI 1.3 as well as native 1080p output right out of the box.

The HD-A2 is expected to start shipping in October, while the HD-XA2 will be released in December.