Toshiba’s HD DVD format lasted less than two years in the battle for the crown of next-gen optical media format. Toshiba threw in the towel in mid-February and placed a number of publishers in a rather difficult situation: what to do with titles that are already in the pipeline? German publisher Kinowelt had been working on a definitive high-def edition of Terminator 2 for ages and had obviously spent a bundle of cash on it already, so they had little choice in the matter.

Well folks, it’s here: T2 Steelbook Edition. Or, as the cover says, the “ULTIMATE HD-EDITION”. I guess we can call this HD DVD’s swan song – one of the last titles to be released for the rapidly dying format.

I received my review copy a few minutes ago. My first action was to try to play it on a PC, but that didn’t work. PowerDVD 3319a was unable to render the main menu, though it did play the background video. I hit Enter a couple of times, image went black, and PowerDVD crashed. A newer version might work, but I’m loathe to update PowerDVD because Cyberlink was forced by AACS to remove support for BD/HD playback from hard drive.

Next stop: Toshiba HD-EP35. Works like a charm. Well, apart from the black screen which endures for 10-15 seconds while the rather cool looking main menu is being prepared for display. Or something. I noticed that my EP35 has an ancient firmware so I told it to fetch the latest one from the internet, which is what it’s doing now. I’ll do a proper review of the title this weekend, with photos and all.