Although we all still have to wait until next week to finally get our hands on what is almost sure to be the best selling Blu-ray title of all time, the first week of December has a lot to offer the HD movie fan. Universal takes a break from it's normal slate of catch up titles and has the arguably best offering of the week in the way of Wanted. But the best movie this week in our heart -- and many other based on the fact that it is the #1 movie of all time according to IMDB -- is The Shawshank Redemption from Warner. The ol' WB also has the popular Austin Power Collection as well as the classic Casablanca and the comedy from Bam Margera. Fox has a day and date that many will be interested in with The X Files as well as a few holiday classics like Home Alone. Sony also has a day and date this week mixed in with a few catalog titles with Step Brothers which we're sure is as silly as it is funny.

• Wanted (Universal)
• Assault on Precinct 13 (Image)
• The Shawshank Redemption (Warner)
• Austin Powers Collection: Shagadelic Edition (Warner)
• Bam Margera Presents: Where the #$&% Is Santa? (Warner)
• Casablanca (Warner)
• Children of Men (101)
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney)
• The Contract (First Look)
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox)
• Home Alone (Fox)
• Jingle All the Way (Fox)
• The X Files (Fox)
• The X Files: I Want to Believe (Fox)
• Immortal (First Look)
• La Femme Nikita (Sony)
• The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Sony)
• Step Brothers (Sony)
• Stranger Than Fiction (Sony)
• The Longshots (Weinstein)

Remember when high-def discs had to be priced competitively, else the other format would gladly undercut it? Yeah, those were the days. Now that BD is parading around as the lone high-def physical format, the only real competitors are digital downloads, DVDs and internet piracy. All of which are very real threats, by the way. A recent writeup over at The Dallas Morning News brings up an excellent point -- now that Blu-ray player prices are at a reasonable level, when can we expect movies to follow suit? Oh sure, we understand that programming in all that interactivity that eight people care about costs a lot of dough, but seriously, you can't just let admission be next-to-free and then make the rides unattainable. Back in July, we heard that Warner was looking to lower the (pricing) bar this holiday season, but since then, everyone else has been mute. It's about time someone spoke up, no?

[Image courtesy of GamerNode]

Not like we haven't heard about these much anticipated features already, but it's always refreshing to get it straight from the horse's mouth. Or Warner Home Video's mouth, in this case. The Dark Knight marks the studio's very first foray into the controversial world of BD-Live, and what's apt to be the best selling BD of the year will pack quite the interactive punch. Owners with Profile 2.0 players will be able to "host their own Live Community Screenings with friends, record and post user-generated commentaries over the film using My WB Commentary, access more The Dark Knight content exclusive to Warner Bros. BD-Live, get sneak peeks and trailers of upcoming Warner Bros. films, create an online library of Blu-ray movies, manage a wish list for upcoming releases and connect to the WB store." As we've already seen in a number of instances, there's also a hint of a BD-Live-assisted interview with director Christopher Nolan "during a special Live Community Screening." For the full spill, give that read link a gentle tap.

It's a few days past October and all, but Sharp has still managed to get its BonusView-enabled BD-HP21H Blu-ray player out in the UK. Reportedly selling for around £249 ($383), the Profile 1.1 deck is probably a touch overpriced given the current state of BD across the globe, but then again, we've also heard reports that finding low-cost players across the pond isn't proving simple. At any rate, the unit does tout 1080p24 and a pretty slick design, and it's guaranteed to put a smile on the face of anyone who unwraps it. That's worth, what, at least a few quid?

[Via Register Hardware]

Oh sure, an equal amount of UKers are apt to buy NAD's absurdly overpriced T587 Blu-ray player as Americans (2.5 persons, for those wanting specifics), but what's up with the pricing discrepancy? The BD-Live-enabled deck -- which includes internal decoding of the latest lossless codecs from Dolby and DTS, an HDMI 1.3 port, Ethernet jack, component / composite video outputs, coaxial / optical digital audio sockets, external IR input and a front-panel USB port -- is scheduled to hit shelves sometime in December for around £850. We know the greenback has been gaining ground and all, but we Americans are still getting dinged for an extra two bills here. Ah well, what's $200 to the man / woman who's throwing down for a $1k+ Blu-ray player, right?

Now that Black Friday is behind us and Cyber Monday is but hours away, we're curious to know what kind of deals you snagged yesterday. Find anything particularly noteworthy? Were you disappointed with the "sales?" Feel free to chime in below with how you contributed to stimulating the economy while jazzing up your home theater.

Long load times on Blu-ray players have always been a pet peeve of ours, and obviously we aren't alone. The gurus over at CNET UK rounded up four of their favorite decks and popped in a test disc (Vantage Point) in order to find which was the quickest at getting down to business. Trailing the pack was Pioneer's BDP-LX71, which took a staggering 1:54 to load and play the film. Panasonic's DMP-BD35 nabbed the bronze in unceremonious fashion (1:16), while Samsung's BD-P1500 slipped in second with a 1:09 load / play time. As we gave away in the headline there, Sony's PlayStation 3 easily took first with a test time of just 42 seconds. We'd love to know if any other untested decks could outperform that -- anyone care to time their unit and chime in below?

