Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive

8T8

So it seems the Microsoft Xbox 360 branded HD-DVD drive works in a PC just fine.

After someone did a little disassembling it turns out to be a regular Toshiba HD-DVD drive as expected just with a notebook IDE interface with a converter to USB2 stuck on the end. Plus some memory for the Xbox 360 software bits as the optimized decoders must be integrated into the Xbox 360 dash they did not come down the pipe in the Xbox 360 fall update, this way Microsoft avoids paying license fees for those that don't use this.

Anyway onto more interesting topics in regards PC usage. Apparently with Vista it is supported out of the box no drivers required.

With XP you must install a driver after that WinDVD8 or PowerDVD7 will both successfully playback HD-DVD discs & this has been verified by various users.

However avoid WinDVD8 they are downrezzing to 960x540 even if you have a full HDCP chain because of fears from the AACS people whereas Cyberlink are enabling the full resolution regardless of HDCP or not.

This is certainly more interesting now seeing as it looks like a cheap way to get access to HD movies certainly a lot cheaper than the 500-1000 Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive doing the rounds.

Pictures of it taken apart on Daily Tech.
There is a FAQ on the AVS Forum covering a lot of questions.

Game have the drive listed as available on 1 December.

RuggieBear

I may have just found my xmas present to myself!!!!!!:D

8T8

Yeah I have been seriously considering one myself now if only to evaluate the whole "HD thing".

Though you may need a beefy PC in order to get this to run at 1080P in fact with the Cyberlink player a GPU is required - 7600GT minimum for GPU assisted decoding.

720p should be easier to manage though for CPU's & Cyberlink.

It's not that the PC isn't cable of decoding it's just that Cyberlink and Intervideo have sat on their asses for so long they are only getting to grips with actually optimizing their decoders.

Also mentioned in a recent thread on Doom9 by one of the CoreAVC team is that they are working on AACS support for Blu-ray at least I hope HD-DVD support comes though that as well. They are also working on decoder for MPEG-2 & VC-1 so a full package that would be great as you could do away with the Intervideo & Cyberlink products & rely on the CPU for the decoding work.

RuggieBear

well i only have a A64 3200 and x800 pro AGP. Besides i only have a 19in ws monitor and a 19inch ws lcd tv...720p should be more than enough, i hope?

8T8

Hmm dunno maybe not it's hard to call everyone is benchmarking 1080p stuff so it's difficult to gauge what is needed from the Cyberlink player for 720p. You could swap that X800 Pro for an X1650 with the GPU in the mix it may make a difference. According to Cyberlink's own page the A64 320 isn't strong enough but for what is the question, it looks like a dual core CPU is the minimum. You can also download a system analyser that will green light you on certain components.

Though it is a weird one I have seen various reports like below;

* AGP & NVIDIA H.264 acceleration is funky works for some doesn't for others.
* NVIDIA is better at H.264 & VC-1 acceleration with Cyberlink's player than ATI's parts.
* AGP & ATI VC-1/H.264 acceleration works fine but not as effective as NVIDIA's.

With CoreAVC I'd would be more confident your CPU would be good enough for 720P but they are so slow with releases it's probably going to be a while before that becomes an option. Though if all the HD titles are 1080p native then perhaps the decoders are just scaling it down to 720p or whatever computer resolution you have it still requires the computational power to handle the decoding of a 1080p title, something I'm not sure on must look into it.

RuggieBear

hmmm.....any idea how much a x800pro is worth these days?

8T8

Not a lot

When I get one I will give it a whirl on some of the lower end stuff I have in fact my own HTPC is an Athlon 64 3200+ with GeForce 6150 integrated graphics.

I have one of those Dell Inspiron 1501 notebooks on it's way to me so hopefully I will test it out on that as it only has a Sempron 3500+ with a 1280x800 screen just enough for 720p display so it will be interesting to see how it fairs ( I imagine not so well ).

Play are already listing HD-DVD titles though they are out of stock or waiting on release dates.

SouperComputer

Well rodger me with the rough end of a pinapple! $199 for a HD DVD player. Happy crimbo me! I meant to check in on this earlier but lost touch with when the drive becomes available. Any word on how it interacts with MCE?

I was going to make my new HTPC MythTV, but this is an aweful knock against it for me.

Anyways, guess whats going on my amazon gift list?

