Xbox HD DVD hands-on

Well looky looky here, we landed an Xbox HD DVD drive. We're already all well aware of what it can and can't do; we just know you want the pics of the unboxing, it sitting next to the Xbox, and maybe a few bonus shots next to a real life HD DVD player. Hell, we'll even throw in some pics of it next to the competition (you know what we're talking about). Click on, enjoy!

Ah, that familiar sight.

There we go, that's what we were looking for.

The back.

The top, sorta.

Crack that one open, too!

Remote! Adapter! USB cable!

Stacked up on top.

The hardware in the box, unpacked.

Okay! Now, we're SO not taking responsibility for that sticker up on the back. Normally we just leave stickers on while photographing (unless it's on the facade, like that white one) but for whatever reason our unit came with the remnants of some badge, torn off and sticky gross, unable to be removed. We'd assume your retail unit probably won't have the same issue.

Flipped.

USB ports and WiFi adapter groove.

Facade sticker removed.

Ruh roh!

That's a big HD DVD player.

The shot we know you've been waiting for.

[mike @ Nov 9th 2006 2:14PM]

i want

[Esat @ Nov 9th 2006 2:15PM]

Ah. I love unboxing new stuff.

[Zeus @ Nov 9th 2006 2:15PM]

I'm not a fanboy for either camp (I have a 360 and am preordered for a PS3) but is it just me or does it just look stupid, having a 360 with a working tray and then a vestigial cd player unit attached.... They should have at least made it somehow attach or integrate onto the 360 because it just looks like some cheap ass addon/afterthough. Could be just me though, at least we'll see what the picture quality is like, that's all that really matters in the end.

[Michael @ Nov 9th 2006 2:21PM]

i presume the hd-dvd player wont be able to be used as an hd-dvd player without the xbox? any comments?

[Steve @ Nov 9th 2006 2:24PM]

My Amazon.com pre-order got delayed until next week :-(

Dying to see how this works out and if good ol' USB can keep up with all those high def bits flying by. There's theory, then there's reality ...

I also don't really care if it looks a bit goofy. My 360 sits behind the TV so it doesn't make much difference to me.

[LittleJoe @ Nov 9th 2006 2:21PM]

PS3 ftw

[Adrian Williams @ Nov 10th 2006 4:50AM]

search engadget they have a rticle about that but what I'M WONDERING CAN THE XBOX HDDVD HOOK UP TO THE PS3???????????? some hack might make a homebrew just for that

[CharlieX @ Nov 9th 2006 2:25PM]

Looks bigger than I thought it would be.

[Jake @ Nov 9th 2006 2:27PM]

lawl have fun with your DVD games

[Frank @ Nov 9th 2006 2:30PM]

Where's the bundled copy of King Kong on HD-DVD?

[Matt @ Nov 9th 2006 3:38PM]

I'm sure it won't come with the bundled King Kong for what're essentially review pieces sent specifically so Engadget can try it out. Retail versions will have the movie.

[Zak @ Nov 9th 2006 2:31PM]

btw, M$ wrote 4.7 million lines of code to make this thing work w/ the 360's three processors.

[pagercam @ Nov 9th 2006 2:31PM]

Does it, well you know, ah, play HD DVDs????

How does the HD DVD play quality compare to the Toshiba???

[Mrfreezie @ Nov 9th 2006 2:32PM]

Ryan, you are awesome.

[robotrock @ Nov 9th 2006 2:39PM]

I hope there's an XBOX 360.5 that doesn't look like garbage and have add-on units that don't really attach or integrate to the system itself.

At least Nintendo's add-on disk drives looked like part of the system...

[SOCOMRAIDER @ Nov 9th 2006 3:21PM]

Yeah it is pretty stupid on how it doesn't really match the 360. It looks like a book sitting next to the console. At least they could have made it so it would easily sit on top of the unit in the curve.

[Paul @ Nov 9th 2006 2:40PM]

I am HAPPY it is not part of the 360. I dont want a HD DVD player until the winner is clear AND we all know console based DVD players were poor even at their best (Xbox was ok... PS2 STUNK)

We dont need to combine all this tech, in the end it doesnt save anyone any money.

[NNTPgrip @ Nov 9th 2006 2:40PM]

Agreed - Pagercam

Unboxing pr0n is one thing, but how does this thing stack up to my Tosh HD-A1? Is it faster(please let it be)? Down/sideconvert to 720p better? More resilient to scratches etc. Remote backlighted? Any info in pack-in materials mentioning HDMI?

[Todd @ Nov 9th 2006 2:44PM]

omg the picture captions cracked me up!

I would like to nominate this post ( particularly the photo captions ) for second funniest of the year, second only to that post about the "smelling" robot that mistook someone for bacon.

[Rob Patterson @ Nov 9th 2006 2:44PM]

Actually I like the idea of separating the game drive from the movie drive. I had problems last generation with both PS2 & Xbox drives dieing. At least this saves on the wear and tear of the unit drive.

