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.

Slated 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. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD players have begun shipping in the United States.

“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, said in a statement. “HD DVD is such a format; it builds on consumer familiarity with DVD and is very competitively priced, yet offers an amazing home entertainment experience. It is the natural successor to DVD, and public reaction in Japan and the U.S. indicates that consumers are already falling in love with HD DVD just like they did with its predecessor.”

The two player announced 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.

On top of the audio formats already used in standard DVD, both models support three next generation surround-sound formats, Toshiba added. Dolby Digital Plus uses a higher bit rate (up to 3Mb/sec.) to improve fidelity, while the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD support very high bit rates and larger sampling rates to produce a better audio experience.

The Toshiba HD-E1 will be priced at $767 (599 Euros) and the HD-XE1 will be priced at $1,152 ($899 Euros).