Buying HD-DVD Drive in the states

jamieh

Hey all,

I see that MS has reduced the price of the HD DVD Drive in the states http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/8975/9999/xbox-360-price-drop-hddvd.phtml

I'm going to the states next week, if I bought the drive over there would it work with my xbox here, and would US hd-dvd's work?

McDermotX

Yeah,
all you need is a 3pin figure-of-eight cable for the HD-DVD addons power supply....such as this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=1168&doy=26m7
HD-DVD is region-free so disc region is not a problem......all US, EU, Jap HD-DVDs will work..

Only thing to consider is warranty......MS EU will not want to know about it if you're addon develops amy problems

savemejebus

Also your normal Region 2 dvds probably won't play on it.

koneko

You can play DVDs in the 360s drive anyway so that's not much of a loss.

savemejebus

Very true, i just meant in case they wanted to take advantage of the quieter HD-DVD drive for playing DVDs rather than the 360s noisemaker of a drive.

Talisman

One thing you should check out is whether the disc with the HD DVD software that you need install on the console is region coded. I suspect it is, because the software to sync data between the 120gb and 20gb hard drives is. In which case you won't be able to install the HD player on your console.

lee_baby_simms

savemejebus wrote:

Also your normal Region 2 dvds probably won't play on it.

They will. The HD DVD drive takes its region encoding from the 360 its connected to.

savemejebus

lee_baby_simms wrote:

They will. The HD DVD drive takes its region encoding from the 360 its connected to.

cool

McDermotX

The thing to remember about the HD-DVD addon, is that it is to all intends and purposes a pure information delivery device to the 360.....no more and no less..
Its recognised by the 360 (and a PC) as a Toshiba DVD/HD device......all driver and software playback is handled by the console itself. Data is streamed via the USB for decoding via the 360 software and output as such..

You can hook up a US, EU, Jap or Aus addon with no worries and no qualms about playing back any HD-DVD titles...(apart from the HD-DVD platform's quirky nature at the moment )
SD DVD region is determined by the console itself, but why you'd want to use the 360 for SD DVD playback is beyond me as it is amazingly lacking in that regard compared to even cheap dedicated players..

lee_baby_simms

McDermotX wrote:

The thing to remember about the HD-DVD addon, is that it is to all intends and purposes a pure information delivery device to the 360.....no more and no less..
Its recognised by the 360 (and a PC) as a Toshiba DVD/HD device......all driver and software playback is handled by the console itself. Data is streamed via the USB for decoding via the 360 software and output as such..

You can hook up a US, EU, Jap or Aus addon with no worries and no qualms about playing back any HD-DVD titles...(apart from the HD-DVD platform's quirky nature at the moment )
SD DVD region is determined by the console itself, but why you'd want to use the 360 for SD DVD playback is beyond me as it is amazingly lacking in that regard compared to even cheap dedicated players..

How do you rate the PS3 for dvd/blu ray playback and upscaling?

McDermotX

Well,
without going completely off-topic or singing the PS3's praises too much on an Xbox forum..
The PS3 is an excellent Blu-ray device plain and simple, and frankly I'd recommend it above any dedicated player at the moment, for anyone wanting to buy into BD right now, for various reasons....pure 1080p/24 pulled from disc, TrueHD decoding onboard etc etc..
DVD playback sucked big time until the 1.80 update in May....overnight, the PS3 was turned into one of the best DVD upscalers out there. Not far behind the dedicated Reon upscaling ability of the Toshiba XE1. The update also allowed the PS3 to pass all BTB and WTW tests allowing full colour range on a par with highend Denon/Marantz DVD players..
If you leave the current state of the games library out of the equation for the moment, the PS3 is one of the most stunning CE devices on the market right now for the price (ironic, giving the the overwhelming opinion is that its priced to high for a gaming machine)..

Personally, I leave my DVD upscaling needs to the XE1 as I love the sound of analog output to the amp, but that is no slight on the PS3's digital output.....just a personal preference..

In both cases though, they are far superior to the 360's DVD upscaling ability (the DVD decoding software is something MS could really put some effort into), and the noisy nature of the 360 is extremely annoying and off-putting in quiet scenes.

The 360's performance with the HD-DVD addon is decent enough though, on a par with the first-gen Toshibas, but falls down in the sound stakes giving its inability to pass lossless sound over optical (and even over HDMI with the US Elite)..
Picture though is great and it offers a nice way for 360 owners to experience HD media without splashing down solely on a dedicated player..

There have been a few other threads though about the HD-DVD already..
Some thoughts here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055110299&referrerid=&highlight=hd-dvd

lee_baby_simms

Thanks for the info McD. I bought a ps3 last weekend but i havent had a chance to watch any movies on it yet.

jamieh

Thanks for the advice lads.

Would I need to buy a transformer to power the drive?

mickoneill30

Any sign of MS bringing that new HD-DVD deal with movies over to Europe. I'd be very interested if it was even dollar for Euro (i.e. €179)

ShaneU

mickoneill30 wrote:

Any sign of MS bringing that new HD-DVD deal with movies over to Europe. I'd be very interested if it was even dollar for Euro (i.e. €179)

Not gonna happen unfortunately

FrankGrimes

Any idea what the 5 free films are?

Has anyone personal experience of getting an Xbox 360 HD DVD player bought in the US working with a 360 bought in Ireland? Am heading over to US on work shortly so would pick one up while I'm there if so.

McDermotX

FrankGrimes wrote:

Any idea what the 5 free films are?

Has anyone personal experience of getting an Xbox 360 HD DVD player bought in the US working with a 360 bought in Ireland? Am heading over to US on work shortly so would pick one up while I'm there if so.

Was actually using a US addon with an EU 360 a good while back (have it hooked up to the PC these days) and I know two other people using US versions with their Irish 360s..
All that was required was a figure-of-eight cale as mentioned above as its a universal power supply with the addon..

Not sure about the free films offer, but I do know that people who bought Toshiba A2,XA2 etc (US models) were subject to similar offers. They mailed in their applications and are still waiting for their discs 2-4 months later......so bear that in mind..

FrankGrimes

Thanks for that...so I guess if its a case of mailing off for the free films its not a runner for me as I'll only be there for 2 weeks, so might just buy off sendit.com for €150 if price isn't much cheaper.

I have a htpc running Vista Ultimate which I use mainly for Media Center - would it be possible to hook the HD DVD drive up to this and control it using the MCE remote?

Stephen

Vista will work with the HDDVD drive but you will need some kind of software to play back the HDDVD movies. I don't think WMP/media centre has that functionality built in.
Remote should work fine assuming you're using media centre.

McDermotX

Yep,
as Stephen says, the drive is picked up by Ultimate as a Toshiba DVD/HD device, driver is downloaded via Windows Update and assigned a drive letter..
However software along the lines of Cyberlink's PowerDVD Ultra is required (or WinDVD, but I find Cyberlink's far better), which also offers Blu-ray support with a BD reader..

HD-DVD (or BD) playback was not included with Vista, so there's no standard way of getting it to work under Media Center (although it may be possible !, just haven't looked into it)......Your MCE remote may still work anyway controlling the basic functions of PowerDVD on the Vista desktop, but I cannot be certain..

Don't forget, you're getting into the rather murky world of HDCP etc etc.....so if using a DVI/HDMI connection on your display, you are going to need a HDCP compatible GFX card and display to fully appreciate HD-DVD playback from a HTPC.. (and a bit of grunt in your PC if the card is not upto the task)
There is software out there that can strip away HDCP requirement over DVI, but its probably not appropriate to mention out loud as its legitimacy is in question..