We've been wondering for some time when the regular edition of Top Gear (the Polar Special was a glorious, yet singular, event) would make its debut in high definition, and today the BBC Internet Blog confirmed this is the year. Set to debut November 15th, we'll finally be able to see the Stig -- whoever he is -- put some of the world's most exclusive cars through their paces in great quality. Whether that news has you checking the channel lineup for BBC America HD or bookmarking a torrent site we can all agree this is a fine day indeed.

[Via Digital Spy]

Those patiently awaiting November 6th can now tide themselves over a bit, as Disney has released a trailer that actually shows off some of the much-anticipated bonus features that will reside on the Cars Blu-ray disc. The well-detailed "Car Finder" game (pictured above) purportedly enables viewers to "search for over 200 models of cars hidden throughout the movie and even race the clock to find a specific car in a frozen frame of film." Also shown is the "Cine-Explore" mode, where you'll be treated to a making-the-movie walkthrough with John Lasseter. Go on, hit the read link to give it a look yourself.

[Via HighDefDigest]

Good news for automotive freaks who just so happen to admire CGI and Blu-ray: Disney's Cars -- which has missed a number of purported deadlines already -- is finally slated to land on Blu-ray, that is, if Hollywood In Hi-Def's Scott Hettrick is to be believed. According to him, the smash film will finally make its Blu-ray debut on November 6th, and will feature a host of extras not found on the vanilla DVD edition. Among those niceties is an "elaborate BD-J interactive game" dubbed Car Finder, an unreleased Traffic School scene, and a Cinemavision presentation of the featurettes and audio commentaries. Reportedly, the disc will be priced at $34.99, and should also prove to be a huge favorite of stocking-stuffers everywhere this holiday season.

[Via HighDefDigest]

What we're watching: The NBA Playoffs continue, but we'll check out either The Hills Have Eyes on HBO or Cars on Starz-HD tonight.

Our traditional high-def listings continue below.

As long as Disney has been supporting Blu-ray, fans everywhere have wondered; where is Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean? Many have even doubted Disney's commitment to the format as a result. There were rumors that Disney was only waiting for the whole BDJ mess to get worked out, either way the wait is over. Well it's almost over and at least we have dates for both Pirates movies and Cars. The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's chest will both be timed with the theatrical release of the 3rd Pirates movie on May 22nd, Cars will follow shortly after on June 5th. This is good news for fans, but unfortunately no other details are available.

Finally, there is some word about when Buena Vista's blockbuster hits Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars is coming to Blu-ray and we are please to tell you that it's not to far off. Every time the studio has announcements, we hold our breaths only to let out a sigh of disappointment when nether of the flicks are mentioned but come May of '07, Captain Jack will be on our HDTVs via both the Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest. Cars is [hopefully] coming later this year but the title isn't yet slotted into this released time table. There are more former hit titles coming from the studio such as, Chicken Little and Finding Neverland coming out on March 20; King Arthur Director's Cut and G.I. Jane on April 3; Con Air, Crimson Tide, and The Rock coming out on June 8, and The Recruit, Open range and the fore mentioned Cars slotted for sometime within the year. Hopefully, once the studio releases their first Pixar movie, Cars, on the format, we will see more coming.

Click on for the rest of the studios '07 worldwide releases. These plans include a huge European push with 21 schedule titles verses North Americans paltry 13 and Asia lackluster 12.

If there were ever a time where we'd need to hear it before we believed it, this would be it. Tony Bongiovi, an audio engineer who's been around the block a time or two (read: he worked with Hendrix), has finally crafted the miracle chip he's been missing for decades. Dubbed the Digital Power Station (DPS, not to be confused with DSP), the microchip is described as a "very sophisticated equalizer," and while it was originally "the size of a refrigerator," he looked to Glenn Zelniker, a specialist in digital signal processing, to program a wee chip to do the same thing. The result is a dynamically programmed microchip based on an off-the-shelf DSP from Freescale Semiconductor, which is housed in special headunits (like JVC's KD-S100) and has more than "120 points of adjustment" to tune the tunes to fill each vehicle perfectly. Reportedly, the chip even turns factory speakers into high-fidelity drivers, as it calculates the dimensions of the vehicle and the abilities of the cones while outputting the audio. The JVC unit will cost "between $700 and $1,000 installed," since you'll have to schedule an appointment with your service department to get the correct software installed for your make and model, but we'd suggest a trial listen before you plunk down your one large.

[Via PhysOrg]

Our fears have been confirmed, Disney will not release their two biggest summer movies, Cars & Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on Blu-ray until next year. In contrast to the statements made by a Warner exec about a big HD fourth quarter, they predict a slower adoption for the high definition formats than DVD enjoyed. That isn't to say they're entirely pessimistic about the situation, but CEO Bob Iger just thinks it's too early to predict anything...of course if his company supported HD DVD also and had been already shipping high definition discs for several months at this point maybe he would feel like they have a better handle on things. Still, we should remember that despite a strong summer, Disney is in the middle of restructuring to cut costs, spend less on marketing, and may not want to undergo the expense of shipping such high profile titles to a small, unproven market, instead opting for a low-profile release schedule to start.

It only took one line from VideoBusiness' note about the DVD details of Pixar's latest hit film Cars to dampen our spirits. The Blu-ray supporting Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment (Disney) didn't mention any plans for a high-def release of the movie yet. The DVD isn't hitting until November 7, well after Disney's first Blu-ray releases featuring Paul Walker in Eight Below on September 19, but we are looking forward to other summer movies getting day-and-date releases, why not one from the friendly budget HDTV calibrators at Pixar?

The end of the year and the launch of the Playstation 3 is far enough away however that we still hold out hope for plenty of Blu-ray content to become available, and maybe with codec and dual-layer issues straightened out as well. We're looking forward to some great 1080p CG this winter, and we don't mean from Killzone.

[Corrected Cars release date]