X-Box 360 HD-DVD for $50 - worth it ?

[WalkinTarget]

I can't believe I am typing this ... it pains me to even think its a worthwhile endeavor, but here I am trolling the console ... *shudder*... forum (first time ever for that, BTW).
Anyhoo, with the death of HD-DVD, the X-Box has now dropped to $50 and has become an interesting piece of hardware for that price ... 5 free HD-DVDs are included in the bundle which ships with a 6th DVD, sooo ...

Is it worth it to a PC guy (who likes the X-Box specifically as a Media Extender) to invest in one, or skip on it and forget consoles ???

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/02/26/microsoft-drops-360-hd-dvd-drive-price-to-50

[GeneralSnake]

The Xbox isnt $50, the HDD for it is.
But, I would tell you to get it. I liked mine.

[WalkinTarget]

So its the external HD-DVD drive that is being dumped off ?? It would then be in essence a $50 external DVD player. Hmmm ..... interesting.

[CarbonFire]

So its the external HD-DVD drive that is being dumped off ?? It would then be in essence a $50 external DVD player. Hmmm ..... interesting.
It still requires an Xbox 360 to work. It's just the HD-DVD drive itself.

And no, it's not worth it. Unless you have a whole library of HD-DVD movies already and no player. Otherwise, just go for Bluray, as that will be the only one with new movies and continued support from now on.

[Rand{CLR}]

So its the external HD-DVD drive that is being dumped off ?? It would then be in essence a $50 external DVD player. Hmmm ..... interesting.
It still requires an Xbox 360 to work. It's just the HD-DVD drive itself.

And no, it's not worth it. Unless you have a whole library of HD-DVD movies already and no player. Otherwise, just go for Bluray, as that will be the only one with new movies and continued support from now on.

Correction to this. IF you have a 360 already, and IF you don't have an up-converting DVD player, the HD-DVD add on is definitely worth it because it upconverts movies. A stand-alone upconverting DVD player is about $120 for a good one. You will also be able to pick up all the HD-DVD movies people are dumping.

Assuming you have the Xbox 360 already and are considering picking up an HD-DVD add-on, shop around. They're being dumped by everyone, and I've seen better prices in the last 2 days than 50 bucks.

But to make it clear, if you don't have the console already, the HD-DVD add-on is utterly useless.

-Rand

[Thrashdragon]

IF you have a 360 already, and IF you don't have an up-converting DVD player, the HD-DVD add on is definitely worth it because it upconverts movies. A stand-alone upconverting DVD player is about $120 for a good one. You will also be able to pick up all the HD-DVD movies people are dumping.

Assuming you have the Xbox 360 already and are considering picking up an HD-DVD add-on, shop around. They're being dumped by everyone, and I've seen better prices in the last 2 days than 50 bucks.

But to make it clear, if you don't have the console already, the HD-DVD add-on is utterly useless.

-Rand

I am fighting the urge to go pick one up for this reason. I really don't need another piece of hardware in my living room, especially one that's already obsolete, but a $50 upconverting DVD player is pretty good deal...and if I could manage to pick up some of these HD-DVD exclusives, they'll be a lot cheaper now than they will be when they're put on Blu-Ray.

List of HD-DVD Exclusive (for now) Movies:

12 Monkeys
2 Fast 2 Furious
40 Year Old Virgin
The Adventures of Robin Hood
An American Werewolf in London
Animal House
Apollo 13
Army of Darkness
Assault on Precinct 13
Backdraft
Batman Begins
Blazing Saddles
The Bone Collector
Caddyshack
Casablanca
Casino
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
A Christmas Story
Chronicles of Riddick
Chronos
Cinderella Man
Dazed and Confused
Deer Hunter
Derailed
The Dirty Dozen
Doom
The Dukes of Hazzard
Dune
End of Days
Enter The Dragon
Excalibur
Fast & Furious
Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Field of Dreams
Friday Night Lights
Goodfellas
Grand Prix
Happy Gilmore
House of Wax
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
HULK
The Interpreter
Jarhead
Jet Li's Fearless
King Kong
Land of The Dead
The Last Samurai
The Manchurian Candidate
The Matador
Meet The Parents
Miami Vice
Million Dollar Baby
The Mummy
Mutiny on the Bounty
One Six Right
Out of Sight
The Perfect Storm
Pitch Black
The Polar Express
Ray
Red Dragon
Reds
The Rundown
Sahara
Scary Movie 4
The Scorpion King
Seabiscuit
The Searchers
Serenity
Slither
Smallville: The Complete Fifth Season
Spartacus
Spy Game
Terminator 3
The Thing
Traffic
Troy
U-571
Unforgiven
Unleashed
V For Vendetta
Van Helsing
Waterworld
We Were Soldiers
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Wolf Creek
You Me & Dupree

[dirtyoldgoat]

I have one, it's a wonderful piece of machinery...I just wish HD-DVD wasn't dead. :(

If you can get one of these on the cheap then go for it, I'm already starting to see a dramatic reduction in the cost of HD-DVDs so I'm going to snap up what I can.

[CrazyFinn]

So lets say if I have a progressive scan dvd player right now...in reality how much better is a blue ray picture compared to it?

