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Major Nelson Podcast about HD-DVD addon
>> Xbox Live's Major Nelson invited three members (Albert, Todd, Murph) of the team behind the upcoming HD-DVD add-on on his latest podcast.
Some points they talk about:
* Why Microsoft chose HD-DVD over Blu-Ray (you heard that story 1000s of time already though) and what people think about the 2 formats.
* Addon will connect with Xbox 360 via the (back) USB port. The addon will have 2 extra USB outputs to compensate the one you lose connecting the HD-DVD addon (so you can still connect WIFI-adapter (mounting space will also be there) and the upcoming camera on the back of console).
* USB-Concerns: USB2 has more than enough bandwidth for HD content.
* Software challenges:
-Neat UI to toggle between 2 drives (internal DVD and HD-DVD) for controlling eject/play and so. You can also control the HD-DVD player with the standard Xbox 360 remote control. See screenshots of the new tray-UI here[gamerscoreblog.com].
-Interactivity-layer: Make all HD-DVD interactivity (XML/jscript) added to discs by the content provider/publisher work.
-data: 1gigbit/sec
-Port all content protections and codecs over the Xbox 360 (which MS has for windows already, but due diff. CPU on Xbox 360 it took some time).
* Major Nelson saw a demo of it - so it kinda works already, but it's still in development ;)
* Xbox 360 guide will work when you watch HD-DVD movies too.
* Plug&Play: Just plug it in to start using it. Only difference will be a small UI change to the DVD-tray area in the 4 blades of the Xbox 360 dashboard that will allow you to toggle between the internal DVD and HD-DVD player.
* Major Nelson Question: "If I play PGR3, can I put an audio disc in my HD-DVD player and listen to soundtracks?". They answered this wasn't possible now, but they will be able to update the drive software over Xbox Live, so who knows ;)
* HD-DVD drive is manufactured by Toshiba. Industrial design was all done by Microsoft.
* Addon also have the "double concavity". Will match with Xbox 360 in both vertical and horizontal position.
* HDMI/DVI-talk ... it starts well with "Here's the truth". But well, in typical MS PR-style ... we get anything but the truth:
-They say it doesn't really matter what connection you use
-HDMI is "just another port, it's another way to plug video in your TV", "instead of 3 cable there's just 1 square-rectangle cable"
-They saw devices were component output was better then the HDMI, it all depends on quality of cable/signal/decoder/TV.
-All (HD)TVs have component, not all of them have HDMI/DVI.
-... so basicly we still know nothing (if/when/how the Xbox 360 will or will not get HDMI)
* For testing they go to big home-theatre stores early in the morning and test the device will all systems available in the store.
* Price of the addon? They don't want to tell yet ... but they said it'll be, without a doubt, the cheapest HD-DVD you can buy! (I'm guessing they are referring to TV HD-DVD players and not HD-DVD PC drives here ... so that means it'll be below the 500usd Toshiba player)
* Addon will be "very affordable option to opt-in, check it out with not a lot of risk and we're not betting our whole console on an unproven media format" (PS3 Slam)
* Early HD-DVD players take a long time to boot-up. What about the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Addon? "We're doing a lot better" (background laughing)
Download the whole podcast on majornelson.com
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
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