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[joeyddr]

christ someone call the waaahmbulance do we even know if this guys tv is calibrated properly?  and who uses it to watch dvd's?

[gnutellafan]

Yeah, its sad that MS can't put a better DVD player in the 360 then the amazing one that the XBMC developers have put together for FREE!

[GomerPyle]

It wouldnt be so bad if MS was just sticking to games, but they are not they are bragging about media this and media that. And blah blah blah this isnt just a console but this is a media center. The DVD playback functions and picture quality playing dvds on the 360 is garbage!@

[pr0ph3t-]

QUOTE(elitegamer360 @ Dec 6 2007, 02:10 AM)

This guy is F%$^in proper DUMB he compares the 360 DVD/HD playback with the PS3 Blu-Ray, he forgot that Sony made the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player and Microsft made the 360 as a GAMES CONSOLE. the FIRST reason WE buy the 360 is to play games with it, and the SONY FANs buy the PS3 to watch Blu-Ray movies lol..

Thats reality believe it or not F^%*in IDIOT.  

Lol, fanboy   .

[kics]

QUOTE(angryyoungnpoor @ Dec 5 2007, 05:45 PM)

I bought it for games. I have 10 other dvd players that I'm able to use just fine. The added features of avi make it so that I can view avi files without going on my computer.

yeap.... i think its a gaming console WHICH now supports divx ....

[Devedander]

While I agree that the 360 is a game system first and DVD player second, the value it has to any particular person is going to be a perosnal decision and so isn't really the point.  Just becuase you don't care about the DVD playback quality doesn't disqualify someone elses desire to have good quality DVD playback.

The real comparison here isn't to what you personally care about (again, you can't quantify that kind of thing as it's always perosnal) but rather as to what's obviously possible out there.

The main comparison (and it was listed) is the PS3... which does an excellent job playing DVDs.  Sure they are completely different animals when you get down to it, but it all comes down to how well the 360 does compared to how well it could (easily/reasonably) do especially compared to the rest of the market.

If I buy a Honda Civic becuase it gets good gas mileage and I only want to ride the freeway to and from work, then I could care less that it can't handle off roading worth a darn.

But if every other econo box out there got great mileage and had similar features, but could off road like crazy... the fact that I don't care about the missing ability wouldn't weigh nearly as much as the fact that everyone else can, so there is obviously something wrong if yours can't.

The argument here isn't that anyone is crying they got ripped off on the DVD playback portion of their 360 (although many could say they did and I personally can easily understand - looking at my stack of devices, each of which does multiple things but only one thing well requiring me to take up a whole shelf to accomplish what really 2 or 3 of those thing should be able to cover - why some people would legitimately complain that the 360 has poor DVD playback) but that this is not an area where there is any legit excuse to not perform well.  

The fact that you can buy a $10 DVD player that outperforms the 360 is no excuse for poor 360 performance... in fact it is even MORE a reason that there is NO excuse for poor 360 DVD performance.

[88 Ecko Unltd 88]

I think this guy is an F-in idiot the 360 was invented to play video games not movies of course it has a hd dvd add on .. just cuz the ps3 has a video player included dosent make it superior at all since all the good games are on the 360 anywayz

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE(xtremetech.com @ Dec 6 2007, 12:15 AM)

hese tests are much simpler, involving simply de-interlacing 1080i content of both regular and film mode content

 Why on earth would you ever need to de-interlace a progressive (non-interlaced) signal? Am I missing something?

QUOTE(mlmadmax @ Dec 6 2007, 12:55 AM)

I think this guy is being overly criticle and needs to understand that most people would think the playback thrue hdmi or vga is passable. This is one of thos uber nerd video guys who's like ohhh by blue is one parsec out of calibration with the industy standard all this equipment is crap.

 Being an "uber nerd"? Outside of "uber" itself being "nerdish", the fact is out of a possible 130 it scored 40. While some of the things tested may be trivial to you, for some, they WILL make a difference.

QUOTE(Elemino @ Dec 6 2007, 02:05 AM)

You know some cars play DVD's now too... how about we start rating them?

 WE weren't rating anything. This review was posted on a completely different website, and posted here because it's xbox-related (duh). To expand, do you honestly think they don't have websites that rate care DVD players (not to mention countless other products). Am I to understand you have a problem with the consumer being fully informed?

