Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player
I decided to get the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on this week, since the price came down to $50 in the wake of Blu-Ray’s victory over HD-DVD. So far, I’m impressed with the picture quality and the menu system that pops up while the movie is still playing – that’s pretty neat. (Dumb moment during setup that I must share: I popped the install disc into the HD-DVD drive, which made a loud noise and claimed it couldn’t be read. Then it dawned on me: of course it can’t be read, the 360 doesn’t know how to use this drive yet, that’s why there’s an INSTALL DISC. Durrrrr.)
Blu-Ray fanboys are pretty funny, by the way. “But HD-DVD is obsolete!” Really? I must have been imagining that I was watching King Kong in HD last night. Figment of my freakin’ imagination, that’s for sure. Look, HD-DVD didn’t magically stop working just because eight movie studios decreed that “the market” (read: themselves) decided that Blu-Ray was better. Fact: $400, plus $30 per movie, is too much for me to pay. $50 for an HD-DVD player with a ton of clearanced movies for less than $15… now you’re talking. My add-on will work fine until combo players become cheap enough, or Blu-Ray becomes cheap enough and I rip my HD-DVDs and re-burn to Blu-Ray. It’s 50 lousy bucks, there’s not a whole lot of risk here.
However, I reserve the right to change my opinion if the HD-DVD player blows up my house or says mean things about my mom. THEN the gloves are off.
