Hands-on With the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive

Though I was skeptical at first, I'm happy to report that the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is a-okay. After experiencing a somewhat shaky start—either a glitchy pre-release software disc crashed my console or my faulty console crashed itself—I finally got the drive working with my brother's Xbox, which already had the recent 360 update software installed.

I used the drive to watch Reds and King Kong, both of which looked perfectly high-def to me in 1080i—via the 360's component video cables—on the Pioneer Elite PRO-FHD1 50-inch plasma I am testing out. Though the Xbox 360 is technically capable of outputting in 1080p via component cables, it won't because of copyright protection. There is a workaround, apparently, if you connect directly to the TV with a cable other than component, but I'll have to report back about how to do this exactly.

Full-1080p-resolution-right-out-of-the-box-via-HDMI-and-a-1080p-TV is one area where the Sony PlayStation 3's built-in Blu-ray player has a leg-up on the component-only Xbox 360's HD-DVD drive.

The Xbox 360 I am using is connected to the Pioneer VSX-82 A/V receiver with HDMI pass-through, so it's outputting in its native 1080i. The Pioneer equipment does a nice job of upscaling any content (such as traditional DVDs) that's sent to it via HDMI to 1080p, but doesn't look like it will upscale component-video-connected content. So far, the TV is only displaying native resolutions of whatever is sent to it via component cables. Lately, I'm obsessed enough with the minutiae of 1080 and HDMI that I will try and get to the bottom of all of these lower/higher res mysteries.

I was able to compare a native 1080p Blu-ray disc version of Reds on the Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-ray disc player with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD version and did notice a slight difference, namely, in the amount of fine wrinkles that could be seen on the various real-world witnesses that appear throughout the movie. And action sequences tended to play with less distortion on the 1080p version. But since most people don't have 1080p TVs, this won't be much of an issue. Even with a 1080p TV, the difference is mostly a non-issue unless you like to sit six inches away from the screen.

Navigation with the 360's remote feels more Tivo-like than DVD-like, with a convenient time-elapsed bar at the bottom. The remote was plenty responsive—actually an impressive feat considering the troubles I've had with the remotes of some standalone players. In fact, I couldn't get the "U-Control" interactive features on some Universal HD-DVDs to work with either the Toshiba HD-A1 or the RCA HDV-5000. By contrast, the U-Control picture-in-picture commentary and set photos on both Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and King Kong worked without a problem using the 360's HD-DVD drive and remote. Soundtracks came through loud and clear via the same optical connection I use for playing games.

I do wish I could get full 1080p out of the box with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, but I don't think it's such a dealbreaker considering most of the other standalone players out there don't offer 1080p either. And now that I've got it up and running—albeit with an Xbox 360 other than my own—I have had no problems playing movies on the drive.  

All in all, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is the best (and best-working) HD-DVD device I've used so far. At $200, it's practically a gift to Xbox 360 owners. And even if you add the price of a new Xbox 360 to the price of this drive, you'll still come out ahead: After all, you can't play games on either the Toshiba or RCA players.

Anybody out there ready to go HD with the Xbox 360?

Related links:

Xbox 360's HD-DVD Versus PlayStation 3's Blu-ray
Blu-ray and HD-DVD: What You Need to Know
My Ultimate (Temporary) Home Theater Setup