one and only 360 HD-DVD Drive thread & LINKS - Page 71

the actual 360 also has a DVD drive, thus the difference in upconversion results. The add-on is indeed just a transport.

I believe there's a download you can burn a CD from for updates.

Is there any news of a forthcoming free software program to play HD-DVD's with this 360 addon over the computer?

Or is the cheapest way still to buy a program like Power DVD Ultra?

Sorry if this has been brought up before but I am a bit confused and need some help.

1. I want to confirm but DTS and WMA are going to sound softer than DD 5.1 right? I have a Pioneer 94TXH and when I change the setting in the HD-DVD addon to anything other than DD 5.1 there is a noticeable drop off in volume.

2. What exactly is the advantage of WMA vs DTS? I know both are 1.5Mbs so there is less compression over DD 5.1 but what is better. Most AVRs apparently do not handle WMA but the Pioneers happen to do this so I don't know whether I should use WMA vs DTS?

And how does all of these menus interact?

For instance, we have DD 5.1, DD stereo, and WMA on the top Xbox dashboard. Then we have DD 5.1, DTS, and WMA on the step-down HD-DVD drive menu. Finally, we have the audio options on the audio menu on the HD-DVD disc itself. Do I need to match up all of them or will one take precedence or what? Suppose I choose DTS on the disc menu but choose WMA on the HD-DVD player and DD 5.1 on the dashboard. What happens?

It's all a bit confusing so I'd appreciate any clarifications on this.

Thanks for your time

Dennis

Okay, I'll try to explain this.

The settings in your Xbox 360 Dashboard's audio options (the "System" blade) affect game and standard DVD playback. Select WMA if your receiver supports it, which it sounds like it does.

The settings you can pull up while watching an HD DVD affect how the Xbox outputs the information it's getting from the disc. Since the Xbox 360 isn't capable of outputting the Lossless audio, it has to downmix the audio codec (TrueHD, Dolby Digital+, whatever) and choose a new method to output. Select DTS, unless your receiver supports WMA Pro....which it does....in which case you select WMA Pro.

Finally, the HD DVD's own menu with audio selections. Here you can select either standard Dolby Digital, or Dolby TrueHD, or DD+, or whatever. Select the highest option available, TrueHD if its there or whatever else...anything is better than standard Dolby Digital. Your Xbox will take that audio signal and downconvert it to DTS or WMA Pro, depending on what you selected in step 2.

Hope that helps!

why should we choose wma?

I have a pioneer 515 avr have choosen wma in the xbox360 settings expecting a little light to come on in the avr but it never did.

I don't know if this is the right place to put this or not, but I was in a Game Stop yesterday and the store employee said that the 360 was possibly going to be adding a Blu-Ray player that could be hooked up to the 360 kind of like the HD player. Has anyone heard anything about this or was she just blowing smoke?

Thanks and sorry if this is in the wrong place.

Microsoft has denied this, but.......they have denied things in the past that has materialized. I doubt we will see anything soon.

Good thread, still going through most of it. I'm getting an HD set soon (around Black Friday) and the 360 HD DVD player is the cheapest way to get a nice 1080p source.
But for regular DVDs, is the player good for upscaling -I'll be using a 1080p set. I keep reading mixed reviews, with people either liking it or not.

For the current prices, this is an awesome deal.

All upscaling is done by the Xbox, not the HD-DVD drive. So you'll get the same upscaling with a DVD inserted into either player. So if you don't plan on buying HD-DVD disks (which aren't made any longer) then don't get this add-on.

As far as the quality of the upscaling, it's unfortunately not very good. One of the most noticable problems is the handling of jaggies. (Sorry, I forget the technical term. I've got a disk from HPQ that clearly shows the problem.) I keep hoping that Microsoft will issue a software update that makes this a great upscaling product.

and you'll only get 1080p with a vga cable

You can get 1080p with HMDI, and on some TVs (not Sony XBRs) you can get 1080p with component. Why do you say VGA only?

I thought the xbox hd drive only gave 1080p with the vga and 1080i with component for movies. Not sure about hdmi.

I know games will do 1080p with component.

sorry for the confusion.

I used to have component and "only" got 1080i on movies. So when I got a new Xbox I made sure to get an HDMI version so that I could get 1080p. Of course I doubt I can tell the difference, but I like to think that it matters.

Hmmm, I didn't know the 360 did any upscaling on DVDs, thanks for the info.

