Hacking XBox 360 HD-DVD To Play On XP

Dan writes, "The XBox 360's affordable HD-DVD, with the help of some custom drivers and a specific player, has been hacked to work with any Windows XP machine. This may have created the cheapest HD-DVD player on the market to date."

Comments

/.'d before /.'ing?

[RingDev]

Wow, the link is dead before the article is even up.

-Rick

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[chowdy]

microsoft got to it first!!

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[thejrwr]

haha well thats the /. effect at its finest

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now at least, we can be sure nobody RTFA!

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[monkeySauce]

cache link for the lazy and ununiformed:

http://uneasysilence.com.nyud.net:8090/archive/200 6/11/8303/

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[eldepeche]

Cache link appears to be /.'ed.

Re:/.'d before /.'ing?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

I'll say it again. MANY, MANY, MANY people read this at work. Firewalls prevent us from accessing port 8090. This system is stupid.

DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[thejrwr]

Tho, To me ive seen more Blu-ray discs being sold then DVD-HD discs, tho i only watch the discovery channel now of days

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[gstoddart]

Tho, To me ive seen more Blu-ray discs being sold then DVD-HD discs, tho i only watch the discovery channel now of days

Man, you sound like the anti-Baysian stuff I see at the bottom of spam nowadays.

(laugh, it's a joke ;-)

Cheers

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[thejrwr]

I'm only 10 years old, my grammer is not the best yet,

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[thejrwr]

haha got to love the mod system on ./

    40% Flamebait
    30% Insightful
    30% Overrated

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

(Thats just my view tho)

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm only 10 years old...

Which means you obviously get out a lot to stores that'd have BluRay and HD-DVD titles. Y'know, some places put them way up on the third or fourth shelf, so you may not have been able to see them...

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my... you shouldn't be on slashdot yet then... this place will rot your brain. The first thing to remember is that, more often than not, the views expressed here are not related to the real world in any way.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[thejrwr]

no, but i was mostly looking for DVD ads and such, i browse the internet ALOT too, and i noticed ALOT more blu-ray ads then HD-DVD, tho some times they would offer both

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[jonnythan]

HD DVD discs are outselling Blu-Ray discs by a large margin, at least at Amazon.

http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

The price of a player has to sting though, they should have called it "sting ray" and then I would have bought one just out of respect for ridding us of that irritating Irwin fella.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Go outside. Play baseball with your friends or something. There's plenty of time later to be introverted and browse slashdot all day, hating the government. Though before then, perhaps you should learn that marketing does not necessarily equal sales.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

A few comments:

"A lot" is two words.
"Tho" should be spelled "though."
"Sometimes" is one word.
"I" should be capitalized.
Every word that begins a sentence should be capitalized.

It's ok to be a dumb kid, but you don't want to grow up to be a dumb adult, so work on that grammar/spelling.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

*BSD is for People who Love *nix; Linux is for People who Hate Windows

Alternative: BSD is for People who have old hardware. Linux is for people who want their hardware to work.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[orasio]

In Korea, only old dying people use BSD.
Netcraft confirms it.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[gstoddart]

I'm only 10 years old, my grammer is not the best yet,

Well, hopefully she'll get better over time. :-P

(If you are 10, or working on your grammar, I do sincerely apologize, the openings are just too sweet to resist. ;-)

Cheers

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[ystar]

dumb kid? browsing /. at 10 (even if it's just for ps3 info - there's still some exposure to the rest of the tech world) probably means this kid is tech-savvy enough to trounce a lot of the adults I know (and, i'm afraid, with better spelling too). ps dude, i go to sucky old harvard (pleeeease don't consider this showing off, that would be like gloating about being incarcerated) and i don't even meet folks here that would correct us "young adults" with the callousness you seem to be coming off with (which i'll give you the benefit of the doubt over, as sometimes it's hard to infer tone from the interweb), but even if you're annoyed by a kid, wouldn't you feel worse if you made his or her day bad by acting upon that emotion? cmon, nobody wants to ruin a kid's day.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[popeye9000]