 

 Seems it doesn't matter what the news is, there's always 2 sets of people complaining about the other people complaining. Personally, I see nothing wrong with rating a products performance of advertised features. Furthermore, I can't believe that people have the audacity to bash the review for pointing out flaws with it, considering how strongly MS has been pushing for people to use the 360 as their "media center". Are we to understand that if we want a good  "media center" experience with our 360's that we must limit ourselves to marketplace content? Why would they tell me I should be playing DVDs and HD-DVDs with it, then?

[The_Flash]

QUOTE(Devedander @ Dec 5 2007, 10:18 PM)

...looking at my stack of devices, each of which does multiple things but only one thing well requiring me to take up a whole shelf to accomplish what really 2 or 3 of those thing should be able to cover - why some people would legitimately complain...

Amen.  I'm with you on that one.

[djtonic]

QUOTE(mlmadmax @ Dec 6 2007, 12:55 AM)

I think this guy is being overly criticle and needs to understand that most people would think the playback thrue hdmi or vga is passable. This is one of thos uber nerd video guys who's like ohhh by blue is one parsec out of calibration with the industy standard all this equipment is crap.

Playback thrue hdmi looks pretty good IMHO actually but he didn't test with that type of connection. When I used to have a component equiped 360 that looked really bad when playing dvd's even at 480p. My hdmi 360 does a dam good job of upconvering to 1080. It is not as good as my oppo so i use that but it is not like movies are unwatchable.

As far as the hd-dvd playback there is no difference in pq versus a standalone so i don't know what he is talkin about.

Yeah...as soon as he said he hooked it up in the "lab"  A Laboratory is a place that scientific experimentations occur.  I could call my living or game room a "lab" too but it doesnt give me any more credibility.
As far as the tests go...NO ONE bought the 360 as a Hi-end video playback device.  Besides most video/audiophiles prefer analog like laserdisc and vinyl, this guy is obviously a poser  Don't ask me why...probably because they are washed up producers or maybe because they paid 2,000 for that panasonic LD player and still think it was worth the money.

I don't know if i am out numbered here but I really didnt care about the 360 support update for video at all..it's fine and nice but i only play games.  I guess if I didnt have a pc hooked up to my tv for streaming over my network then maybe i would feel different.

~Dj~

[Exobex]

I'd expect the PS3 to offer better DVD playback... look at the price of the f***ing thing!!!

I'm perfectly happy with my game-playing, DVD-playing, upscaling-through-VGA 360.  Makes a damned good player when hooked up to the LCD at the foot of my bath, and the wireless controllers don't mind the odd splash!

What's this guy expect, anyway?  It's a Microsoft games console. It's not a Denon.

[AmyGrrl]

I'd like to see how the XBOX 1 rates with DVD playback when using each playback metheod... the Default MS Player, DVD-X v2.0 Dongle Free and XBMC... when output @ 480i/480p/720p/1018i... I'm not sure if the first 2 support the higher resolutions... but XBMC does.... it would be funny if the XBOX 1 does a better job than the XBOX 360..

[Jstraw]

I don't care how many ppl want to protect the 360, but when it comes to DVD playback, MS has really dropped the ball!  MS tries to say, this is a video game system and that is our focus.  BULLOCKS!  This is being sold as a family entertainment system which includes a dvd playback system. For this system to score a 0 for HD is sad.   So MS, Pick up the ball



And by the way,  Playback is visually terrible.  I just bought a toshiba A2 and it upconverts.  I have been missing a visual experience.  When I compared playback from the 360 to a stand alone there is a huge difference without the upconversion.  I had no idea I could get the visuals I get now because I depended on my xbox for DVD playback for years.

[gli7ch]

Come on now, we all know we are just pirates here, who uses DVD's anyways?

Xbox 360 is playing DivX now right?

And who the hell says "crummy" anymore?
 

[kero]

QUOTE(AmyGrrl @ Dec 6 2007, 04:28 AM)

I'd like to see how the XBOX 1 rates with DVD playback when using each playback metheod... the Default MS Player, DVD-X v2.0 Dongle Free and XBMC... when output @ 480i/480p/720p/1018i... I'm not sure if the first 2 support the higher resolutions... but XBMC does.... it would be funny if the XBOX 1 does a better job than the XBOX 360..

In his original report he says the original XBOX was a very good dvd player, which is why he was surprised the XBOX360 was not very good.
The main point of his article was that by putting in some more development time into the dashboard the XBOX360 could also be a very good dvd player - but obviously it is not MS priority.