Xbox 360 HD DVD Addon -- Works on an HTPC!? - Page 3

You could bring it by my place. I've got the cable and a TV that's HDCP compliant.

I am dying to see this work at full res...

yeah those screens aren't HD. looks exactly what i would expect 540p to look like.

has anyone actually gotten windvd8 to output at 720p or greater? i know of several posters over the past month that were stuck at 540p, even with "older" bd drives.

i still don't think the xbox hd dvd drive works with pcs yet. it's only a matter of software tho so thats a good thing.

hmm, so no 720P or 1080i?

Is anyone actually USING a HDCP link yet (DVI-D w/ HDCP or DVI-D to HDMI), or are all of you using VGA?

madpoet, can you please as well comment on this one from the other forum:

"Update: I was having issues with a few movies last night (King Kong specifically) where it would pause for a split second. I started looking at processes running and removed some software I was not using. After uninstalling my Cyberlink Powerdvd software that came with my Blu-Ray drive, WinDVd would no longer play King Kong. I can only imagine it has to do with the AACS Chris mentioned earlier in this thread. The player still played Van Helsing and a few other HD-DVD's, but not most of my collection.
I am not sure how the Cyberlink software has anything to do with the Intevideo software, but after re-installing it along with the Sony drive Patch King Kong worked again (but still with the same issues stated earlier.)

Just wanted to give you guys the heads up in case you were to try to install the Japanese version alone....
"
So, do we need both, Blue-ray and HD-DVD with PowerDVD and WinDVD to make AACS work ?

Somebody should dissect this puppy and see if it can be connected to PC over SATA or PATA. Volunteers?

I have HDCP monitor plus video card. Whether or not they are correctly talking to each other is another thing. There's no way that I can tell besides what I see in the cyberlink advisor which says my display passes which I assume means that the handshake worked between video card and monitor otherwise how would the program know my monitor was hdcp compliant?

Well then I have hope that it will work correctly once we get proper software. The hardware side of things appears to be working fine. And I assume that we'll get a patch/upgrade for WinDVD in the future to get 1080P.

Nope. No HDCP and you get nothing on the digital input. Downrez has nothing to do with HDCP and has everything to do with ICT. None of the released titles has ICT on. Therefore you get fullrez on the analog input.

Hollywood is a little bit paranoid about the digital output which means no protection=no signal. While you could get fullrez on the analog output, you will get no signal on the digital output without HDCP. Agree on the rest.

Well I'll switch to analog vga and test again, but I doubt it'll make a difference.

I have a question, probably a noob-ish question. Is there any advantage to playing hd-dvds on your computer vs through an xbox? Besides of course being able to back them up and store them. I have a 360 and want to buy the drive. But if there are a certain number of advantages, I'll buy an HDCP card too and hook it up that way.

Well for some the advantage would be not having to buy an XBOX-360. Also, the XBOX only has analog video output if I'm not mistaken, so for those with digital displays and HDMI inputs a true digital signal would be preferred.

Can you backup hd-dvds yet? Is it possible to decrypt their encryption or has that not been done yet?

What I know, nobody hasen't get the Intervideo WinDVD 8 to work in full res. Seems that Intervideo boys aren't interested to doo anything about it. They have been informed.

With BD the only player is PowerDVD 6.6 BD that gives full 1080p resolution.


Yes, it should work perfect with a better player software.

Well, if that is the case: THX for the experiment. But than we don't have a real solution yet, arggggh. I need to buy one of thse Toshiba players instead (I don't want to feed my ruby with 540p instead of 1080p)...

I can't take any credits for this. The BD PC experiments have been done by pteittinen and aarno2815 on the finnish DVDPlaza forum. Pteittinen has 3 different BD capable PC's and he owns Toshibas HD DVD player and Optoma HD81 and have acces to Sony's Ruby. Aarno2815 has also a BD PC, and he has tried out several different hdcp ready Graphics Cards. They have great experience at least at BD, and HD overall.

Thanks for the tip of the hat, Thuppu.

Yes folks, it's useless trying to coax full HD rez out of the WinDVD8 at the moment. The application downrezzes to 960x540 as a safety measure, quite simply because InterVideo does not want to get sued by the AACS LA. They will release an update allowing full HD only when they are 100% certain there's a fully secure HDCP path all the way through. At the moment there's too much uncertainty regarding HDCP-compliant display drivers, I was told.

There are some OEM PCs (like the new Sony Vaios) that ship with a special version of WinDVD8 that allows full HD output. PowerDVD for HD DVD exists, but it's not on sale yet.

Well, that's a bitch. FYI, the answer for me to "why do it" is because I now have a hybrid player that can handle both.

This is great though. Looks like cheap HD-DVD once software players are readily available.

Is the supply of these drives expected to be sufficient for demand? Just wondering if I should pick one up ASAP or wait for software player availability.

Dave G.

They're so cheap I grabbed 2, just to have them. Especially if you can use the Circuit City coupon!

The Sony BD drive actually ended up at $699 from New Egg with a free movie, which wasn't a terrible deal. I burned my first BD movie last night (Band of Brothers Episode 1 and 2 from the HBO caps) and enjoyed it. Good stuff, though it is downrezzed.

What kind of audio can you get out of your HTPC? Can the DVD Decoder decode DD+ or Tru HD and pass it to a soundcard's analog out's? If not, san it pass either of these over HDMI?

Or are you passing DD via SPDIF livke the XBOX 360 does?

has anyone disected the drive yet to see if it's just a regular PC drive? I don't mind it being in an external enclosure, but it's so freakin ugly.

I believe so, but I don't know that it's been confirmed.


Nope, no cards support multichannel PCM over HDMI currently.

The drive has been cracked open. It uses a mini-atapi connector. Article & pics here

LOL! I love it! Now all we need is a cheap BD drive* and we're golden.

Edit:
*and some uncrippled software

Are there any dedicated, PC drives out? If not, will this not effect the price, big time? Or will such drives be HD-DVD writers as well?