Tokyo (Japan) - With automotive video systems just beginning to reach mass appeal, Toshiba has unveiled a system that plays HD DVD movies from a new in-car player.

A prototype was showed at last week’s Automotive Engineering Exposition in Japan. Control for the player, which has a built-in screen, is done via a touch screen input.

Toshiba is planning a release date of 2008 for the unit in Japan, according to Japanese site Tech-On.

HD DVD has remained behind Blu-ray, taking the #2 spot in the hi-def format wars every month since the two made their retail debuts last year.