The HD News & Technology Thread!

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 18 Jan 2007, 17:54

Unrealnils wrote:is an optical hd-dvd rom cheaper then a standalone player ?

Most certainly, the Xbox HD-DVD addon is only about £120.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 18 Jan 2007, 22:38

Unrealnils wrote:is an optical hd-dvd rom cheaper then a standalone player ?

I'd say so. I think you can get them for under 200 notes.

LG are bringing out a DVD Writer/HD-DVD Player/BD Player Combo PC drive. I don't like watching films on my PC personally.

Unrealnils · Post by **Unrealnils** » 19 Jan 2007, 13:41

I will have to go down that route i think as im loving hi-def stuff, as for me my pc can handle hi-def stuff so much cheaper then getting a new telly (plus i rent)

Lourdes wrote: Most certainly, the Xbox HD-DVD addon is only about £120.

opps i sold my 360 to fund my new monitor

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 19 Jan 2007, 13:58

You can use the 360 add-on with a PC as a drive.

Unrealnils · Post by **Unrealnils** » 19 Jan 2007, 19:13

You what, that sounds awesome any links to this , thanks

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 19 Jan 2007, 19:34

Take your pick:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?&hl=en&q ... a%20driver

Download the Toshiba drive, plug it in, direct it to that driver. Win.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 Jan 2007, 20:40

It's not official of course but who cares it works. It's just a standard USB connection AFAIK.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 19 Jan 2007, 21:02

What's not 'official' about it? It's just a USB drive, native on Vista, legit drivers for XP. Obviously meant for dual-use like this else there are all sorts of ways whch would make it 360 specific.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 Jan 2007, 21:32

Lourdes wrote:What's not 'official' about it?

Only in that MS haven't officially stated you can do this. That's all I meant.

I haven’t been able to locate any HD-DVD playback software, so it’s still not clear if it will work for playing movies. I assume it will just take the proper software/drivers.

You'd think MS would provide HD-DVD support in Vista. What a massive oversight.

EDIT: Ah I see what's happening. XP has never had proper UDF support which is causes exactly the same problems for DVD-Ram. You need drivers installed. Vista is fully UDF compliant hence it works.

Good to see HD-DVD at least uses UDF instead of the ancient ISO.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 20 Jan 2007, 09:16

bradavon wrote:You'd think MS would provide HD-DVD support in Vista. What a massive oversight.

EDIT: Ah I see what's happening. XP has never had proper UDF support which is causes exactly the same problems for DVD-Ram. You need drivers installed. Vista is fully UDF compliant hence it works.

Good to see HD-DVD at least uses UDF instead of the ancient ISO.

They don't provide an MPEG2 decoder in XP/WMP, why would they provie an MPEG2/AVC one in Vista?

XP had no UDF support for the inbuilt CD writing, I queued things up then wrote tracks, that's all. That's all. It read UDF just fine, all DVD-Video is UDF you know...

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 20 Jan 2007, 12:41

Lourdes wrote:They don't provide an MPEG2 decoder in XP/WMP, why would they provie an MPEG2/AVC one in Vista?

True but it should, especially when MS are so behind HD-DVD.

It just needs PowerDVD to release drivers and hey presto.

Lourdes wrote:XP had no UDF support for the inbuilt CD writing, I queued things up then wrote tracks, that's all. That's all. It read UDF just fine, all DVD-Video is UDF you know...

There is more than one version of UDF. Clearly XP doesn't support the version the 360 Addon uses/HD-DVD uses otherwise it would work natively.

XP is unable to write to DVD-Ram in UDF only FAT32 which is absurdly slow with DVD-Ram discs. You need to install some crud like Nero InCD or install Panasonic (or the like) drivers to be able to format in Windows. I've used ripped Panasonic drivers on my LG (they work) and it now works as it should. Drag and drop in Explorer.

DVD-Ram is great, pity it never really took off outside the computing world.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 20 Jan 2007, 13:54

Why would Cyberlink release drivers, for what? Do you mean a softare version that support HD-DVD/BD like those that have been out for months already?

HD-DVD is UDF2.5 I believe. XP is 2.01, the previous version. XP does have proper UDF support, it just didn't do UDF writing.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 20 Jan 2007, 14:39

Lourdes wrote:Why would Cyberlink release drivers, for what? Do you mean a softare version that support HD-DVD/BD like those that have been out for months already?

Which use drivers to work? How do you think K-Lite Codec Pack etc... has managed to get hold of MPEG2 drivers from PowerDVD.

But yes exactly they're out so just install PowerDVD on to Vista and hey presto.

Lourdes wrote:HD-DVD is UDF2.5 I believe. XP is 2.01, the previous version. XP does have proper UDF support, it just didn't do UDF writing.

And thankfully Vista does as the Panasonic drivers I'm running under XP are unlikely to work in Vista.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 20 Jan 2007, 14:48

DirectShow or internal filters != drivers.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Jan 2007, 21:17

BD now cracked too: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p ... post939873

Source: http://www.theimportforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=7738

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 22 Jan 2007, 22:31

This is just the same thing as HD-DVD. They find the AACS volume keys in memory then the applications acts like a player for the key exchange and then and copies the structure.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Jan 2007, 23:00

It worked for Serenity

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 23 Jan 2007, 00:29

According to Don May Jr., Sony charges royalties PER DISC pressed to publishers, while HD-DVD charges none at all. So likely smaller independent studios (eg Genius Products only putting out HD-DVDs thus far.) won't support Blu-ray out of the sheer cost and especially since authoring HD format discs (either format) are astromonically in the first place.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Jan 2007, 01:52

HD-DVD you can also use existing DVD hardware with a small overhead to make it support HD-DVD. This isn't possible with BD.

Genius Products are a small outfit? I still say none of this means HD-DVD will win.

Unrealnils · Post by **Unrealnils** » 23 Jan 2007, 09:56

blue rays future is tied with the ps3. i reckon

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 23 Jan 2007, 13:33

bradavon wrote:Genius Products are a small outfit?

Yes, duh.

I still say none of this means HD-DVD will win.

Never implied that it would. Just some interesting facts that I wanted to share.

You're very sensitive over your precious Sony, get over it.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Jan 2007, 19:25

Fair enough.

Nope not precious I just find it odd the whole Web it seems is precious over HD-DVD just because Sony is behind BD. Like I said I'll be getting a Combo sooner or later.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 Jan 2007, 23:05

Hacker who broke HD-DVD and BD gets interviewed: http://www.slyck.com/story1390.html

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 24 Jan 2007, 23:57

bradavon wrote:Hacker who broke HD-DVD and BD gets interviewed: http://www.slyck.com/story1390.html

Good read. 8)

"If you can play it, you can decrypt it!" is the most important part.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 25 Jan 2007, 10:12

I realized that things where "unbalanced" by having just one format cracked, so I did Blu-ray too.

I love that guy.