Tokyo (Japan) - In a brief statement issued to members of the press late Friday, Toshiba America indicated that it intends to release its upcoming HD-A1 and HD-XA1 players in tandem with studios’ release of movies for the HD DVD format those players support. Without saying so explicitly, Toshiba’s statement appears to indicate the company is willing to delay the release of its players until at least 18 April, when the earliest slate of HD DVD movies from Warner Home Video - Million Dollar Baby, The Last Samurai, and The Phantom of the Opera - are due for release.

"Toshiba is currently working with major studios and major retailers to finalize sales dates of our players," the company stated. "In order to ensure maximum launch of HD DVD, we intend to synchronize launch of players with title releases from Hollywood studios."

However, the company also indicated that its rollout tour of HD DVD in major retail outlets across the US is continuing, "to make pre-sale HD DVD demonstrations in 40 major cities." As an impromptu poll of some retailers slated to serve as tour destinations, conducted by members of the AV Science Forum, indicated, not only did all participating retailers respond that they expect the HD DVD tour to continue as scheduled, but some also stated they were expecting to have players available prior to 18 April, and to sell some of them even if movies had yet to be made available.

It was going to be difficult enough for some tour sites to demonstrate HD DVD without movies. Now, some may have to manage doing so without players - at least, without merchandise beyond the scale of prototype models that Toshiba displayed to the public last January.

The cause for the delay of HD DVD movies, as we’ve reported here, appears to concern how studios intend to implement key features of Advanced Access Copy System (AACS) copy protection. Although most studios had been believed to be key proponents of a function of AACS that would automatically reduce the resolution of output to analog devices, in order to serve against them being used as piracy vehicles, Disney and Paramount recently joined 20th Century-Fox and Sony in their opposition to the Image Constraint Token (ICT). Universal currently appears to continue to support ICT, but Warner - which had the earliest slated HD DVD releases prior to its announcement of the 18 April delay - may now find itself on the fence. Warner Home Video has yet to issue a response to TG Daily regarding its current stand on AACS, although the company continues to communicate with us on other matters.

A growing number of members of the AV Science Forum (which tends to serve as the unofficial Web site of both editors and readers of the trade publication Consumer Electronics Daily, though its moderator informs us has no direct connection) are indicating their reluctance to purchase first-generation equipment, including either HD DVD or Blu-ray players. While first-generation HD DVD players will be limited to 1080 interlaced vertical lines of resolution (1080i), the technical capability theoretically exists for HD DVD to handle 1080 fixed lines (1080p), although experts are being instructed to wait for firmware upgrades to make that feasible. 

On the other side of the playing field, the first wave of Blu-ray players will apparently support a digital connectivity standard that is due to be replaced in June. Current HDMI 1.1 connectors, it’s said, will only support the use of a limited number of codecs, excluding certain new versions of Dolby lossless audio. New HDMI 1.3 connectors will support these codecs, although the audio channels had to be made larger to accommodate them. As a result, experts are saying, even though 1.1 and 1.3 are physically compatible, a Blu-ray user who chooses Dolby lossless audio from her movie’s on-screen menu, may be treated to white noise from first-generation equipment. It may take more than firmware upgrades, say some, for Blu-ray owners to upgrade to HDMI 1.3.