360 HD-DVD pics

It looks like an external 5.25" drive casing, which, I guess is exactly what it is.
 
Now all they need is seperate output for it, so you can watch a movie on a different TV while you game on another. :cool:
 
Xaeon said:
Looks cool. What are the 2 ports there?
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USB ports. It has a mini usb port as well. Been too lazy to read up on the drive but one would think the mini usb plug connects it to the xbox and the other 2 are for connecting whatever you want. The drive just prob acts as a usb hub. The real questions are will there be a hack or something to hook this to the pc and what is that cover on the back there for.
 
what did you expect it to look like....
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like a my little pony driving a sky blue 67 corvette stingray


honestly, it looks like a normal drive does ... you wanted something from gucci?
 
MrGuvernment said:
what did you expect it to look like....
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this:
god.jpg

I'll probably pick one of these up as soon as HD-DVDs start to permeate the market. It looks like a useful addon.
 
MrGuvernment said:
what did you expect it to look like....
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It would have been nice if MS found a way to make it snap onto the 360 chassis so it all looked like one unit.
 
It doesn't look very exciting, but I don't mind. If this thing is really priced at what the rumors are saying, i'm definately buying one as soon as they are for sale. At that price, I won't be terribly angry if HD-DVD doesn't win the format war.
 
junehhan said:
It doesn't look very exciting, but I don't mind. If this thing is really priced at what the rumors are saying, i'm definately buying one as soon as they are for sale. At that price, I won't be terribly angry if HD-DVD doesn't win the format war.
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The price is good, and I have to say I am tempted, but I am going to have to hold back. I really want HD-DVD to lose the format war, so I guess I have to do everything I can not to support it.
 
I wonder why there is a second mounting bracket for the wireless network card. There's no reason to have two, so maybe some other kind of accesory is planned?

Edit: It's probably because there's only one USB port on the back of the 360. This way you don't have to use the front USB ports on the 360 for the HD-DVD drive. Glad MS thought of that.
 
NulloModo said:
It would have been nice if MS found a way to make it snap onto the 360 chassis so it all looked like one unit.
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true, that would be ncie as all1 unit, perhaps a v2 of the 360 will have it built in somehow.
 
Asian Dub Foundation said:
so they are not making new 360s with it built in?
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No, doing so would jack up the price, and it's only for movie playback, no games will be using it.
 
NulloModo said:
The price is good, and I have to say I am tempted, but I am going to have to hold back. I really want HD-DVD to lose the format war, so I guess I have to do everything I can not to support it.
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heh, i was doing just the opposite. i hope that Blu-Ray sucks it -- long and slow, until HD-DVD is the winner, and not because i'm a choose-up-sides'er, as i do plan on owning a PS3.

i guess we cancel each other out! :D
 
JethroXP said:
No, doing so would jack up the price, and it's only for movie playback, no games will be using it.
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Yet. Games will use it eventually. especially with them having HD resoltuions, DVD's are at their limits for HD resolution video so imagine gameplay as well.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Yet. Games will use it eventually. especially with them having HD resoltuions, DVD's are at their limits for HD resolution video so imagine gameplay as well.
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No, that would segment the market. Plus microsoft has stated they will not have HD DVD games (I think).
 
NulloModo said:
The price is good, and I have to say I am tempted, but I am going to have to hold back. I really want HD-DVD to lose the format war, so I guess I have to do everything I can not to support it.
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I am just going to ride it out till one wins the war. If HD-DVD loses the war, it's no biggy as I didn't pay $1000 for a stand alone player like some of the early adopters are paying. I am hoping that HD-DVD wins as I really like the idea of having dual formats of something on the same disc. HD-DVD is also gaining some key support lately among retailers especially. I know this is a mean thing to say, but I think it would be pretty comical if Sony had Betamax #2 on their hands.
 
Xaeon said:
Looks cool. What are the 2 ports there?
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I now feel like an idiot for leaving a word out. It should read "What are the 2 ports there for?"
 
Might this be for the PC as well? If MS really wanted to win the format war, that would be the way to go. But it looks like they really don't care one way or the other.
 
OK great...

My only obsesrvation is:

"Fucks sake, it needs a seperate power cord"

Other than that, pretty much what i was expecting, except perhaps they could have made it thinner...but the same width/length as the 360 itself, so they could stack properly...but that would have pushed costs up quite a lot i think. Ah well cool...
 
ok lets stack loads of units around the tv that arent similar in size, not for me thanks, too many wires, too many plug sockets used, not tidy enough for under my tv
 
If they put out some good hd-dvd content i'll get one of these i think, but if nothing i really want comes out, i'll wait till they have blu-ray/hddvd both format players. I heard they have some kind of deal where this is never allowed to happen though. So if that's true, maybe i can get both formats on separate PC drives for cheaper. Can't see myself buying either one in a full dvd player box tho. Unless they have some really good content that is.
 
