HD-DVD?

[Broomjockey]

I'm thinking of picking up the XBox 360 HD-DVD player, as I heard you can hook it up to a Vista computer and get some drivers to make it functional. Before I drop $200 on it, I wanted to ask a few questions first.

1. Will it work well with that set-up?

2. Is the player decent quality? In other words, will it hold up under a lot of use? I know Sony always had issues with people wearing out their systems using them as DVD players more than expected, so I'm wondering if this would have the same issue.

3. General advice, admonishments, etc. that anyone thinks I should keep in mind.

[RichS]

I'm going to assume that this is like any other computer high-definition drive. So, what you need to do is:

1. You need software that supports high-definition DVD playback. I think the latest version of PowerDVD does, but I'm not sure, or if there's any other solutions that do. A good Google search would clear that up.
2. You need to make sure your video card, cable, and monitor are HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection) compliant, or else the playback software will reduce the playback quality.



All I know is that I'm not buying either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray format unless the companies can get together, settle on one format, and let me have my fair use right to make backup copies of what I purchase.

[Broomjockey]

I'm going to assume that this is like any other computer high-definition drive. So, what you need to do is:

1. You need software that supports high-definition DVD playback. I think the latest version of PowerDVD does, but I'm not sure, or if there's any other solutions that do. A good Google search would clear that up.
2. You need to make sure your video card, cable, and monitor are HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection) compliant, or else the playback software will reduce the playback quality.

1. I'll assume that WMP can do HD playback, so I'm covered there.
2. I know my monitor is, since it was "Vista Ready", my video card for the same reason (That and it's a GeForce 8blahblahblah GTS). I do need to replace my cable though to a DVI, so I'll keep that in mind to get before I get the player.

I should also mention the whole reason I'm considering getting a new player is my stand-alone DVD player I have now is making funny grindy noises and such, so I'd like to NOT have it break on me and leave me high and dry, and I figured I might as well go for the new stuff.

[jb17kx]

My advice would be to wait for the whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD to blow over before you drop to much dosh on any one format - my father was burnt badly by jumping on with Betamax too early.

[Broomjockey]

My advice would be to wait for the whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD to blow over before you drop to much dosh on any one format - my father was burnt badly by jumping on with Betamax too early.

And I'd love to, except that:

I should also mention the whole reason I'm considering getting a new player is my stand-alone DVD player I have now is making funny grindy noises and such, so I'd like to NOT have it break on me and leave me high and dry, and I figured I might as well go for the new stuff.

And that's also why I want to get the XBox add-on. It's only $200, vs. $400 for the cheapest stand-alone player I can find. I figure I can get enough use out of it to make that worth it, AND that's why I'm asking for advice about how good it is, and what will be required to use it.

[RichS]

Almost forgot - I thought they price-dropped the drive to $180 (well, $179.99 before tax ) recently?

A good deal gets even better.

[Broomjockey]

Not in Canada, they didn't. I was in Best Buy on Saturday and they were $199.99. Still better than the $400 for the Toshiba A30 they had, though. Plus it comes with King Kong! Woot!

[wolfie]

.
2. I know my monitor is, since it was "Vista Ready", my video card for the same reason (That and it's a GeForce 8blahblahblah GTS). I do need to replace my cable though to a DVI, so I'll keep that in mind to get before I get the player.

Big-time red flag there. When switching from XP to Vista, Microsoft adopted a (IMNSHO) bass-ackwards philosophy: the computer that you paid for isn't yours - it belongs to whoever holds the copyright on the media you're trying to play (i.e. strong DRM). Vista will not feed from a high-quality digital source (such as HD-DVD) through a high-quality digital link that doesn't support DRM (such as DVI) since that could be used to make unauthorized high-quality copies. The fact that it can (and in virtually all cases would) be used to watch the movies in crisp high-res using a big-bucks video card and bigger-bucks monitor is irrelevant.

Short form, under Vista, the signal will either be degraded, or not be fed at all, when trying to play HD-DVD over DVI - you need either XP, or HDCP and an 11 foot Romanian giant, because you shouldn't touch Vista with a 10 foot Pole (cookies for reference).

[Broomjockey]

Okay, based on that, and the fact I can't find much positive about the sturdyness of the 360's player, I'm going with a stand-alone, just for ease of use, and the fact I won't have to deal with any of that stuff. I can probably hook it up to my monitor too. That sucker's got a half-dozen different connection types, I'm sure at least one will work.