what is the hd360 dvd drive?

[noway]

what is the hd360 dvd drive?

[bingo83]

It is an additional unit which plugs into your 360 via the USB ports. This will provide you with a cheap upgrade option that will enable your 360 to play HD-DVD. Images should be 4 times sharper than standard DVD and look great on a HD-Ready TV set. It should be launched around November 2006.

[phatmuther]

It is an additional unit which plugs into your 360 via the USB ports. This will provide you with a cheap upgrade option that will enable your 360 to play HD-DVD. Images should be 4 times sharper than standard DVD and look great on a HD-Ready TV set. It should be launched around November 2006.
hes got it in one (Y)
must be noted though, that you will not need one of these in the future for game playing, games will continue to use the standard DVD drive :)

[Strife 453]

In other words, it's a complete waste of time and money. It's not like HD DVDS are gonna completely take over anytime soon.

[Blaze Lord]

I wouldn't say it's a complete waste. If you have an HDMI + HDCP television, it might be worth considering. There will probably be a decent selection of HD DVDs by the holiday season. Personally, though, I couldn't imagine exchanging more than a small fraction of my DVD collection for HD discs. Plenty of movies look just fine in 480p.

[bingo83]

I wouldnt but releases any more than 2 years old on HD-DVD. Most of the old releases wouldnt be worth the money and you would see very little rise in quality. New movies are a different matter.

[glidem]

bingo is right, imagine something computer animated in HD quality.... **drools**

[backin-strachan]

The price will depend on whether I get one or not:)

I still need a HDTV:D

[Mez]

I reckon by at very latest a years time, HD DVD's will be $20. It costs very little more to produce them than current DVD's, whereas blu-ray costs a lot of money. Blu Ray may be slightly better quality, but so was betamax.

[Blaze Lord]

That certainly would be a coup for the HD DVD camp. I can see consumers making the switch a lot more freely if the pricing points are what they're used to for discs.

[Mister Hipsta]

I didnt want to start new topic or read this becoz i lazy lol but does anyone know if MS are going to bring out a updated xbox360 in future with the HD-DVD pre installed and heating problem fixed? ..

[phatmuther]

I didnt want to start new topic or read this becoz i lazy lol but does anyone know if MS are going to bring out a updated xbox360 in future with the HD-DVD pre installed and heating problem fixed? ..
no-ones knows but i would edge towards a yes, later on they would release such a machine. maybe when the price drops a second time, so 1 1/2 or 2 years, but not anytime soon i wouldnt imagine:geek:

[Blaze Lord]

I don't think they'll ever add an internal HD-DVD, but I know a smaller, cooler CPU is on the way, so they'll probably release some 'slimline' equivalent.

[Blaze Lord]

Apparently I might be wrong:

Toshiba expects Xbox 360 with internal HD-DVD
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18072

[Tobes]

Nope you were right

http://feeds.feedburner.com/GamerscoreBlog?m=154

[Blaze Lord]

Meh. I read that too, but.. I think it's entirely possible that Microsoft has a lot of plans on the long-term timetable that, for obvious reasons, they don't want to announce publicly. If there was an internal HD DVD drive plan, Toshiba would definitely know about it. It's something Microsoft would tell them so the partner wouldn't lose faith in the format war.

And if this is the case, it's very likely that someone in Toshiba would be less.. passionate about keeping the secret than someone in Microsoft, particularly someone in Microsoft with an official blog. Particularly an official blog from the Marketing team.

[glidem]

You can't have a two tier console setup.... With or without HD DVD.

This would affect games dramatically if this was made a standard drive for the Xbox 360 as loading times, seek access times and compatibility would cause massive problems. I think this is nothing more than Toshiba trying to snatch some headlines to get HD DVD more free publicity or maybe just simply a misquote.

[Blaze Lord]

Uh.. Why would it affect games? Why would compatability be an issue? The games would still be DVD. Where are the massive problems?

[glidem]

If there was a Hard Drive as standard it wouldn't be such a problem to have HD DVD, as it could use that to cache the data, however imagine having a first generation HD DVD where seek times and loading times are far slower than that of what we have now. People would not be very happy when their games take longer to load.

Games really do require a very fast DVD drive now and other methods of streaming data from the disk have helped the Xbox 360, however sticking in a HD DVD drive would cause problems with that as you are adding a new factor for developers that wasn't considered before.

Of course the HD DVD could accept DVD, but it is not the same as a CD/DVD drive as the speeds have been greatly tuned over years of tweaking. HD DVD is new and in its first generation.

Then there is the ethics behind it all. For the people who have purchased already would be extremely annoyed by an internal HD DVD drive in a future XBox 360, which theirs doesn't have. Also Microsoft would be squashing their own argument about the PS3 and their desire to push Blu-ray on everyone, which has little impact for games.

Microsoft have also said that they won't use HD DVD for games, so having one internally just adds to the price of the system offering very little in return.

[Blaze Lord]

Not really. As it stands right now, there's already an HD DVD drive that rocks plain old DVDs at 8x. The NEC HR-1100A. For a dual layer DVD, its random seek time is a fairly respectable 168 ms. There's every reason to assume that by the time Microsoft is announcing an internal HD DVD drive, the drives will have improved to 12x DVD read speed.

Beyond that, I find it a little hard to believe that if Microsoft offered a model with an internal HD DVD, they would do so on the Core model. It would be a third tier above the Premium bundle, and so any 360 with an internal HD DVD would have at least a 20 gig hard drive.

Thirdly, if it offers "very little in return", then you don't have to worry about people being "extremely annoyed" at a more expensive, marginally more functional model.

Finally, it doesn't exactly squash their own argument. It wouldn't be 'pushing' the HD DVD on anyone, because all 360 games would be dual layer DVDs. You don't need the more expensive model with internal HD DVD to play any game, so it's not being forced. It's for people 3 or 4 years into the cycle, who don't have a 360 yet, who want to get into HD DVDs, and like the idea of not having yet another slab of molded plastic.

[xXDuBzXx]

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/9144/blurayforce9xd.jpg
lol, im not going to get the HD DVD thing

[Blaze Lord]

Haha. Fantastic dude.

[xXDuBzXx]

lol thanks blaze :)

[Headshot]

i dont watch dvd so i aint guna get it....

[Blaze Lord]

You don't have even regular old DVDs? Wow.

Do you just download them, or are you VHS all the way?