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[Pheidias]

This is what you get when you are given the "choice"  

[tutu]

Maybe they could "develop" some DivX support  

There is a lack of HDMI, the player is potentially noisy - we all know this. There is no true Dolby TrueHD support either. But you also have to consider the price, which is a lot cheaper than a standalone HD-DVD player (if you already have a 360!).

For me it makes sense to pick it up, otherwise I would probably wait until dual format players/recorders are available in 1 - 2 years. This add-on makes sense as a interim product for me.

[Austin7687]

QUOTE(lmaolmao @ Nov 4 2006, 01:10 AM)

it's like the HDReady logo, the screen can be any resolution (such as samsungs slim fit crt) but still carry the logo as long as it can display the pictures and deal with HDCP.

Well, I don't know where you get your info, but my Samsung slimfit is native 1080i with a resolution of 1920x1080. You may be thinking of the slimfit line of SDTV (Standard Digital) which have an 800x600 resolution.  

I do agree, however, that if DTS is not included, MS has pretty much crippled what could have been a great product.

[BasicAir]

QUOTE(bobbyblaze @ Nov 4 2006, 06:03 AM)

Is that all this thing outputs? Vanilla Dolby Digital? It may be a HD DVD player but theres absolutely nothing high definition about the sound output, is there? Chalk up a MAJOR reason to get a stand alone player with 5.1 analogue outs if necessary. If I didn't already have a 360 then true 24bit 96khz sound would be a big reason to get a PS3 with HDMI 1.3.

I was told PS3 only had HDMI 1.1

And, btw, a lot of consumers (like me) will opt to keep their high quality $2,000+ DD5.1/DTS setup rather than forking over $750+ for a low quality 7.1 setup. My receiver alone still sells for $600+.

Just like with people being extremely slow to adopt 1080P native displays by upgrading from their 720P/1080i ones, they will also be extremely slow in going from 5 to 7 channels. No doubt.

[XanTium]

QUOTE(BasicAir @ Nov 4 2006, 03:19 PM)

I was told PS3 only had HDMI 1.1

PS3 has HDMI v1.3 (it's a must for blu-ray's ICT and 1080p)

[colonel_j2020]

re-encoding into dolby digital what a waste.

DTS has a higher bandwidth and sampling frequency.  It's bandwidth is 1.5mbits per second where as dolby digital's is only 468kbits per second.  Sampling frequency for DTS is 96khz and DD is only 48khz.

for us true aidophiles this means this thing is a useless piece of $#!t

[elmo_sni]

come on guys... the ICT won't be an issue untill 2010. during if not AFTER xbox 3 and ps4 come out. and if you guys have systems that support 5.1 and 7.1 then they'll support prologic too don't forget that...

[droideka]

I dont want no hd-dvd nor bluray, i want to play games... Im not shelling 600 bucks for a ps3 when im not going to use the extra features...

I will buy the 360 and no add-on for 400 bucks... And thats that...

If i want blu or hd dvd i will buy a player when the price drops.

[icedemon360]

If you want the best sound and picture quality, just get a standalone player.

[GARRYB]

i am so f***king laughing my ass off becasue they wrote 4.7 MILLION line code for this hd-dvd player and they were damn alsy just to add a few 100 lines of code for adding divx support on the machine itself  LOOOL never ever will get microsoft greedy bas-TARDs(tard from south park lool)    

[Mr. Me]

So playing a hd-dvd will make our 360s overheat even more?  I think I'll pass.  And to people saying the dvd drive makes all the noise, that's bullshit, my fans are loud as fuck.  I switched to the whisper fans and they're still loud.  I can hear them loud and clear whenever I'm streaming videos from my pc with no dvd in the tray.  The dvd drive is louder but he fans themselves are still pretty loud.  I can't even hear my dvd drive in my pc and its faster then my 360 dvd drive.  Hopefully they make the hd-dvd player not so loud.

[281R]

QUOTE(bobbyblaze @ Nov 4 2006, 08:22 AM)

So for $499 you can get a PS3 with 20g hardrive, Blu Ray,  and HDMI 1.3 with support for lossless 24bit 96khz sound and the same money buys you an xbox 360 with no hardrive, HD DVD but massively compromised sound output (1.5mbps via spdif ie. vanilla DTS or DD).

Microsoft may be able to get away without cutting the price of xbox360 whilst there is insufficient stock of PS3 to effect demand that much for xbox but they must have at least a $100 price cut next year ready for when the two go head to head.

This is big time disappointing for me. If any of y;all have ever been to an Imax theater then you'd know how jaw dropping full resolution uncompressed sound mixes feel. 448kbps Dolby dig or even full standard bit rate DTS sound as flat as a week old can of coke in comparison. Don't take my word for it. Uber-Director ridley Scott says as much on the commentary track for the SE of Alien. If Microsoft wanted to go the analogue route and not go HDMI then they should have included 5.1 (or better 6.1) analogue outs on the HD DVD player instead.

Of course the other option (when they release the redesigned 65nm xbox 360) is to include a HD DVD drive and HDMI but then they wouldn't tell us about this at the moment, would they?

I thought HDMI was only supported in the $600 PS3 version?

[silentbob343]

QUOTE(amirm)

Here is the quick answer on your audio front, hoping it doesn’t create a big discussion .  The HD DVD playback software on Xbox 360 is all new.  My group implemented all of the a/v processing and various audio/video decoders.  So there is no commonality between its performance on such things as DTS tracks and standard DVD playback on Xbox.   The decoders are all very high performance and multi-threaded. The standard DVD was licensed third-party software.   Of course, there may be bugs .  But we are standing ready to fix them.  And since I manage that group and am active here, you should see much better response than other Xbox A/V related issues which I have no control over.

QUOTE(281R @ Nov 4 2006, 05:32 PM)

I thought HDMI was only supported in the $600 PS3 version?

they added it to the $500 PS3 a while back

[pepe2004]

QUOTE

All 6 of Xbox 360's hardware threads are hard at work while playing back an HD DVD. At the moment, the player software pushes Xbox 360 harder than any other (save, perhaps, Gears of War during some particularly busy parts of the game).

OMG, something smells burning  

[amb7247]

I thought DD and DTS was the difference where one is a compressed format and the other is not. Really I cannot tell the difference. I have an Onkyo receiver and a Marantz mm9000 amp and no matter the format it all sounds great.

On and who cares if the PS3 has blu-ray .I don't and I dont think it'll succeed. Actually you also have to buy an $100 cable if you want to use HDMI on the console. We'll see how this drive is. I'm not willing to spent money on it right now. If I do HD-DVD I'll wait till the market saturates before I get one.