Official XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

OK, I'm at a loss all..

I finally got my 24" 1080P gateway monitor for the best possible picture on next generation DVDs.. I also switched out my old ATI AIW for my HDCP NVidia 7950GT. I am running a DVI Cable from the NVidia to the Montior, which is also HDCP capable.

But While it's a clear picture, it's not SHARP, if you get my meaning. It looks like there are little fuzz peices all around, like a cable reception not completly screwed in. I thought it was only a problem with the non HDCP capable ATI All in Wonder card, but it's doing it on the NVidia too....

Anyone else have the same problem? Oh, and I'm also running Power DVD Ultra, no patches or updates.. edit - Could it also be because I'm using a DVI-D cable? The Monitor is DVI-D, but the card is a DVI-I connection

It SOUNDS great, however. I have Superman Returns on...and you can really hear the difference from regular DVD. Where a regular DVD takes three notches on my sound system to sound loud, out of a total of five settings possible, HDDVD gets the house rumbling at one notch. You can hear the Bullets flying from left, center, right....the echo when supes and lois meet on the top of the Daily Planet.....and all sorts of other neat effects that just sound enhanced, and my system can't even do TrueHD..

 

[Yumbo]

Hi,

My 2nd add-on won't play Hollywoodland. First one plays no problem.
Would flushing the cache help?
How does one do that again?

Thanks

 

[Jose Martinez]

OK so I finally caved in and bought the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and connected it to my HTPC. I installed AnyDVD HD and PowerDVD Ultra and able to play HD-DVD movies. One problem, I connect my HTPC to my LCD via DVI. The LCD is limited to 1280x720 via DVI so when I watch a HD-DVD movie, I only see part of the movie (including menus). It's like watching a 1080i on a 720p resolution. How do I fix that? When I hook up my HTPC via component it's fine since I can set the resolution to 1920 x 1080.

 

[JediFonger]

it has to do with your video card. what are your specs?

here's some tips:
1. if you are connected to your lcd via DVI, make sure BOTH your LCD DVI-D input and your video card's DVI output has HDCP. if it doesn't, then no video should show up, a message will pop up.

2. if you are connected to your lcd via VGA, everything should play normally. there are also options within power DVD to let you scale/downrez and fit 1080p to your native resolution. if it still doesn't play properly, then make sure you buy a video card with hdcp. i had a 7900gt connected to my lcd via VGA and while everything played smoothly, i saw merely a quarter of the screen picture as well. i replaced the 7900gt with a x1900xt with hdcp, voila', no more problems thereafter.

so the lesson is that even though ICT isn't enabled, the PowerDVD/WinDVD software is checking to see if you have hdcp on DVI chain from both video card's end through LCD end. if it all checks, THEN you can play 1080p across digital connections, otherwise, it's back to VGA it is.

 

[Jose Martinez]

thanks. I thought the purpose of anydvd hd was to allow hd movies to play on non-hdcp video cards and displays. But I do have an ATI 1650 pro which I believe is HDCP so I'll swap out my 7900gt for that.

 

[JediFonger]

technically you don't need anyDVD at all to rip HD DVD's, there are free tools available if you google around. we can't talk about it because that is way beyond the scope of this forum.

as i've noted, the softwares that play HD DVD's back do not care if HD DVD's have ICT or not. it will check HDCP chain FIRST ONLY on DVI/HDMI digital connections. so if you don't have HDCP video cards and displays, then you can only play 1080p via component or VGA cables. if you absolutely want to play 1080p HD DVD's through DVI, you must have:
1. hdcp-crypto rom installed on the video card (just check or ask video card mfr)
2. hdcp DVI/HDMI displays.

the purpose of anydvd or tools like that is to rip HD DVD's onto hard drives so people can recode HD DVD's down to smaller sizes. if you truly want to play it back via non-hdcp products, you must select VGA/component cables.

if you want to play it back via non-hdcp digital connections, you can't.

 

[Jose Martinez]

It works better now that I swapped the gfx card to a 1650 pro. thanks for your help.

 

[Eric Samonte]

OK...its now the 30th of March. Only one day left for the anticipated "patch" correcting the audio on this add-on. I hope MS is on the ball here...then again....

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Whoa, didn't realize summer started April 1...

 

[Joe RZ]

The patch is coming sooner than later.Over at avsforum a microsoft employee post on the insider thread over there.He said it's weeks away.It will be seperate from the dashboard update.

It's a pretty imformative thread to read a lot of good info.

 

[Eric Samonte]

Brian...I was under the impression it was going to be released March of 2007. Guess I wasn't "updated" on the "date" of the "update".

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

The update for the add-on will be out tomorrow (5/15):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10536382

It is supposed to fix a/v sync issues, read/compatibility issues with affected titles, add a toggle for DRC/Night Mode that was defaulting to ON for DD+ soundtracks, and the ability to select output of DTS or DD (before it was just DD) for audio ouput over optical -- all "AFAIK."

 

[Romar Armas]

The HD DVD Add On update is now available. According to Major Nelson


Looks like it's a great update! Can't wait to download it tonight.

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

I got it this morning.
Fired up the 360 with the player connected, then popped in a disc and it took about 5~7 seconds to download.

Pressing Display on the remote or B on the controller brings up the control bar at the bottom of the screen (subtitles, audio, etc.). On this bar is Digital Audio (?), where you select what kind of audio stream you want to output, as well as turn on/off the DRC. There's also a network option on the bar, where you can set whether you want to use network features on titles, accept cookies, etc.

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

If you want all the technical details of the update:
http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/ar...available.aspx

 

[Yumbo]

Still not loading:

Relentless Enemies!

Other discs?

Next update, or do I return the disc?

Unacceptable, chaps.

 

[Joe RZ]

Most of the problems are with the disks not the 360 add on.Of course this could be different in your case.I've had no problems with any of the disks people have been complaining about.I haven't tried the movie your talking about though.


I saw you post this on the avsfoum insiders thread and didn't respond because only insiders are supposed to respond on that thread.

 

[Eric Samonte]

I got the update, put in King Kong and I had to decrese the gain on the sub to 0 on the reciever just like I I have on for the upconverting player of mine. The volume seems to be adjusted as well as I didn't have to crank it up a bit like before.
These r just the things that I was concerned about so the other stuff I haven't looked into yet.

 

[EnricoE]

here are some infos from me watching the bourne supremacy hd dvd post update ...

- audio is out of sync (video is ahead)
- dolby digital plus 5.1 to dolby digital 5.1 output with dynamic compression off was used and it sounded overall good
- using dts audio output, the audio was quieter then the dolby re-encoding

conclusion: still lots of works needs to be done!!!

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

TrueHD soundtracks, at least BB, are sometimes slightly off-sync from the DD+.

And depending on how your receiver handles DialNorm, you may find that DTS is 4dB quieter than DD. This is apparently by design. If you find it quieter, you have to level-match with the volume control to really compare.


However, some people (on AVS) are noting slight differences between the DD and DTS re-encodes. It's best to try some demanding scenes (NIN Beside You, King Kong, etc.) and compare and see what sounds best to you (after level-matching, of course).