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HD DVD wins the battle as the first high-definition prerecorded optical disc format to debut on the U.S. market. Boasting superior picture, sound, and interactivity compared to standard DVD, these new HD DVD discs promise to eclipse the experience you enjoyed with D-VHS® and D-Theater™ high-definition tape. While the format is capable of supporting true 1080p resolution, the Toshiba HD-XA1 player we used for reference is limited to 1080i through the digital HDMI/HDCP and analog component video outputs. All of the discs reviewed in this issue use VC-1 compression (the other codecs supported in the format specification are MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 H.264 AVC). The D-VHS format utilizes MPEG-2 compression and 1080i image resolution. The audio provided on the review discs support Dolby® Digital•Plus, and in the sole case of Phantom Of The Opera, additional two-channel-only Dolby TrueHD lossless audio. Dolby Digital•Plus and TrueHD is decoded inside the Toshiba player and output to the six analog RCA outputs on the back of the unit (two in the case of TrueHD) or as LPCM through the HDMI output. It can also be decoded and re-encoded as DTS® Digital Surround™ through the S/PDIF digital audio connections, although the advanced resolution of the Dolby Digital•Plus and TrueHD formats will be lost using this connection. At present, these are the only means to listen to the soundtracks on HD DVD releases using this player. While the Toshiba HD-XA1 and HD-X1 players are not completely developed to the full HD DVD specification, withholding playback of true 1080p resolution, six-channel TrueHD, and full DTS-HD™, these discs will still get you closer to the master than ever before. Please see Editor's Couch for more on the format, players, and discs.

What follows are our first HD DVD software reviews in Widescreen Review's Reference Holosonic™ Spherical Surround™ Home Theatre Laboratory. For these reviews, we used the Toshiba HD-XA1 and its component video output to our reference Sony CPH-G90 and Runco DTV-1200 9-inch CRT projectors, which are capable of resolutions exceeding 1920 x 1080p, as well as the HDMI/HDCP output to our Runco VX-2C three-chip DLP projector. None of the discs in this Issue utilize the Image Constraint Token (ICT), which, when activated by the studios on a title-by-title basis, will limit the video output through the component video connection to 960 x 540p. These reviews precede future player and software reviews, in addition to detailed technical explanations on the format. This will be covered in Issue 110, July 2006.