The Blu-ray/HD DVD high quality video disc format battle is coming to Europe with leading suppliers Samsung, Sony and Toshiba lining up player launches this autumn.

In a move that will put its technology head-to-head with the Playstation 3 console and that will see its technology on shelves before the holiday shopping season, Toshiba has announced the launch of Europe’s first commercially available stand-alone HD DVD players.

Due to be available November 15, the HD-E1 will be the first model to offer HD DVD quality to European videophiles, while the step-up HD-XE1, will follow in early December, Toshiba said from Germany’s IFA consumer electronics show this week.

Sony’s PS3, which will include HD DVD’s competing blue-laser DVD technology, Blu-ray, will hit shelves on November 17 and is expected to be a hot holiday item this year.

Blu-ray is also being touted at the IFA show, as the battle for the next-generation living room between the formats continues. Samsung will launch the first Blu-ray player in Europe in mid-October. Playing content at native 720p, 1080i or 1080p video resolutions, the BD-P1000 offers full 1080p output via HDMI for higher quality video.

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray players were launched in US earlier in the summer.

"Samsung's Blu-ray player will be the first available to consumers, and we will continue to innovate it" said President Geesung Choi of Samsung Electronics' Digital Media Business. 

“The arrival of HD TVs and HD broadcasts is fuelling demand for a higher quality format that can deliver next-generation video and audio,” Olivier Van Wynendaele, deputy general manager, HD DVD products for Toshiba Europe. 

The Toshiba HD DVD players at IFA are backwards compatible with existing DVD and CD formats, and the HD-XE1 can upscale and output existing DVD content at 1080p for display on HD Ready LCD, plasma panels and other HD TVs or monitors via HDMI terminals, the company said. Both players will also upscale traditional DVDs via the HDMI output to 720p and 1080i resolutions, with the HD-XE1 also offering 1080p upscaling.

The Toshiba HD-E1 will be priced at €599 and the HD-XE1 will be priced at €899.