Just got the drive today, but I have a feeling that my initial impressions will be lasting ones. All I have to go on right now is King Kong, but if this is anywhere near what I can expect from your average HD DVD movie, then I'm going to have a very difficult time ever buying another plain ole DVD.
To start off I'll explain my setup. I have my XBox 360 hooked up to a Sanyo PLV-Z4 projector via VGA cable running at the projectors native resolution of 720p with the image displayed on a 120" screen. So needless to say, at that size, I am very sensitive to picture quality.
Also, up until this point, I have been using an original softmodded XBox as a DVD player, since it was cheap, and didn't seem to have any problems upconverting to 720p. It does have serious problems with playback when there's any kind of scratch on the disc, esp. towards the end of a movie ( which is incredibly annoying).
Anyway, after watching several lengthy portions of Kong, I can honestly say that the image being produced by the XBox 360 is 4 to 5 times better (to my untrained eyes) than a standard DVD. Like I said, at 120" I am very sensitive to this, and there is so much more detail in every part of every scene. Little things like skin, hair, water, blades of grass, wood grain, it all stands out so clearly, and it all adds up to one thing... Total Immersion.
After comparing Kong to some other films known for their excellent transfers to DVD (i.e. The Matrix, Two Towers XTND) even my wife couldn't help but be impressed by the vast difference in picture quality.
Also, the HD DVD player had no problems playing my infamous scratched discs that used to cause my old XBox (and even the XBox 360 DVD drive) some serious hiccups.There wasn't even an "attempting to read disc" notice, so it's obvious that this drive is much more capable than the stock drives included with the consoles. Besides, it will be less wear and tear on them if they're spared from having to play movies. My old XBox can go back to playing Genesis games for a living ;)
Now for a few cons: Video playback is indeed flawless, but I've noticed that the menu system seems to chug a bit, and is not what I would call "responsive". I'm running things at 720p so it makes me wonder how slow things might get at 1080. And, there doesn't seem to be a way to set bookmarks so choosing a mid-movie scene in 3 hour + Kong can be an ordeal, esp. with the aforementioned chugginess. Also, the 360 HD DVD combo ensemble does produce some noise, but it was not noticeable while I was actually watching a movie.
I've heard that currently the 360 will only output a DD 5.1 signal, but from the DTS movie I tried (Gladiator) I couldn't tell the difference between the original and 360 DD mixed signal. Maybe this could be corrected in a software update though.
Another con, my extensive DVD collection has now been forever marred, as I cannot watch any of them now without wondering what they would look like in HD :)
In conclusion, I am giving the XBox 360 HD DVD player 5 stars not because it is the "best" one out there. I am doing it because it is the "best" HD DVD value for me, and it has in fact far exceeded my expectations. Lack of HDMI is not an issue with VGA, it upconverts standard DVDs beautifully, and DD/DTS sound is good enough for me, until I completely overhaul my surround system which won't be for years to come. Simply put, you can't get anything else like this for a mere 200 bones. Well, maybe you could get two Monster HDMI cables for routing your nextgen player through your TrueHD THX receiver and on to your 1080i/p HD display, but that's about it... ;)
And for the first time in a while I'm actually excited about movies again. Bring on the LOTR trilogy in HD!!
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Reviews with images
Great player for a great format
I just recently acquired this item for dirt cheap ($15) and figured I'd post an honest review and impressions.First off, I decided to get one of these because my stand-alone player, the Toshiba HD-A1 didn't display movies at full 1080p (it only went as high as 1080i) and it was very slow to boot up and load the disc. The HD DVD player for the Xbox 360 works fantastically. The movies look as good as their Blu-Ray counterparts in 1080p (as long as you connect your Xbox 360 to your TV via HDMI or VGA) and it loads blazingly fast in comparison to most other HD DVD players. The only downside is that the player will only output audio at Dolby Digital 5.1. Due to the limitations of the Xbox 360 hardware, the audio will not come through as Dolby Digital+ or Dolby True HD. This is minor for most people because the difference in sound quality is negligible unless you have a high-end audio system.Blu-Ray officially won the format war but that doesn't change the fact that there are a ton of great movies available on HD DVD for significantly less money. If you're wanting to build up your HD movie library, don't think that Blu-Ray is your only option. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting this player along with 50 movies for around $100. The studios use the same video codecs on the HD DVD disc as they do on the Blu-Ray version so in my opinion, it would be foolish to rule out the HD DVD format as a viable option to kickstart your HD movie library.I definitely recommend this HD DVD player because it's incredibly fast, easy to set up, and it even provides your Xbox 360 with an additional USB port.
