360 HD DVD drive, not so hot... (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

I just hooked up mine. The video is WAY WAY WAY soft compared to the Toshiba A1 and the sound if completely all borked up. I was hoping to cut out one DVD deck cause the A1 has a ton of issues too, but this is going back in the morning till MS can get it worked out. Your guys experience about the same?

Sam

 

[Seth=L]

That doesn't surprise me, it's a gaming system. It is connected by USB instead of having an internal drive. And if you remember, the Xbox was a pretty shotty DVD player, worse than the PS2, at least from what I saw.

 

[LaMarcus]

That's unfortunate, I was really looking forward to getting one.

 

[Matt^Brown]

There is an official review thread under the HD section and most of the reviews have been positive. Sam you should post there so that people see the other side of things.

 

[Sean Bryan]

How is the video connected? Is it VGA or component?

 

[John Burton]

Now I have my HD DVD player, and it doesn't look soft to me. We watched "Slither", and it looked sharp. The daytime shots in "King Kong" were great also. I have my hooked through the VGA

 

[TonyTone]

Now I don't know if there are any mainstream HD-DVD movies currently available in 1080p, but note that if the 360 HD-DVD player is (currently) capable of 1080p playback (and if the X360 allows it), you'll only be able to get 1080p output via VGA on the X360...whether you have a 1080p display that can display it in all its 1080p glory is a different matter but not within the scope of this post.

 

[RAF]

Just a quick word here as I've already made some of my thoughts known in the HD-DVD hardware threads on this.

I own both a Toshiba XA-1 and an MS HD-DVD drive and I see very little, if any difference in the image produced by each (which is a bit surprising since I expected the HDMI output on the Toshiba to give it a bit of an edge). The sound, of course, is a different issue because the MS unit is limited to S/PDIF digital output with no provision for 5.1 or 7.1 analog output (nor HDMI) for the potential of some of the newer codecs. However, once again, the sound is certainly close enough (both sound good to me) to belie the fact that one unit lists for 5 times the other.

Incidently, I should explain that I feed the video output of both the 360 and the Toshiba units through a $3000 external video processor (a DVDO iScan VP50) and from there into a 1080p (native input) capable display so this probably is a major factor in making both images look so good and so close in quality. The fact of the matter is that if you have a good 1080i source then deinterlacing it to 1080p with a state of the art algorithm (which the VP50 provides) will yield an image that is almost impossible to tell apart from a native 1080p source.

No, I'm not suggesting that people run out and purchase an expensive external video processor just to make their games or their add-ons look better but since I subscribe to the "component approach to A/V" (you can read all about that here if you're curious) this is just another bonus of having a separate video processor in your HT arsenal. (As a matter of fact, another benefit came to my attention today when it was mentioned by some that the new PS3 presents a problem if your display can't accept 720p input from 720p games. With an external VP, this is a non-issue since the video processor can make all the necessary corrections for you.)

 

[Seth=L]

So what happens when when HD-DVD decides to employ the copyright protection, I forget the acronym, that doesn't allow HD output over anything but HDMI? Doesn't that make the HD-DVD drive pointless?

 

[RAF]

Yes, Seth, it does. But it also makes several million HD displays worthless as well for HD-DVD viewing as well (the ones without DVI/HDMI). If the 360 player weren't $199 then I would side with you on this. But at that price (

 

[Shane Martin]

According to a report Japanese law prevents them from turning on the ICT until after 2011. By that point I think the 360 will either be replaced or they'll have an HDMI connection available.

RAF's review is pretty much spot on from the other reports thus I can't believe Sam's. I gotta think something is up.

Now I know of some issues with the playback of certain discs like Batman Begins in True HD(as the player will downconvert it to DD+) but that's it.

 

[EricW]

does anyone have audio sync issues with this drive?

 

[Arthur Legardo]

From what I've read, there is a problem when you switch to the TrueHD Audio option on the disc, in particular, Batman Beyond. I don't have the drive yet, this is just what I have read.

 

[Sam Posten]

Update: when i set my 360 to output 1080i (which forces my AE900u to do the scaling, same as what my A1 does) they look pretty similar now. Sucks I gotta switch back to 720p any time I want to play games tho, since those look better at native rez.

The audio is still horribly horribly mangled.

Sam

 

[Casey. J]

All HD-DVD movies are capable of 1080p playback. The 360 does suport 1080p display. It is capable of 1080p through both the VGA and the Component inputs, given that your display can suport 1920x1080 playback through those ports but only HDTVs can though. (check the system specs)

 

[Eric Samonte]

I got one a few days ago and did a comparison of King Kong HD and regular DVD. The former I found seemed sharper with more detail shown. Colors were pretty much the same for both. No audio sync problems noted. The KK HD-DVD didn't have TrueHD so I can't comment on that yet. I will also see if the upconvertion is at par with my trusty yet aging Lite-On/Norcent.
With these thing's in mind, would I keep it? Yes I would. At least I would be able to enjoy a new format, if not brag to everyone I have HD-DVD! But for $170, I think I'm set for a year or two. I've been waiting on a newer Oppo upconverting player so this is actually better for me.

 

[TonyTone]

I know that HD-DVD format allows for 1080p playback, but that's not what I was talking about...rather, as to whether there are currently any mainstream HD-DVD titles that are in 1080p. That, and the fact that--until recently--the very few "first-gen" HD-DVD players that have been released did not offer 1080p output. Also, I believe that there are very few displays at this time that accept 1080p via component cable; this is critical since, unless more manufacturers are willing to be lax and allow 1080p via component in their displays, many 360 owners will be SOL as far as 1080p output is concerned...not unless their 1080p displays have a VGA input. This is also one major gripe when it comes to the Blu-Ray camp--Sony is pretty adamant about only allowing 1080p via HDMI, for copy-protection purposes; why else do you think that Sony will not allow the PS3 to allow 1080p output via component?

 

[RAF]

Actually, all HD-DVD titles (and Blu-ray for that matter) are in 1080p. That's what's on HD discs. In other words, if you own any HD titles (HD-DVD or BR) they already contain 1080p information on them. It's part of the spec, just as 480i is the spec for all SD DVDs. It's just a matter of allowing the user to access that 1080p data stream directly. For example, the 1st generation Toshiba HD-DVD players only output 1080i (even though the HD-DVD discs are encoded in 1080p). The second generation Toshiba players (coming out shortly) will allow 1080p output.

And having 1080p input on a display is now more common than last year. When I purchased my HP DPL RPM a year ago it was one of only three models (HP, Brillian and the Sony "Ruby" FP) that accepted native 1080p. All the others only accepted 1080i and deinterlaced to 1080p internally - some did this much better than others. Now most manufacturers offer at least some sets in their lines that accept native 1080p so that you are not at the mercy of possibly inferior internal deinterlacing. Just be careful to know the specs when shopping around.

Hope this clarifies things on that score.