Actually, HD DVD outsells Blu-Ray about 11 to 1, according the Amazon.com stats. Toshiba reports that brick and mortar stores favor HD DVD over Blu-Ray by at least 3 to 1.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

He/She is not 10. Not by a long shot...
Here's from the forum that he/she links to:
http://www.wulfram.com/uprof.php?mode=view&user=60 494
And after a little googling, http://woodysroom.com/nucleus/ can be found. The posts are rather thin, but would a 10 year old be getting up to ride a bus alone at 4AM? And then bitch about the student network running slow?
Now, this could just be a coincidence, but there are similar misspellings ("ALOT", together, in caps) between the posts here and the posts on the site. This guy is just a tool.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[whimmel]

You probably shouldn't be telling the world how you can't resist the sweet openings of a 10 year old.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

There is a lot more to being a smart adult or even a smart kid than simple technical savvy. Around here, that's just a minimum baseline.

Re:DVD-HD or Blu-ray

[JunkmanUK]

ooh - low blow... and there's me with no mod points :)

it's all in the pricing

[ILuvRamen]

this certainly proves that the players can and should be a lot cheaper because the hardware required doesn't cost too much. And clearly the maker of the drive for the 360 could be selling them to PC users if they took the time to write a driver. Why don't they? I bet Microsoft is behind it somehow with an exclusivity contract or whatever. But really, what's the point since I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD. So yay you can watch HD-DVDs but they won't look a whole lot better, right?

Re:it's all in the pricing

[thejrwr]

no, but its good for ripping the movies, i can see the flood of HD-DVDs on p2p and bt even now

Re:it's all in the pricing

[FLEB]

This certainly proves that the players can and should be a lot cheaper because the hardware required doesn't cost too much.

Not necessarily. They're likely subsidizing the cost of the box with licensing from the games. Since a generic HD-DVD doesn't have that lock-in, generic vendors need to recoup all cost in the sale of the unit.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Kenja]

"I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD"

You've never seen a computer able to display 1920x1080?

Re:it's all in the pricing

[The Warlock]

Lots of computer monitors can display 720p, and some of the more high-end ones can display 1080p. After all, 720p is just 1280x720 resolution. Computers have been doing better than that for quite some time (although it's a big step above the 640x480 that a standard def TV does).

Re:it's all in the pricing

[UnknowingFool]

Like all things Xbox, MS is taking a loss in order to gain market share. That's the only way MS thinks that it can take on Sony which in already entrenched. If Xbox was a separate company, it would have gone bankrupt by now. All in all, Xbox has lost $4+ billion for MS.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Donniedarkness]

You must, however, remember that Microsoft sales the consoles at a loss.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[jdcope]

Doesnt matter...the DRM will "dumb it down" anyway, unless you have a true digital HDMI connection. Then it looks just like regular DVD. So whats the point?

Re:it's all in the pricing

[The-Bus]

Well, full HD is 1920x1080. Not too many monitors have that resolution natively. But once you get a 1280x1024 resolution monitor, you can display 720p resolution material natively. You may be able to scale 1080P content down to your monitor's resolution. While 720P is not ideal, there is a remarkable difference. If you already have the monitor, this is the cheapest solution to watch HD movies on disc.

Or, it's a $200 solution to for a HTPC. With HD DVD players occasionally available in the US $360-$400 range, I'd opt for the player myself although an HTPC can have its advantages.

My understanding is that more manufacturers (besides Toshiba) will be making HD DVD players and I would expect such announcements to come out in January for CES. "Budget" Chinese players in the sub $300 range wouldn't be out of the question, in my mind.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[aaronl]

I have an eight year old CRT that I bought for $350 that will do 1080p. I also have a laptop that will do better (1920x1200) on a 15.1", and a standalone 20" LCD panels that will do that same resolution. You can pick up quite a few rather high quality LCD panels that will do 1920x1200 for around $400. Quite a few of my friends also have panels that are capable of 1080p, as well.

