A campaign to boycott high definition DVD systems using new copy control technology has been launched in the US as companies such as Toshiba and Sony prepare to roll out the first generation of products.

The boycott is in protest against the latest DRM (digital rights management) technologies built into the Blu-ray and HD-DVD standards which technology watcher and former Apple executive, Mike Evangelist, believes will greatly curtail consumer freedom when it comes to how they choose to view high definition media content.

He has set up a dedicated site on his writersblocklive weblog calling for the boycott and is seeking donations to help launch a Google advertising campaign to promote the cause

In related news, it looks like the first HD DVD drive to debut in Europe will likely be Toshiba's HD DVD-equipped laptop, the Qosmio G30. Toshiba confirms that its built-in HD DVD drive does not check for region coding, thus allowing HD DVD discs bought outside of Europe to be played, such as the HD DVD titles that are expected to launch in the US near the end of this month.

The reason for the lack of region support is due to early HD DVD releases being mostly back-catalogue movies, which the studios are not so concerned about release dates across different regions. However, once new releases start coming out on HD DVD, this may change, which could lead to region enforcement in later HD DVD drives.

The G30, meanwhile, builds on previous models with the incorporation of an HDCP-compliant HDMI output port and a 17in 1920 x 1200 TruBrite LCD screen ready for 1080p HD content. The display is driven by an Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics chip with 256MB of dedicated video RAM. The notebook has a 2GHz Core Duo T2500 processor on board, 1GB of DDR 2 SDRAM, an 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi radio and Bluetooth 2.0.