Xbox HD DVD drive
Official site Xbox.com has an explanation of the forth-coming and highly anticipated HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360. As we already knew, it is going to be a separate add-on for the console which will use the system’s architecture to power digital surround sound and High Definition outputs. It has also been revealed that it will connect using one of the console’s USB slots.
The release spells out all the advantages that HD DVD has over Blu-ray – basically that it’s a lot cheaper (no arguments there) – but it doesn’t mention how it’s going to get around that pesky HDCP anti-piracy whatnot. I can only assume some kind of firmware upgrade can be used to make the Xbox’s HD output HDCP compliant but if anyone has any brighter ideas I would certainly be interested to hear them.
There are no pics available yet which is a bit of shame. Given the sheer size of current HD DVD players I’ll be interested to see how the HD DVD accessory matches up to the slick design of the 360. It could threaten to detract from the console’s stylish form-factor, something that the PS3, with its incorporated Blu-ray player, will not have to worry about.













From what I understand HDCP cannot be implemented on a system without a HDMI connect. As the XBox 360 currently doesn't have a HDMI connection (yet!) this will be interesting news. Hopefully more info will be revealed on this over the week at the E3 games expo.
Posted by: Andy | May 8, 2006 5:26 PM