I do plan on getting some HD DVD movies (they're hella cheap now), so the HD DVD drive will be the cheapest way for me to get on the HD movie bandwagon (not including whatever HD selection Comcast decides to implement).

And re. HDMI and 1080p, it is correct, you do get 1080p via HDMI.

My problem is that I can't tell if the 360 does the upscaling any better than my TV. I know it "should" be able to do better because it's got the horsepower, and I keep hoping for a magic software update from Microsoft that will put it on par with higher-end upscaling DVD players.

Hey guys, I actually tried the search ("PC connect") but either my search skills suck, or there hasn't been a discussion on this: how do you connect it to a PC? Keep in mind I haven't got the drive yet, but I'm just wondering this after reading some of this thread.

BTW, I should get my drive next week or so, as long as Ike stays out of the way.

Can you get lossless audio with the 360 add on via hdmi? Say you have everything hooked up by hdmi would the hd dvd add on play lossless audio at 1080p or not?

Sorry but no.

Is Microsoft still providing the update through Xbox Live for the Addon? I recently bought an Elite, hooked up my older Addon, played a HD DVD but was never prompted an update? Or is the updated tied to the Add on itself and not the system?

Not 5.1 or more multichannel with the XBOX 360 player, rather it can only do lossless stereo.

This is a copy of a post I placed in the Samsung DLP Owners thread. Hoping someone here has additional info.

Help me with XBOX 360 connection

I picked up my 67A750 from BestBuy on Friday (much like Halyconjedi, got them to match CC's price and 3 year 0% interest).
I replaced a Sammy 720P DLP model 6163W. I connected all my components similarly to how they had been on the old set:
Dish Network HD-DVR - HDMI 1
PS3 - HDMI 2 (DVI on old set which only had 1 HDMI port)
XBOX 360 - VGA port
Wii - Component 1
DVD recorder - Component 2

When I tested the 360, I got an onscreen message "Mode not supported".
I moved the 360 to the HDMI3/DVi port and it worked fine. i didn't see any seettings in the Xbox 360 itself that might resolve the issue. I tried lowering the resolution, but it had no effect.
now, using the 360's HDMI port, requires removing the VGA cable from it, which removes the attached optical audio port. (I have all my components running audio directly to my Pioneer THX receiver). I moved the optical out to the Sammy TV, but I understand that this only supplies 2.1 audio the the receiver. The other option would be to get a component cable for the 360 with optical audio out, (taking out the DVD recorder or moving it to a different port).

so, my questions are:
Has anyone had success running this set with an XBOX 360 via VGa port? and if so, how?
Will the component connection support 1080P HD-DVD's through my 360?
(Samsung live support says yes, but i want that conformed by the REAL experts here).

HD-DVD's will only play at 1080i with component. Sorry can't answer the other questions.
Video Games will do 1080p.

Ive got a slight problem with my add-on (may be the 360, dont know). I bought it the day it was released and used it a LOT as it was my only HD DVD player until I bought a XA2 earlier this year. Never had one problem with it except for a couple combo discs acting up but that was expected.

Anyways, I recently hooked it back up a few days ago after putting it up back in January because I may be selling my XA2 and some of my HD DVDs. My 360 is a Premium 20GB unit that is hooked up via component to my Onkyo 705 then goes out HDMI to my 60" Kuro. It was hooked up to the 705 last year so I know that can't be the problem. The issue Im having is seeing quite a bit of 'judder' during playback. Ive only tried out two discs since hooking it back up (Transformers and The Matrix) and it is really noticeable. Any ideas as to what may be causing this now?

Thanks!

Is your firmware up to date? If your xbox is connected to the Internet, it should update automatically.

I have the 360 HDDVD add-on. Whenever I select TrueHD in the disc menu (right now I'm watching the Matrix Revolutions) I do NOT get an indicator for TrueHD. I only get the Dolby 5.1. I have set the HDDVD audio options to all the different options and cannot get it to display.

Does anyone have experience with this and have suggestions on how to set up the HDDVD and the Onkyo for the best sound?

the 360 HD DVD addon can only output DD or DTS no matter what you select for the movie to output. The 360 will internally decode the TrueHD and re-encode it to DD or DTS depending on what you set the HD DVD player settings to be.

Thanks!

Does anybody got a XBOX 360 HD DVD drive with a firmware version different from MC08?

Question, if I have an Xbox 360 with hdmi, will it send Dolby Truehd to a connected receiver? Or does it down mix everything to DTS or DD?

No TrueHD, only DTS/DD.