[CarbonFire]

So lets say if I have a progressive scan dvd player right now...in reality how much better is a blue ray picture compared to it?
If you just have a 720p TV, progressive scan will still look pretty good. You'll notice the real Bluray difference at 1080p, so unless you have 1080, you're fine for now. Also, if you've got a good sound system, HD Audio on Bluray is also much better than DVDs, so take that into consideration when planning your upgrade.

My guess is stand-alone Bluray players will hit below $250 (possibly even $200) by Christmas time. Now that it has won the standards war, all the major manufacturers will start competing for the Bluray market.

[CrazyFinn]

I was just wondering if it's worth the extra 10$ / dvd (blue ray vs nomal).

[Rand{CLR}]

I was just wondering if it's worth the extra 10$ / dvd (blue ray vs nomal).

This is a bit unclear when added to your previous question. The wording makes it seem as though you're asking if you should buy a blu-ray disk for your progressive DVD player instead of a regular DVD.

I hope you're not asking this. But if you are, this doesn't work. You need a blu-ray player to play a blu-ray disk.

If you're just asking about general quality, you need a full 1080p TV to get the full benefit. If you have the same movie, a blu-ray disk would look better on 720p than a DVD, but not by enough to justify the price difference unless you really love the movie.

When I get Blu-Ray, I'm not upgrading most of my current DVD collection. It's not worth the money other than for a handful of titles.

-Rand

Oh, regarding CarbonFire's mention of sound. Note that very few (especially budget/entry level) receivers on the market today are capable of decoding True HD sound. Pay very close attention to which ones can when you're looking for this, if sound is important to you. This will change as this year goes on, but for now, buyer beware and do your research.

[KurlonT]

If you're just asking about general quality, you need a full 1080p TV to get the full benefit. If you have the same movie, a blu-ray disk would look better on 720p than a DVD, but not by enough to justify the price difference unless you really love the movie.

Yep the only time you might want to consider 720p is on a front projector (Blu-Ray will be a vast improvement over upconverted DVD's when shown at this size plus 720p FP can be found for ~$1K) OR your going to be sitting far from the display (after a certain distance you can no longer see the increased resolution anyways).

Oh, regarding CarbonFire's mention of sound. Note that very few (especially budget/entry level) receivers on the market today are capable of decoding True HD sound. Pay very close attention to which ones can when you're looking for this, if sound is important to you. This will change as this year goes on, but for now, buyer beware and do your research.

More important is very few Blu-Ray players output all HD audio formats over bitstream to even allow the receiver to decode the format. No matter what it still comes down to whether you want the receiver or the player to handle the job of decoding audio.

[CrazyFinn]

Sorry sometimes it sucks to be Finnish;) Okay to clarify this here is my question.

Currently I have a progressive scan DVD player. Is it worth the money (extra for the player and each DVD) to get a BLUE RAY player assuming that my TV can play 1080P.

So is the difference in the picture quality between normal Progressive Scan DVDs and Blue Ray DVDs worth it since I know that at least currently Blue Ray DVDs are about 10$ more than normal ones.

[Rand{CLR}]

Yes.

Blu-Ray is a high definition format, and is currently the only HD format (well, HD-DVD also, but they don't really count anymore) outputting in full 1080P. TV station/cable/satellite HD is only 1080i because of bandwidth issues.

Even the best upconverted DVD isn't going to approach anything close to 1080p. The $10 difference in cost isn't that much of a factor because a) right now there are often a ton of deals on Blu-Ray discs, just need to watch the major retailers, and b) prices will begin to go down. Remember that DVDs used to cost much more overall than they do now when they first came out.

That being said, it is not usually worth the difference for anything made before the early 90s before very high quality film and digital masters (unless, of course, they were digitally remastered---see Blade Runner as a prime example). It's also not worth the difference for various genres, usually romance, comedy, many dramas. Stick to regular DVDs for the most part for these.

Where you'll get the biggest benefit is action, sci-fi, and animation (especially computer animation. Pixar movies look incredible in high-def).

-Rand

[Master_Chief_Alpha]

Correction to this. IF you have a 360 already, and IF you don't have an up-converting DVD player, the HD-DVD add on is definitely worth it because it upconverts movies.


-Rand

Xbox360 upconverts DVDs out of the box. No HD-DVD required. Xbox 360 already has a built in DVD drive. So you don't need a HD-DVD drive to upconvert something that Xbox 360 already plays. I've been using the 360 for this for a year now.

Anyways, I think the 360 HD-DVD drive is worth 50 dollars since the value of the films out-weigh the initial price.

I currently use mine for my Vista PC. Currently, it is the only DVD reading drive with a built in memory buffer. If you haven't experienced read data caching on the drive itself instead of RAM, then you have no idea what its like!!! And Vista supports it over USB out of the box. No hacking required. Although it doesn't have write capabilities, it does have nice features like the two extra usb ports in the back, nice formfactor, etc.

I think it's worth it.

MCA

[Thrashdragon]

Xbox360 upconverts DVDs out of the box. No HD-DVD required.

As long as you have it connected via VGA or HDMI. It will not upconvert through component (neither will the HD-DVD drive). As fragile as the drive in my 360 is beginning to act, I think a $50 addon for playing movies is probably a wise investment to irk a little more life out of my console before it bricks and I have to send it back.

[BlackArrow]

NO

[juneau]

Considering it's so cheap i say YES.

Check this out. :D

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/xbox-360-hd-dvd-kit-on-a-pc/

Off Topic: Good to see you MCA!