[Blackstar @ Nov 9th 2006 2:45PM]

Is there any compelling reason why MS does not simply make a 360 with the HD drive built in? Any reason why you could not simply replace the existing 360's DVD drive with the HD-DVD drive?

[Mr47 @ Nov 14th 2006 10:36AM]

Yeah what the hell is up with that, i mean WTF dude. wouldn't it be simpler if not cheaper to do. (Not to mention it would probably work better and look better.)

[PiNPOiNT @ Nov 9th 2006 2:49PM]

HAHAHAHHAA NNTPgrip why would you buy a HD-DVD player only to down convert the signal to something less. Got to much money in your pocket?

[Me @ Nov 9th 2006 3:55PM]

1) not everyone has a 1080p tv
2) not everyone wants to spend $500+ on a standalone when they can buy a cheap addon for a console they already own
3) you are a tit

[Alex C @ Nov 9th 2006 2:50PM]

Bloody hell it's huge!

Actually makes the PS3's size a lot more impressive. The Xbox on it's own is almost as big as the PS3 and it doesn't have a next-gen disc drive or a power brick inside it.

[Joe Talerico @ Nov 9th 2006 2:52PM]

Geeze I wish i held out for a ps3 now... :(

[Michael V @ Nov 9th 2006 3:26PM]

So the hddvd player comes with a remote. Will I be able to use the media remote I already have? They look exactly the same.

[Keaton @ Nov 9th 2006 3:00PM]

The PS3 is so shiny!!!

It looks like Darth Vader...

In my opinion the X-box 360 is better looking for sure...

To bad I don't game... They both look pretty sweet...

[Regula Oblique @ Nov 9th 2006 3:01PM]

Wow this is like me taking a DVD player and hooking a DVD player up to it. Im not spending my money on this, pretty much an upscaler player, though I have a 360 I think ill stick with the blu-ray movies when I get my Ps3, atleast I know its native 1080p. Just gotta get that TV now 720p wont cut it any more :)

[Patrick @ Nov 9th 2006 3:07PM]

Any chance you could plug it in and tell us how the picture looks instead of just stacking it next to a bunch of devices that we can't buy?

[NNTPgrip @ Nov 9th 2006 3:07PM]

PInPoint - cause my 60" plasma does 720p, and the Tosh HD-A1's internal scaler does not do a good job going down from 1080i - I believe it uses the "bob" method, "bob"ing one field off to essentially give a 540p image, then interpolates/upscales to 720p. My TVs internal scaler does a much better job. However, anytime a TV is forced to scale on its own, there is a possibility of interlace to progressive motion artifacting as the TV has no direct access to source material. Any attempts for the more advanced motion adaptive de-interlacing by the TV could possibly result in audio delay lip-sync issues. - or something like that...

Thing hooks up USB, looks like. If DVD Jon could work his magic, we could have open-source HDDVD player software for the Yellow-Dog linux that you can get for the PS3. Or the developer for PowerDVD could provide for like $50. That would be cool as hell.

[Chris Heinonen @ Nov 9th 2006 3:15PM]

NNTPgrip, have you upgraded to the 2.0 Firmware? Along with adding TrueHD 5.1 support, it also fixed the 720p conversion issues (which were caused by downsampling everything to 480p then back to 720p, not to 540p). It now samples from 1080p straight to 720p if you select 720p as the output and looks far better than before.

[StooMonster @ Nov 9th 2006 3:08PM]

Movies on HD DVD are 1080p native, and use the superior VC-1 codec hence why have a reputation for looking better than Blu-ray movies which has mostly been encoded with old school MPEG-2.

We've yet to see what Blu-ray playback on PS3 will be like, hopefully better than the dire DVD playback on PS2.

[Bill @ Nov 10th 2006 9:41AM]

Here we go again.

The PS3 and ALL blu-ray players are capable of using VC-1, mpeg4 AVC, and Mpeg2. It is up to the content providers as to which encoding they chose.

[eric @ Nov 9th 2006 3:13PM]

So how long till someone cracks this open and puts it in a pc? Or is that not possible?

[Peter @ Nov 9th 2006 3:14PM]

Only the first set of movies on BR used MPG-2. Both standards are essentially identical except for the physical disk. They use the same codecs, store the same resolution, use the same DRM etc. Once things get rolling, movies will be identical.

Now that said. Where is the HDMI connector on the Xbox?

[spoonperson @ Nov 9th 2006 3:15PM]

geeze i know what i want for christmas
any1 know what this can upscale 2 ( 720p,1080i,1080p,etc)
PLEASE does any1 know the uk release date i sure know what i want for christmas

[djbarry @ Nov 9th 2006 3:16PM]

Soo glad they didn't put drive inside 360. The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives are to slow. I want my fast load times.

