Officials from Universal Studios, Paramount, Warner, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, and Microsoft have formed the North American HD DVD Promotional Group. They’re using $150 million in funding. Part of the marketing campaign is a big 18-wheeler which they’ll use to help promote HD DVD.

A new Web site, www.TheLookandSoundofPerfect.com, launched Tuesday and includes trailers of HD DVD movies.

Although extensive, the campaign may fall on somewhat deaf ears in the short term. Industry sources say that at this point, only about 20,000 HD DVD players have been sold. Toshiba is the only manufacturer to launch hardware for the format. However, sources believe that titles are selling impressively, considering the slim hardware penetration. Insiders say that certain individual HD DVDs, which collectively total 40 releases, have sold 20,000 units. Also, certain titles have sold as many as 5,000 copies in one week.

I visited the site, and it’s pretty slick. But the movie trailers are coming soon, with nary a trailer to be currently found. But still, I’ll be checking back to see what they’ll have.

Punching up next-gen promos