Xbox 360 HD DVD Product Review

Recently, Microsoft unveiled their new HD-DVD attachment for the XBOX 360 gaming console. This attachment is design to play HD-DVD's which are high definition movies. In this review, we'll take a good look into the new attachment and see how it performs compared to other High Definition Movie Players.

In my test of the device, I used an XBOX 360 Live! with the hard disk and component cable with the HD-DVD provided by a friend. This was connected to a 37 inch Vizio HDTV capable of 1080p resolution. I also used a Sony 5.1 300 watt surround sound system for the sound. The movie I used to test this

First, you must have an XBOX 360 to use this, since it is an attachment for it. The HD-DVD player comes in with a low MSRP(Manufacturers suggested retail price) of $179.99. This is a lot cheaper than most of the stand alone HD-DVD players you can purchase, which usually round up around $400 or more. The XBOX 360 console comes in two different varieties. The first, is a core system, that comes with almost nothing, and doesn't have a hard drive with it. I used the XBOX 360 Live version, which had a hard drive, and also had the component video cable, which is an extra $40 if you're using a core system. So, a final tally of the price range of the complete HD-DVD player, with the component cable would be, around $580.00. That is right around the cost of a decent stand alone HD-DVD player. But with the added bonus of being able to play XBOX 360 games.

The HD-DVD did play the HD-DVD's well. It's image quality however lacked highly. The player could only output in 1080i, and there was some stretching issues while watching movies on the wide-screen format HD-DVD. The interlacing was almost horrible sometimes, with artifacts being showed on the screen quite often. However, when we hooked the XBOX up to a VGA connection, the playback did show in 1080p, and was a little better, still having issues with stretching. Overall, it's definitely not worth buying if you don't already have an XBOX 360 platform. And if you do, you should look into purchasing the component cable, if you only have a core system. With the standard RCA style connector, the HD-DVD played in 480i, which is the same as a standard DVD.

The sound output also left something to be desired. It seemed as if the system did not play in surround sound at all half of the time. Every once in a while you'd hear the rear speakers with output of garbled sound. It also had an awful time controlling the volume output, where as some parts you could not hear the movie playing at all, while others were almost too loud. Overall, the sound quality was rather low.

For connecting this device to the XBOX 360 console, you have to use a USB 2.0 cable to wire it up to the console itself. While the player comes with a remote, it will not eject discs from the player, but it will eject the disk from the console. You have to manually eject the disc from the external player. The component video is a newer style of the old RCA type connection, using 5 wires, instead of three wires. It is a good connection, but not as high of quality as HDMI, which is used by most HD movie players.

Overall? The HD-DVD player worked easily, and we had no troubles setting it up. The image quality was alright, but lacked against alot of today's HD-DVD players. With the lack of HDMI, and the rather poor quality, buying a decent HD-DVD player is going to be a better bet. If you already own an XBOX 360, and want a cheap way of playing HD-DVD's, this is the way to go. If not, you're better off going and buying a newer HD-DVD player.

Pros:

Cheap solution to playing HD-DVD's if you already own an XBOX 360 console.
Very easy to setup and use.
Has decent image quality, and a low price to boot.

Cons:

Not as good image quality as newer HD-DVD players can produce.
Lower quality of sound, almost as if it's not playing in surround sound at all.
Very costly if you don't already own an XBOX 360 Console.

In my opinion, it'd be the better option to pick up a newer HD-DVD player than to buy this one. You'll have better image and sound quality with it. Plus with the addition of HDMI, there's only one wire to hook them to the HDTV instead of five. If I had my own XBOX 360 console, I would probably purchase one, since it is less than half the price of a decent stand alone HD-DVD player.