Does the BD abbreviation stand for Blu-ray Disc or Blu-ray Delayed? The latest setback has Pioneer Elite's BDP-HD1 pushed back from July to September, while reports now have Sony's BDP-S1 sliding from July to August 15th. On the plus side, the Pioneer Elite player's price has officially dropped from $1800 to $1500.

Earlier this week the video-on-demand movie service called MovieBeam was reborn, and will offer movies from six major Hollywood studios in standard definition, and high definition movies from Warner Bros. and Disney. According to MovieBeam, Disney, Miramax, and Touchstone titles will be available day and date with the DVD release, while movies from other studios will conform to a 30-45 day window between DVD release and on-demand availability. Although MovieBeam has specified that around 10% of its titles will be in HD, there is no word yet as to whether the day and date titles specifically will be in HD.

HD DVD might be taking another leap ahead on the interactivity front. The most recent firmware update for Toshiba's first-gen HD DVD players adds "support for certain anticipated network delivered content in future HD DVD discs." Those of you who can get your HD-A1 or HD -XA1 player to an Ethernet connection can download the update from the 'Net, or you can contact Toshiba to get the update on a disc.

As summer winds down and both camps in the format war rev up for the holiday season more and more titles are being announced in both formats. August will see Lion's Gate release perennial demo favorite <I>Stargate</I> on Blu-ray, and Universal will release such diverse fare as <I>National Lampoon's Animal House</I>, <I>Army of Darkness</I>, and even <I>Fast Times at Ridgemont High</I> on HD DVD.