[Enzo @ Nov 9th 2006 3:17PM]

So is this for sale in say, best buys yet? I hear gamestops dont have them in yet. Anyone know?

[Peter @ Nov 9th 2006 3:18PM]

I should add HDMI becomes important for two reasons:

1: 1080P supporte over component is sketchy at best.
2: Eventually the turn on the DRM and you can't watch movies on your Xbox anymore.

If you actually want a setup that does Games and Hi Def movies, the Sony makes a lot more sense to me.

[Karl Viklund @ Nov 9th 2006 3:20PM]

HD-DVD is a doomed format. I'm waiting for the first Blu-Ray player for Xbox360.

[Tim UF @ Nov 9th 2006 5:07PM]

thats why they made this an add-on, and not integral to the functioning of the XBOX360... they dont have all of their proverbial eggs in the same proverbial basket... [cough] SONY [cough cough]... if blueray tanks, then all sony got was an added expense to the dev cycle of the ps3

[SteveJ @ Nov 9th 2006 3:22PM]

I've never understood the complaints about the Xbox 360s look. I think it looks pretty nice. I don't have much interest in owning one (nor a PS3), but the Xbox 360 doesn't look ugly at all to my eyes. It's certainly much, much nicer looking than the (admittedly shiny, but) very klunky looking PS3 (looks like a VCR from the 80s). Having said that, the 360s add-on HD-DVD drive looks pretty dopey. It doesn't even match the look of the Xbox 360. It looks out of place. Like a cheap external 5.25" case.

[Enzo @ Nov 9th 2006 3:24PM]

Peter,
1. It depends on the TV.
2. No, that's not how it works.

[Adgeman @ Nov 9th 2006 3:42PM]

Hmm, when I think of things to put in my tv system the thing I really want is another huge power brick. Oh well.

Any reviews anywhere of picture quality? I saw the Tosh HD player this weekend and it looked nice; not $500 plus the cost of the discs nice though.

[Peter @ Nov 9th 2006 3:42PM]

Once they turn on the copy protection (after they have everyone hooked) here is what happens:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/691/691408p1.html

If you purchased an HDTV more than a couple of years ago, chances are you are using Component Video (the red, green, and blue plugs) to connect HD sources to your TV. Component Video is an analog transmission, which means that it can't work with the absurdly stringent AACS copy-protection Hollywood has insisted be integrated into the new formats. Thus, no HDMI input on your TV, no hi-def DVD for you. If you don't have a compatible TV, you'll either receive a massively downgraded sub-720p resolution version of the content, or what the studios are suggesting, a warning screen followed by nothing.

[Bill @ Nov 10th 2006 10:20AM]

'Thus, no HDMI input on your TV, no hi-def DVD for you"

Careful there buddy. This is not exactly true. Having HDMI is not the ONLY way to be HDCP ready. There are many pre-HDMI tvs out there that have DVI inputs that are also HDCP ready. I bet you just scared the shit outa quite a few people out there.

Also I dont think the movie studios are going to be able to impliment this for at least another two years. They want their content protection, but more over they want people to buy their goods. So what would happen if they cut off 25% of the HD market 3 years after it began.

*I know HDTVs have been around longer then 3 years, but thats just about how long they have been selling to your adverage joe.

[Peter @ Nov 9th 2006 3:49PM]

More clarifications on AACS copy protection. Read far and wide. I have followed this closely. Once they put the ICT (Image constraint token) on the disks, you only get 480p max out of the analog connections. The studios have only agreed to temporarily not use ICT while the formats get a foothold.

http://www.gadgetreview.com/2006/04/toshiba-hd-a1-hd-dvd-player-review-reveals-unsettling-copy-protection.html

rom the HD-A1 manual according to the ManRoom: �HD DVD and DVD video disc creators have the option to include copy protection instructions in their discs that prohibit the output of some standard video or high definition video (original 720p or 1080i or up-converted 480i or 480p) from the COMPONENT OUTPUT jacks. If such instructions are present in the disc you are playing, you must use the HDMI OUTPUT jack to view the disc in a high definition format and the COMPONENT OUTPUT jacks, if activated, will output video only in 480i or 480p resolution.�

[Jeff @ Nov 9th 2006 3:49PM]

Come on Ryan i want to see some screenshots of it playing some HD DVD and comparisons with that of the PS3!!!!!

[Erick @ Nov 9th 2006 3:56PM]

NNTPgrip and Eric...no, I don't see how it would be all that easily possible. Most drives put into PCs are hardware based, and therefore a bit more pricey and then supported with specific software for standard OS calls. This thing has 4.7 million lines of code written to the XBox 360 firmware (dashboard) written specifically for the HD-DVD features. Your PC may be able to decode HD from an xVID or WMV, but the next gen players have audio mixing on the fly, the possibility of picture-in-picture, etc...I don't think many, if any, regular desltop PCs could handle this as a plug and play device, they need the hardware that is intergrated into the PC Drives.