Not interested in Qflix, huh? No worries, as Plextor has four others for your consideration. Up first is the PX-610U 8x slim external USB Super Multi Drive for both Mac and PC, which requires no AC adapter and comes bundled with Roxio burn software. Next are the 6x PX-B310SA (internal SATA) and PX-B310U (external USB) drives, both of which read Blu-ray Discs at 6x and burn blank DVDs at an undisclosed (but undoubtedly zippy) rate. Batting cleanup are the 22x PX-850SA (internal SATA) and PX-850A (internal PATA) Super Multi drives, which forgo the whole BD-compatible thing and stick strictly to DVD. Each of the units should be available now, though pricing remains a mystery. Nothing like a little anticipation, right?

To (mis)quote the infamous Dennis Green: "It was what we thought it'd be." In other words, Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight truly is as mesmerizing and awesome on Blu-ray as it was in theaters. Some very early (and very thorough) reviews have already hit the 'net days before the film's sure-to-be-monumental release, and we've found nothing but praise across the board. Sure, varying critics had varying levels of appreciation for the plot, but when it comes to visual and auditory quality, the Blu-ray transfer delivers. Utterances of "wow," "stunning," and "spectacle" were peppered throughout each and every review, dashing any fears one may have had that the BD would fall short of the hype. For those who really want to dig deep, we've linked thousands of words below. But truthfully, they all come to the same conclusion: The Dark Knight is a must-own Blu-ray Disc.

Read - Big Picture Big Sound
Read - The HD Room
Read - Rope Of Silicon
Read - Home Cinema Choice
Read - HighDefDigest

Lookie, lookie -- yet another 8x Blu-ray burner to choose from. In Japan, of course. The BDR-S03J SATA drive is able to write to single- and dual-layer BD-R media at 8x, and that rate doubles when toasting to blank DVDs. It also features 4MB of cache and can burn CD-Rs at 32x and CD-RWs at 24x, but it'll only ship in the Land of the Rising Sun (at least initially) this January for ¥38,000 ($399).

[Via Impress]

Don't freak out, Americans -- you haven't seen Pioneer's BDP-LX71 hanging around at your favorite A/V store for one simple reason: it caters to the European / Australian crowd. And with an MSRP of AU$1,299, it obviously caters to the affluent, too. The Aussies over at CNET's AU branch were able to get ahold of the spectacularly shiny deck, and while they admired the lovely picture and sound quality, styling and selection of ports, they couldn't easily overlook the elephantine price tag, lack of Profile 2.0 and omission of internal DTS-HD decoding. Additionally, the slow loading speed put more of a damper on things, but all of those knocks still didn't sway critics from recommending it for those with the cash. For everyone else, we'd probably definitely look elsewhere.

This glorious day only comes once per year here in the United States, so you should know we're going to harp on it 'til it's over. We've ditched the usual Ask Engadget HD routine this week in favor of sparking up conversation about shopping, so have a read below:

"No surprise, Black Friday 2008 is tomorrow. I don't particularly need anything, but I'm always down for an HD-related deal. I don't have time to shuffle through all those ads -- what are the best items to get, and where do I head to get 'em?"

You've seen our breakdown of HD-related sales for Black Friday, but now it's time to toss in your votes for the best deals around. We know, it's slim pickings this year, but show us what ya got in comments.

Got a burning question that you'd love to toss out for Engadget HD (or its readers) to take a look at? Tired of Google's blank stares when you ask for real-world experiences? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your inquiry could be next.

[Image courtesy of Sun-Sentinel]

Believe it or not, Silicon Mountain has been around for some 14 years now, but it just recently splashed onto the consumer scene with its HTPC-infused Allio HDTV. Hailed as the first HDTV to offer an inbuilt Blu-ray drive, the set is likely just the beginning of what the company has to offer, or at least that's the vibe we get when reading through a recent interview with CEO Tré Cates. For starters, he mentioned a soon-to-come "Allio Effect," which sounds to be a customized internet TV portal to get you in front of interesting content quicker. The biggest news, however, was the Allio Extreme -- an upcoming (Q1 2009) version of the existing Allio that will boast an NVIDIA GPU and "be able to play Crysis." Furthermore, a cheaper Allio with Ubuntu is just around the bend, and if you're looking to buy in bulk, you could probably pick up a few sans an OS at all. Tap the read link for the full writeup should you please.

Onkyo has turned the DV-BD606P "professional" Blu-ray player loose on the European shores, but with a subtle difference. Our friends overseas will get the DV-BD606, sans "P" (professional) and rack-mount ears. Sounds like an athlete who just didn't quite pan out, doesn't it? Other than that, your £400 ($615) nets you the same uninspiring Profile 1.1, DTS-HD MA, Dolby TrueHD, HDMI 1.3a, DVD upconverting player we got over here in the US. That's right -- pay a little more, get a little less. Somehow, we think that even this is going to be a tough sell no matter where it shows up, and the SD card slot up front and me-too DivX support won't change that.