Microsoft HD-DVD Add-On for the XBOX360: my take on it

[bendermac]

I'm taking a guess here, but I don't think your PC needs to be all that powerful if you want to connect an HD-DVD drive to it. For the most part, the drive does all the work, and your PC just supplies electricity.

good guess but you're wrong. the hd add-on is just a drive that can read hd-dvds and dvds. thats it's it. the xbox360 does all the encoding and so does your pc if you connect it to it.

as for cpu, a 3.2ghz with hp should the least i think. core duo would be better. you don't need dvi with hdcp output as long as you don't want a digital signal output. you can use vga just fine. this was tested and confirmed by trailergod.

[jmcc]

Guys and girls, I need your thoughts on this, please

[aS!Dz]

i just got my hd-dvd add on drive today! it really is good. bit angry that it requires a seperate plug socket. i understand it has to.. but its jus really inconvient for a tidy sitting room.

also bendermac. have u noticed that wen u pause da film, and zoom in.... it still skips frames by a chunk everytime you zoom in or out. i found this really annoying. i tested this on superman returns. is it just my drive ? or is dis a bug?

as for the drive making noise.. it does make noise wen its powered on by itself... but u cant hear it once u turn on the xbox360 cuz that noise is just overpowering... so the noise made from the drive isnt much of a big deal.

i love the on screen menu on superman returns... i found the king kong on screen menu to be a bit shitter. they shud all be on the bottom rather den the left hand side like the king kong menu.

also, u cant eject the hd-dvd drive via the remote can you? cuz myn just keeps ejecting the xbox drive..?

ive got superman returns and king kong so far... and ive got Serenity and Tokyo drift coming on its way. The video quality is absolutey amazing on the hd-dvd's ive got... but it doesnt scream out to me that i shud re-buy all of my old dvds that i have. i think il only buy hd-dvd's for the new films that come out.. and jus da couple of movies that are worth testing the system out with...

[bendermac]

also bendermac. have u noticed that wen u pause da film, and zoom in.... it still skips frames by a chunk everytime you zoom in or out. i found this really annoying. i tested this on superman returns. is it just my drive ? or is dis a bug?

it's not a bug, it's a feature
seriously, i notice this too and it's a bit annoying. you also can't do frame by frame

i love the on screen menu on superman returns... i found the king kong on screen menu to be a bit shitter. they shud all be on the bottom rather den the left hand side like the king kong menu.

al universal menu so far look sh!tty.

also, u cant eject the hd-dvd drive via the remote can you? cuz myn just keeps ejecting the xbox drive..?

nope. you have to eject the disc directly from the drive.

[aS!Dz]

it's not a bug, it's a feature
seriously, i notice this too and it's a bit annoying. you also can't do frame by frame

you cant do frame by frame? i forgot to check that out. oh boy that really is annoying! the frame by frame feature does really help sumtyms!

i personally like to be a unbiased person, and i also like to test all gadgets out myself, rather den jus sticking to one thing and feeling left out. so il definetly be getting the ps3 blu-ray player as soon as it comes out. den after checking it out... and seeing which fits best to my own personal preference. il start buying them. either way i wont really be buying ne new dvds - but at the same time i wont be replacing all my old dvds with blu-ray and hd-dvd

[chernabog_ca]

Just picked up the drive yesterday. Pure impulse buy! I was going to wait until the dust settled on the format war but after seeing some movies on my buddy's PS3, I was very curious about diving into the next gen. I got the drive because it can work on the PC and it's the cheapest way of getting a HD player.

I have it hooked up to my PC running Vista and all I had to do was plug it in. Took about 5 minutes for Vista to download and install everything it needed. Now I don't have a HDCP monitor but I did download the trial of AnyDVD and that did the trick.

I threw in King Kong that came with it and it's pretty stunning. What caught me the most was the sound! The sound is incredible through a pair of high end headphones.

Thing is I think I might be taking it back. Like I said it was a pure impulse buy and I'm having a little buyers remourse. I went shopping for movies and I can't find anything that I want to buy on HD DVD. Most of the titles that I would buy I already own on DVD and just don't feel like double dipping, espically at $30-$40 a movie! There just isn't a 'must-have' yet for me on HD DVD. The must-haves are over on Blu-Ray! Nobody is renting HD either.

The other thing is I don't think I have the right amount power yet either to run it. I've got Core 2 Duo E6300, 2GB DDR2 and a nVidia 7950 but there's some serious lag in parts of the movie and I don't have anything running in the background that would cause a slow down. Maybe it's a Vista thing because it starts bitching when PowerDVD starts up and turns off Aero.

I've got 30 days and will probably leave it right up until the end before I return it. Who knows, maybe by then my mind will change.

[st39.6]

I´m seriously thinking about buying it later too. Its the cheapest way to play HD-DVD and I wouldnt put into it even penny more.
Now my priority is PS3 (be home in few days), because Blu-ray movies are the only that are in our stores. Thats one of reasons I dont like HD-DVD. They dont even care to put it to stores. You cant get those discs here, only on amazon. BD however is here for quite a long time. HD-DVD aint goin to be here any soon ... that SUX!, coz I want Transformers in HD, lol

[chernabog_ca]

I've been checking on eBay and there's some pretty good prices on movies. They seem to fall in the $17-$25 range which isn't bad but some of these sellers are asking for ridiculous amounts to ship to Canada. I've been giving it a lot of thought since buying it about holding onto it or not. I'm thinking about taking it back and looking at getting a Blu-Ray drive for my PC. They look to be just over $300 now and perhaps will drop a little before Christmas.

[st39.6]

Personal Computer World reported Sept. 20 that a new Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive will be available to the public in 2008. No details were offered as to the hardware’s updates, such as an HDMI output.

Mark Bennett, Microsoft’s European HD DVD business development director, told the magazine about the new HD DVD add-on at Microsoft’s 25th hardware anniversary event in London.

Bennett also told the magazine that “there are more plans to incorporate HD DVD into the PC platform in the future.”

I dont even know why I post this. If I hate something more than x-box, its HD-DVD