Rash said:
ok lets stack loads of units around the tv that arent similar in size, not for me thanks, too many wires, too many plug sockets used, not tidy enough for under my tv
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I agree totally. This sucks. There is a reason almost all home theater equipment comes in the same width, and are generally stackable. Now I understand this is a gaming system, but the HD-DVD unit is a home theater component. Very poor design on MS' part. I hope they eventually offer an integrated version.
 
Nuzzles said:
Now all they need is seperate output for it, so you can watch a movie on a different TV while you game on another. :cool:
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You can't output directly from the drive. This is not an HD-DVD player. It's an HD-DVD rom. There is no hardware decoding, it's all done with software on the main system, so you wouldn't be able to game while watching a movie anyway. Why waste $200 on this when you can just buy a standalone player? Right now a standalone is $500 which will drop, and you are getting a full fledged player with hardware decoding.
 
Originally Posted by NulloModo
The price is good, and I have to say I am tempted, but I am going to have to hold back. I really want HD-DVD to lose the format war, so I guess I have to do everything I can not to support it.
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heh, i was doing just the opposite. i hope that Blu-Ray sucks it -- long and slow, until HD-DVD is the winner, and not because i'm a choose-up-sides'er, as i do plan on owning a PS3.
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I hope both formats fail. They are both only marginal improvements over DVD and exist mainly to get consumers to buy the same movies over again. Five bucks says that in five years both camps try and release new formats and start all this crap again.

For the record, I am waiting to see if Holographic storage actually works. Like HVD.

On topic, seeing as how I am not interested in HD-DVD, this isn't all that exciting. It looks okay and the ports on the back are a nice touch. Maybe that cover is where the ventilation will go? What sort of noise/heat will this create is a big question too.
 
MH Knights said:
I hope both formats fail. They are both only marginal improvements over DVD and exist mainly to get consumers to buy the same movies over again. Five bucks says that in five years both camps try and release new formats and start all this crap again.

For the record, I am waiting to see if Holographic storage actually works. Like HVD.

On topic, seeing as how I am not interested in HD-DVD, this isn't all that exciting. It looks okay and the ports on the back are a nice touch. Maybe that cover is where the ventilation will go? What sort of noise/heat will this create is a big question too.
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Clearly you don't own a decent-size HDTV.

The difference between movies on HBOHD or HDNet Movies and an upconverting DVD player is night and day. Huge, obvious difference, even to a casual observer. My girlfriend asked me a few weeks ago why the movies on HBO look so much better than the DVD player.

If you say that HD-DVD is a "marginal" improvement over DVD, then I guess you'd also agree that gaming at 1600x1200 is a "marginal" improvement over gaming at 640x480.
 
MH Knights said:
I hope both formats fail. They are both only marginal improvements over DVD and exist mainly to get consumers to buy the same movies over again. Five bucks says that in five years both camps try and release new formats and start all this crap again.

For the record, I am waiting to see if Holographic storage actually works. Like HVD.

On topic, seeing as how I am not interested in HD-DVD, this isn't all that exciting. It looks okay and the ports on the back are a nice touch. Maybe that cover is where the ventilation will go? What sort of noise/heat will this create is a big question too.
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There is an absolutely huge difference. DVDs are all encoded in 480i, and one frame of a DVD movie has typically 76,800 'pixels'. Blu-Ray discs can be encoded all the way up to 1080p, one frame at 1080p is 2073600 pixels, or 27x the picture information. Even taking your standard 720p HD television, that is 921,600 pixels or 12x the information.

As for real world scenarios: it looks absolutely incredible compared to most DVD. Now, you can get a good image off of DVD with a high end player and a HDTV with good upconversion, or with a scaler, but it still isn't quite the level of HD content.

The Holographic disc has been vaporware for almost a decade, if it was possible for someone to make that thing, it would have gotten major backing by now. Blu-Ray can scale up to 200Gb per disc, and that sounds like plenty to me.
 
I agree. Ever since we got the plasma, I've been starving for HD content because it's really that much better than regular DVD. You'd be surprised at how much artifacts you can spot with a 50" plasma and a 480i transmission. I want to see what HD can do with anime because they're just about the biggest offenders when it comes to a screen this size.
 
Rash said:
ok lets stack loads of units around the tv that arent similar in size, not for me thanks, too many wires, too many plug sockets used, not tidy enough for under my tv
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Yes yes. It's totally annoying.

Also, I'll bet that they'll eventually be selling XBOX360s with the HDDVD drive built in. Eventually it will be cost effective and will look much nicer than the giant extra drive just for watching movies...
 
