HD DVD has recently faced some head wind in its struggle to become the high-definition successor to the DVD, but its supporters are playing an ace from their sleeve with the arrival of the first discs that take advantage of its players’ built-in Internet connections.

The first Internet-enabled disc - a Japanese animated feature titled “Freedom” - was released Tuesday. Buyers who connect their HD DVD player to a broadband Internet line will be able to download a high-definition trailer for another movie, change menu styles and download additional subtitles.

Those relatively modest Internet-dependent features will be beefed up in soon-to-be-released discs like the martial epic “300,” due at the end of July but demonstrated Friday by Kevin Collins, Microsoft Corp.’s “director of HD DVD evangelism.”