TV Week is reporting that Joss Whedon's 11-episode Firefly series has been remastered from film, on which it was originally recorded, to 1080i high definition for a September 24th debut on UHD, a high def channel offered by many major cable groups.  The conversion, unusual for a show not originally recorded in high definition, is possible because Whedon insisted on recording the film in widescreen on film, and even went so far as to put major characters in the far sides of the frame to make it more difficult to air the show any other way (according to the Firefly DVD commentary, as reported by TV Week). 

No news yet on when the HD version might make it to DVD.  And it's not going to be easy for Whedon fans.  Twentieth Century Fox, which owns Firefly, has adopted the Blu-Ray HD DVD format, while Universal, which owns Serenity, uses the HD-DVD format.  This means that the serious Browncoats are going to need both kinds of DVD players to watch both the series and the feature.

This illustration of the format war that has begun over DVD formats is an indication of the possible opportunity for pop culture stores.  Just as laserdiscs enjoyed a period when they were not widely distributed and collectors had to buy them online, from pop culture stores, or from the relatively few home video retailers that carried the format, the two different high definition DVD formats may make it less likely that widespread competition will collapse prices on HD, allowing smaller retailers to serve the serious collector market at reasonable margins.