I just got lucky and snagged the one and only drive from my local GameStop, (with the King-Kong disc)
So far I've gotten it to play back a standard definition DL DVD that I'd burnt, using a macbook and the built in DVD player software. I don't know how significant this is, but I would assume that all that's really necessary for computer-based HD DVD playback using this drive is decoding software (such as WinDVD, something advertised with HD DVD playback)?
I'm sorry if this has been covered; I have yet to find a topic covering drive to pc connectivity. Also, I think it'd be appropriate for this peripheral to have it's own dedicated subforum in hardware hacking.
ah; further research led to this contributed by an avsforums member:
I have a Sony BWU-100A functioning in my PC and I think how it works gives some clues on how the add-on may operate when PC attached.
The only driver Windows XP appears to be missing, is the UDF 2.5 filesystem driver that allows you to see the contents of a BD/HD-DVD disc through Windows Explorer. So with a BD in the drive, double click and you'll get an unsupported format error. However, Windows does recognise the drive and will have no problems using a CD or DVD in there...
You don't need for BD a UDF 2.5 driver to play movies. PowerDVD BD will open the drive in 'disc mode' and quite happily play the movie on disc. I'll assume that any HD-DVD edition would therefore do the same.
Where do you get a UDF 2.5 driver? Well, MS have implied that there's one in MCE, and there will definitely be one in Vista. However the other way to get one and also get explorer working on BD/HD-DVD is to use InCD from Nero 7. Install that and Voila, you can see the files on the disc.
The tricky part is going to be finding some HD-DVD playback software. If you already have it, you already have an HD-DVD ROM drive in a PC, otherwise WinDVD 8 from the Japanese website, seems to be the only source. The version of WinDVD 8 that you can now download on the Intervideo site appears to have no support for HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Very disappointing.
As someone else mentioned, the other thing that seems to be necessary is some kind of AACS support in the drive firmware itself. It seems PowerDVD/WinDVD can talk to that to determine if they're allowed to play back the software. This could be the biggest fly in thw whole ointment as the drives in the Toshiba A1/XA1 don't have built in AACS support and won't playback copy-protected HD-DVD's on a PC. I'm guessing that this non-AACS drive is OK in a closed down CE device but not in a PC where you've no idea where the data is potentially going. So, just as the Toshiba players can use a non-AACS drive and work, the Xbox may do the same in which case all bets will be off and there will be a fair number of disappointed people, me included.
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Topic: Hd Dvd Drive Progress? (Read 42 times)