General Discussion

XBOX 360 to get Blu-Ray drive

What do you guys think of this?
With all the recent HD jump-ships, can we take this a HD concession from Microsoft? Or is it more of a case of the "me-too's"

Now i suppose we can start arguing over which system has the better quality connectors :P

Its good to see Microsoft giving its competition money.  Now I totally think a 360 is a PoS console.

This doesn't make me believe that the 360 will have a blu-ray player at any point in time, nor does it say that Microsoft is seriously considering putting a blu-ray player into the 360, only that they could if they really wanted to...In any case, I would welcome a blu-ray player for the 360..while I don't own any blu-ray discs, it would be a nice feature to have available if I wanted it (assuming my 360 breaks again at some point in te future and i get a new one, perhaps with a blu-ray player?)

The 360 hasn't come with HDDVD or blu-ray built in so it doesn't matter, all Microsoft tried to do was support HDDVD by having it as a addon. So tbh i don't see how it makes the 360 a "POS console" lol and it only makes sense for them to make a blu-ray addon drive in the future.

SONY is it's biggest competitor. Therefore I do agree that Microsoft is more likely to support HD-DVD rather than Blue-ray.

Both are two entirely different pieces of software-hardware. Blueray is 1080p and HD-DVD is 1080i. Blueray hardware doesn't even utilize the full features of blueray yet, something like only 60% of the actual blueray capability is used.

Most people still do not have a 1080p HDTV to display blueray, a good market of the HDTV used today are either 720p or 1080i. Also consumer electronics said that over 30% of people who have bought blueray did not own a 1080p display to use the blueray enhanced video 1080p, which is why HD-DVD is still the best and can you really hear all those extra sounds clear enough with blueray over HD-DVD hd sound? No. So why bother with blueray anyway.

I think consumers are the ones in the end to be polarized and blindsided, because they do not research and check the technologies before investing money into them.

So how is the 360 a POS because it doesn't have a blueray addon? Please give me a break.

Originally posted by bezado

Both are two entirely different pieces of software-hardware. Blueray is 1080p and HD-DVD is 1080i. Blueray hardware doesn't even utilize the full features of blueray yet, something like only 60% of the actual blueray capability is used.

Most people still do not have a 1080p HDTV to display blueray, a good market of the HDTV used today are either 720p or 1080i. Also consumer electronics said that over 30% of people who have bought blueray did not own a 1080p display to use the blueray enhanced video 1080p, which is why HD-DVD is still the best and can you really hear all those extra sounds clear enough with blueray over HD-DVD hd sound? No. So why bother with blueray anyway.

I think consumers are the ones in the end to be polarized and blindsided, because they do not research and check the technologies before investing money into them.

So how is the 360 a POS because it doesn't have a blueray addon? Please give me a break.

As for a B-R drive  for the 360 this will only  be a bonus to  360  owners as it will be a cheaper way to obtain blue ray  than buying a new player. 

Originally posted by ramearess

 

Originally posted by bezado

Both are two entirely different pieces of software-hardware. Blueray is 1080p and HD-DVD is 1080i. Blueray hardware doesn't even utilize the full features of blueray yet, something like only 60% of the actual blueray capability is used.

Most people still do not have a 1080p HDTV to display blueray, a good market of the HDTV used today are either 720p or 1080i. Also consumer electronics said that over 30% of people who have bought blueray did not own a 1080p display to use the blueray enhanced video 1080p, which is why HD-DVD is still the best and can you really hear all those extra sounds clear enough with blueray over HD-DVD hd sound? No. So why bother with blueray anyway.

I think consumers are the ones in the end to be polarized and blindsided, because they do not research and check the technologies before investing money into them.

So how is the 360 a POS because it doesn't have a blueray addon? Please give me a break.

you seem to have been mislead there is only one diffrence btween blue-ray and HD-DVD and that is the storage size all the other features are built into the players. you can infact place 1080p Mpeg 2 video on a cd you just wont get much in the way of runtime.

 

 

As for a B-R drive  for the 360 this will only  be a bonus to  360  owners as it will be a cheaper way to obtain blue ray  than buying a new player. 

You seem to be misinformed. Why not learn something instead of making yourself sound like a bestbuy tech who just graduated from the 1hr DVD course. Bluerays sound and video are on the DVD not built into the players. The players themselves are not 100% utilizing the capability of the Blueray technology, AKA the data on the disks. You got the movie and the sound, but blueray also has the ability to switch between scenes to alternate endings and different view angles with the push of a button. Plus the utilization of mass effects that are still not fully functional on the blueray players today. So while Directors are adding these things, expect the technology to start to use these things as players get better.

And who the heck asked about how you could place mpeg2 video to a cd? Didn't you mean to a DVD.

Originally posted by bezado

Both are two entirely different pieces of software-hardware. Blueray is 1080p and HD-DVD is 1080i. Blueray hardware doesn't even utilize the full features of blueray yet, something like only 60% of the actual blueray capability is used.

Most people still do not have a 1080p HDTV to display blueray, a good market of the HDTV used today are either 720p or 1080i. Also consumer electronics said that over 30% of people who have bought blueray did not own a 1080p display to use the blueray enhanced video 1080p, which is why HD-DVD is still the best and can you really hear all those extra sounds clear enough with blueray over HD-DVD hd sound? No. So why bother with blueray anyway.

I think consumers are the ones in the end to be polarized and blindsided, because they do not research and check the technologies before investing money into them.

So how is the 360 a POS because it doesn't have a blueray addon? Please give me a break.

I have to interject here and correct you on a couple of points.

First and foremost: Both Blue Ray and HD DVD format discs display their pictures in 1080p. Period. There is no visual difference in the two disc formats.

Secondly, picture quality (a'la 1080p, 1080i, etc) has absolutely nothing to do with sound quality. A few items are taken into consideration for audio output quality:

Media capabilities. The HD DVD, Blue Ray DVD, regular DVD, or CD you are playing was recorded using what type of sound (linear PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, etc)?

Player capabilities. Is it coponent, HDMI, etc output capable? If it is HDMI, what version (1.3 being the latest)? Each of these output standards, and cables, have their own audio capabilities.

Output device. Your output device, audio system, HDTV, etc have their own audio capabilities and compatibilities as well. You will need to understand them in order to decide how your sound from the whole system will output and be heard.

Blue Ray and HD DVD differences? Well, it certainly isn't picture quality. HD DVD offers double-sided discs (one side HD DVD, the other side regular DVD), whereas Blue Ray does not. Blue Ray has a higher capacity on their discs compared to HD DVD - Although, you are correct in that the space is not all used. Studio support is another difference between the two formats, as it is ever-changing through the format war.

Sony is the major player behind the Blue Ray format, and Microsoft/Toshiba are the major players behind HD DVD. That is why Microsoft supported the optional HD DVD drive and not a Blue Ray drive on their XBox 360. Do they "suck" because of it? I suppose that depends on which format you are buying. The game console, however, is still fully capable of playing games (it's original purpose) just fine without an external drive attached to it.