RuggieBear

8T8 wrote:

Not a lot

When I get one I will give it a whirl on some of the lower end stuff I have in fact my own HTPC is an Athlon 64 3200+ with GeForce 6150 integrated graphics.

I have one of those Dell Inspiron 1501 notebooks on it's way to me so hopefully I will test it out on that as it only has a Sempron 3500+ with a 1280x800 screen just enough for 720p display so it will be interesting to see how it fairs ( I imagine not so well ).

That would be great. curious to see what the real "min spec" is for HD

jesus_thats_gre

Anyone have any idea how much a HD-DVD drive costs normally, i.e. one that is sold as a PC drive?

RuggieBear

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Anyone have any idea how much a HD-DVD drive costs normally, i.e. one that is sold as a PC drive?

haven't find a hd-dvd drive yet but i've seen blueray burners on komplett for over 800 euro

8T8

In regards MCE05 no one seems to have tested it yet and as far I know Cyberlink/Intervideo players don't interact with MCE05.

Specifically because Microsoft touts third party player integration as a feature of Vista MCE so with what ever HD-DVD player is installed it will seamlessly play back in Vista MCE the fact that the drive is natively recognised in Vista adds credence to this I think.

The wait & see approach I think with MCE05 is the only course of action.

GrumPy

Hmm... isnt HD movie playback on screens less than 32" kind of pointless though?

I was gonna buy a drive (for my xbox360 would you believe) but I will only have a 26" HDTV to connect it to.

SouperComputer

Irish GrumPy wrote:

Hmm... isnt HD movie playback on screens less than 21" kind of pointless though?

I was gonna buy a drive (for my xbox360 would you believe) but I will only have a 26" HDTV to connect it to.

Depends on who you ask really. I can see a difference on a 21" CRT and if its cheap enough then id say go for it. 720p on a projector is a world of a difference though.

RuggieBear

8T8 wrote:

In regards MCE05 no one seems to have tested it yet and as far I know Cyberlink/Intervideo players don't interact with MCE05.

Specifically because Microsoft touts third party player integration as a feature of Vista MCE so with what ever HD-DVD player is installed it will seamlessly play back in Vista MCE the fact that the drive is natively recognised in Vista adds credence to this I think.

The wait & see approach I think with MCE05 is the only course of action.

Ah. Didn't think of that. i'm running MCE05.

i'm very curious to see vista's MCE in real life and how well it will run on my machine. (Apparently, i'll be getting a free copy of Home Premium by going to some MS do at Croker in a fortnight or so)

jesus_thats_gre

Irish GrumPy wrote:

Hmm... isnt HD movie playback on screens less than 32" kind of pointless though?

I was gonna buy a drive (for my xbox360 would you believe) but I will only have a 26" HDTV to connect it to.

What resolution do you run your desktop at? What resolution do you game at?

If you cannot notice the difference then fair enough but there is a big difference!!

GrumPy

Sorry, I was talking about 1080p man


anyway

I did that pc scanner thingy, It doesnt know about my processor, and my graphics need upgrading :rolleyes:

jesus_thats_gre

Irish GrumPy wrote:

Sorry, I was talking about 1080p man


anyway

I did that pc scanner thingy, It doesnt know about my processor, and my graphics need upgrading :rolleyes:

Ah ok wondered. Been reading alot about the benefits of 1080p in movies. It seems that alot of the noticable difference are down to the quality of the TV in general as oppossed to the actual resolution. The differences are most noticable in dark areas of the screen and apparently the difference are down to a better contrast. Some interesting arguments out there.

8T8

One potential fly in the ointment after reading a bit more in the AVS forums it seems WinDVD 8 although you can buy now wont be officially public till February so the resolution limitation may not be lifted till then which is just bone headed :rolleyes:

Cyberlink have not actually made their HD-DVD enabled player available to the public either those that are using it have acquired a version that came shipped with some HD-DVD drives or something along those lines.

Someone was experimenting with a Toshiba branded HD-DVD software player that comes with their own brand HD laptops, turns out it installs a short cut link in MCE for playing HD-DVD's which is handy but attempts to make the player work outside of a Toshiba system have so far failed (I'm hoping some hackers come to the rescue as it looks like it is just a software issue).

So hopefully the player situation will improve over the next two-three weeks perhaps the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive may spur them into getting a software player out their more quickly.