Microsoft XBOX 360 HD DVD Player Review

Overall Rating

Plays DVDs & HD DVDs, cheap, region free (for HD DVD).

Quite Big, Must Have a 360, No hdmi.

The XBOX HD DVD drive cost just £130, you need a XBOX 360 (cost £270 for deluxe version), total of £400. Since the current lowest price of a standalone HD DVD player is £450 and £850 for Blu-ray this must be considered a bargain.

The drive itself is quite big, slightly larger than a standard external optical drive, it comes with an external power supply (small) & XBOX universal remote, mine also came with a copy of King Kong, but I believe this was a Xmas offer only. The drive has just 1 input connection (USB 2) for connection to front or rear ports of the 360, although it does also have 2 USB output ports for use as a USB hub.

Control is via the supplied remote (best option) or a standard 360 controller. The remote can also be used as a media centre controller, if your 360 is set up for that, and it can control most TVs, you could even play some games with it, if you really wanted!.

For Hi Def output I use the component signals and there are cables to supply a PC monitor, but there is no HDMI. I`m not sure that the lack of HDMI will make any great difference. Audio out is Dolby digital on optical, if the disk has Dolby digital plus the 360 converts the signal, but there is no option to output Dolby digital plus or DTS directly.

On connecting the drive the 360 does an update via XBOX live, my only concern here is that this means should Microsoft and the HD DVD industry decide, they could regionalise the drive this way at a later date, although all current HD DVDs are not regionalised. The Blu-ray format is to have region coding from the start.

Picture quality is clearly disk dependant but is v-good, all of my disks so far have been 1080p, whereas the maximum output of the 360 is 1080i, this causes no problems though. The image quality of King Kong is very good, other disks depend on the original material, I got a copy of Terminator 3, & comparing that with my old DVD copy showed only a slight improvement.

The 360 does make a reasonable amount of noise, but once using my surround sound system as well have not noticed any problem to date.

In use this combination is nearly identical to using a standalone DVD player & I don't feel any need to change to a standalone unit later.

There is currently a limited supply of HD DVDs in the UK, but there are plenty available from the US and they`re cheaper, of course Blu-ray buyers won't have this luxury.

In think this is a great deal, I got mine by pre-ordering from PC World, but there seems to be very limited availability currently. If you can find one, buy it.

Members' Comments onFreeky's Review

• Freeky on 14th Jan 2007

  I stated that the maximum output of the 360 was 1080i, since a recent update I notice it is now 1080p.
  
  I have now been able to try a disk with Dolby TrueHD sound and noted that that format is converted to stereo only, so you must use Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus for best sound.