NulloModo said:
There is an absolutely huge difference. DVDs are all encoded in 480i, and one frame of a DVD movie has typically 76,800 'pixels'. Blu-Ray discs can be encoded all the way up to 1080p, one frame at 1080p is 2073600 pixels, or 27x the picture information. Even taking your standard 720p HD television, that is 921,600 pixels or 12x the information.

As for real world scenarios: it looks absolutely incredible compared to most DVD. Now, you can get a good image off of DVD with a high end player and a HDTV with good upconversion, or with a scaler, but it still isn't quite the level of HD content.

The Holographic disc has been vaporware for almost a decade, if it was possible for someone to make that thing, it would have gotten major backing by now. Blu-Ray can scale up to 200Gb per disc, and that sounds like plenty to me.
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DVD resolution is 720x480 interlaced, meaning over 172,000 pixels per half-frame.
 
NulloModo said:
There is an absolutely huge difference. DVDs are all encoded in 480i, and one frame of a DVD movie has typically 76,800 'pixels'. Blu-Ray discs can be encoded all the way up to 1080p, one frame at 1080p is 2073600 pixels, or 27x the picture information. Even taking your standard 720p HD television, that is 921,600 pixels or 12x the information.

As for real world scenarios: it looks absolutely incredible compared to most DVD. Now, you can get a good image off of DVD with a high end player and a HDTV with good upconversion, or with a scaler, but it still isn't quite the level of HD content.

The Holographic disc has been vaporware for almost a decade, if it was possible for someone to make that thing, it would have gotten major backing by now. Blu-Ray can scale up to 200Gb per disc, and that sounds like plenty to me.
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Not to get too far off topic, but I really think that for movies, it's a more a matter of opinion and to a lesser degree what technology they were filmed on.

I've got a 51 inch HDTV at home, and signed up for the DirecTV HD package just prior to the Winter Olympics this year. The HD video was absolutely stunning, I mean jaw dropping difference compared to what I'd been used to with SD.

However switching to HBOHD and HDNet movies was a very different expereince. Sure they looked crisp, but I left that it was similar to music back in the late 80's when LPs were being converted to CD, the resolution of the new medium is so good, that it reveals limitations of the source material. Basically the HD movies are so crisp, that you can easily see the imperfections and graininess of the film. Because of my young son, we watch a lot of animated movies on DVD, and I find that those look far superior to many of the Movies I've seen in HD on HBO and HDNet.

Maybe what I'm experiencing has more to do with movies viewed on DirecTV, as I haven't yet seen a real side-by-side comparison of a film on DVD playing next to one on HD-DVD. However what I have seen of HD movies so far certainly doesn't motivate me to go out and spend several hundred dollars on a stand alone player.
 
kumquat said:
Clearly you don't own a decent-size HDTV.

The difference between movies on HBOHD or HDNet Movies and an upconverting DVD player is night and day. Huge, obvious difference, even to a casual observer. My girlfriend asked me a few weeks ago why the movies on HBO look so much better than the DVD player.

If you say that HD-DVD is a "marginal" improvement over DVD, then I guess you'd also agree that gaming at 1600x1200 is a "marginal" improvement over gaming at 640x480.
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I own a CRT set that does 480p and 1080i. I have no plans (actually no money) on upgrading any time soon. And there are many out there who are in the same boat. How many people own a set that can do true 1080p? Very, very few. Maybe if SED sets are all they are hyped to be I will get one of those. If I get anything before that I may just get a cheap DLP set.

Also, for a movie to be truely HD it has to be recorded, edited, formated, and played in HD. Most of the movies being released on HD/BDR were made for standard definition and are pretty much just copy and pasted from the DVD. There is only so much upscaling can do for an image.

Oh and Holographic technology is taking off, Hitachi Maxell has already tested it commercially.
 
MH Knights said:
I own a CRT set that does 480p and 1080i. I have no plans (actually no money) on upgrading any time soon. And there are many out there who are in the same boat. How many people own a set that can do true 1080p? Very, very few. Maybe if SED sets are all they are hyped to be I will get one of those. If I get anything before that I may just get a cheap DLP set.

Also, for a movie to be truely HD it has to be recorded, edited, formated, and played in HD. Most of the movies being released on HD/BDR were made for standard definition and are pretty much just copy and pasted from the DVD. There is only so much upscaling can do for an image.

Oh and Holographic technology is taking off, Hitachi Maxell has already tested it commercially.
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Go look at some of the reviews of HD-DVD. The image quality is very, very noticable on a large TV. You forgot to mention the size of your TV. This has a huge affect on seeing a visual different. That 32" HD CRT isn't going to see much of a difference between 420i and 720p.

Where are you getting this idea that HD-DVD movies are just a DVD version upscaled? And no, holographic technology is not taking off anywhere.
 
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