X-Box DVD player in HD (1 Viewer)

[Roger D]

I was thinking of getting an HD upconverting DVD player but then thought, why not get the X-Box that I want anyway, and get the HD upconvert cable pack. Can anyone provide feedback on DVD quality from the X-Box?

 

[MuneebM]

Maybe I'm not in the know with recent XBox product releases, but as far as I do know there's no such thing as an HD "upconvert" cable pack for the XBox. There is in fact only an XBox HD cable pack, which allows you to play HD games (720p, 1080i) over component cables to an HD-compatible display. This cable pack does NOT however upconvert 480i games to an HD signal, nor does it upconvert 480i DVD movies to HD.

In general, if you have a display with component input, you should definitely get the HD cable pack since it makes all games look much better, especially those games that are 720p/1080i, but most XBox games are 480p 16:9.

As for DVD playback, it's a decent DVD player, but I've seen better. I've done back-to-back comparisons of my XBox over component (using the HD cable pack) vs. my upconverting LG DV7832 and the results with the LG were crisper (1080i) and slightly better saturation. The difference wasn't huge, but it was enough to justify the $200 price of the LG.

http://207.107.210.136/sigserv/pl/index.pl?p=2
My DVD Collection

 

[Brian L]

Isn't XBOX limited to 480i for DVD playback?

I only use mine for games (a Denon 1600 is what I use for movies), but I thought I read that it did not do progressive playback for DVD.

BGL

 

[Roger D]

So it looks as though I was highly mistaken. I really did think that the cable pack upconverted. I'm pretty sure that I was wrong, thanks to your helpful info.

Thanks again.
Roger.

 

[NickSo]

If you get a modchip and use Xbox Media Center the XBox is capable of outputting at 1080i.

I havent dont it myself, so i dont know how, but its possible... though probably not 100% legal

 

[Eric Samonte]

And having a modded Xbox will definitely limit u to offline play. Xbox without Live is just plain sad....

 

[Robert Cowan]

even IF you could mod an xbox to get 1080i output, it would probably wouldnt be worth using... a true upsampling player has a pretty hefty upsampling circuit, which the xbox doesnt... i wouldnt bother with it. just use the upsampler in your tv.

 

[MuneebM]

a couple of misconceptions about modded xbox on this thread:
1) Many modchips can easily be disabled to allow online Live play
2) XBox Media Center does in fact upconvert to 1080i but unfortunately none of the standard XBox DVD-ROM drives are supported by XBox Media Center for DVD movie playback. You actually have to add a secondary PC DVD-ROM drive to make this work, and it's quite a huge hack (DVD-ROM drive sticks out, outside the XBox case... not pretty!). I've tried using XBox Media Center to upconvert my DVD movies to 1080i to compare it to my LG player, but to no avail. Although other DivX AVI files upconverted to 1080i look great.

http://207.107.210.136/sigserv/pl/index.pl?p=8
My DVD Collection

 

[DeanWalsh]

@ MuneebM:

You don't need to change the drive in your xbox for 1080i and 720p dvd playback.

1) Get the newest version of XBMC
2) In the options disable Post Processing. This is broken with 1080i for some reason (but may have been fixed by now).

I've heard reports that the xbox using interpolation to upscale to 720p and 1080i is actually better than alot of upsampling dvd players, and furthermore does not have the overscan issues that those players tend to have. In fact you can set the screen area perfectly in the options so no information appears outside the visible screen area!

 

[MuneebM]

Thanks for the info Dean! I will try that tonight and see if it works for me and I'll compare the quality to that of my LG DV7832 1080i player.