Is it worth buying the XBox 360 HD-DVD Player for $150 if you don;t own a 360? Heard that some PC DVD Software will work with the drive. Was thinking it could be a cheap player for my HTPC.

If you have beefy enough hardware and the necessary video card, then it'd be a good buy.

Is it worth buying the XBox 360 HD-DVD Player for $150 if you don;t own a 360? Heard that some PC DVD Software will work with the drive. Was thinking it could be a cheap player for my HTPC.


Nope.. For less hassle and money a standalone is better.. I have the 360 add-on hooked to my pc..


$200 HD-DVD
$100 PowerDVD
$30 3.5mm to RCA


Right now you can get an standalone with 5 free HD-DVDs cheaper than this..

Just get the standalone hd dvd player. Add-on is only good if you already have an xbox360. You can get a brand new xbox hd dvd player add-on with 3 movies (king-kong and any 2 hd dvd movies) for $199.00. You can also get a toshiba for around $299 with 5 free movies. Your choice.

Yup stand alone is your best bet. Amazon has it for the cheapest, no tax and no charge for shipping, unless you're from Washington. Then you'll be charged tax.

The 360 add-on drive is a great deal provided you already have an Xbox360. Although you can hook it up to a PC, you need a really good machine with a recent video card to play HD. You're probably better off with one of the Toshibas for just a bit more.

actually it's the CPU that matters most. If you have a very new video card, it can provide some H.264 assistance, lowering the CPU utilization. I don't know if the video card will do any VC1 decoding help, though; I think that's all CPU.

Basically a dual core CPU over 2.0Ghz (or 3.2Ghz if you're talking Pentium D) is required if you want smooth HD playback.

A HDCP video card and display are required, too. The software players are SUPPOSED to support VGA, but none do. You can buy a program called "AnyDVD HD" if you want to get around the HDCP requirement, though. The program also lets you back up your HD-DVDs to your hard drive or a HD-DVD burner (when one comes out anyway).

There are 3 options for HD-DVD/BD on the PC as far as players. Cyberlink PowerDVD, WinDVD, and Nero Showtime. I have Showtime because it is a $25 upgrade if you own Nero.

On cost ALONE it's not worth it, because you need PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 ($72 from Newegg, cheaper from other sources) and AnyDVD HD ($70) if your system isn't HDCP compatible.

If you want to use your HTPC, though, it works very well. And the extra software will also work when you add a Blu-Ray drive.

I'd say go for the standalone. The 5 Free HD DVDs easily negates the price difference.