Of course, none of us really intend to buy an HD-DVD drive, or a Blu-Ray drive, or any commercial HD content for quite a while. The reasons for this are very simple: DRM and a format war.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[jonnythan]

There are a lot of monitors that are HDCP compatible.

I have one.

The other trick is more having a graphics card that is HDCP compatible. Those are hard to come by, but most of the newer ones are.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[MBraynard]

What evidence do you have that the HD-DVD player is being sold at a loss?

A lot of components needed for HD-dvd are not included in that player but are off-loaded to the 360/PC.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[nsayer]

Well, full HD is 1920x1080. Not too many monitors have that resolution natively.

Here's one (actually, two: the 30" and the 23" one), and another, and another.

I'd say that HD capable computer monitors are not all that difficult to find.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[ILuvRamen]

well, since I'm sure this will be a story here eventually, I'll just post it now.
OMG! The internet as a whole is going to crash and burn and we're all going to have to live in trees and eat berries and nuts because the 110% of internet traffic that's bittorent traffic is now carrying even larger HD resolution movie files! AHHH!!

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Lord Apathy]

I'm not sure it's even good for that. The content is encrypted differently than what is on a standard DVD so the current flock of rippers won't be able to rip them. I'm not even sure that there are some HD rippers in the works or what there status is.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Malc]

My Sony 19" G400 monitor from the year 2000 officially goes to 1800x1440. That's HD. It can 720p. It's just a little shy of 1080i/p, but then it's the wrong aspect ratio anyway.

From my personal experience, a Dell 2407 does HD. Not a bad price either. The controller chip has problems with a 1080 signal though, even though it supports the resolution. The recent BenQ FP241W can do 1080p, but it doesn't do 1:1 pixel mapping, and unfortunately stretches 16:9 1080p image to 16:10. Sounds like a firmware issue to me. These are popular affordable computer monitors. There are definitely computer monitors that can do this, unless you're living in a cave.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[tricorn]

24" iMac ($1,999) is 1920x1200; so is the 23" Apple display ($999) (and, of course, the 30" Apple display ($1,999) can do 2560x1600, where a 1920x1080 image is only taking up 50% of the screen). You're right, though, that most "widescreen" computer monitors go up to only 1680x1050. Then again, most "HD" TVs don't do a full 1920x1080, either, only the higher-end ones.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Lumpy]

But really, what's the point since I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD.

Huh? my 19" LCD computer monitor at home can, hell the Dell Laptop I have can. Have you been in a concentration camp for the past 2-3 years?

Re:it's all in the pricing

[ILuvRamen]

I can crank this monitor up to 3000 and something pixels by whatever and it will actually display on the monitor but just because it can display it like that doesn't mean it's actually displaying it in that quality. You need to check on how many pixels the monitor itself is actually displaying regardless of the resolution. That's why I haven't seen many actual HD monitors that show every pixels, not just display big resolutions. I think it's due to the fact that most HD LCD TV's are like 30+ inches so they can make each pixel bigger. When you try to fit that many pixels into a 17" area for example, they have to be so small and thus expensive that it's really not worth it.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[HTH NE1]

But really, what's the point since I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD.

I run a 21" Apple Studio Display VGA CRT at 2048x1536 (QXGA) as my primary display at home which exceeds the 1920x1080 resolution of HD, which is as high as my KVM switch will support.

Though it seems with the definition of HD resolutions, I find that displays much greater than them now demand premium prices, and you can't get much bigger (2560x1600 16:10 WQXGA (dual-link DVI)) without going multi-head. See the wiki page on display resolution

Re:it's all in the pricing

[MaWeiTao]

I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD.

You mean unlike the iMac I have sitting at home which runs at 1920x1200? My PC is running two monitors at 2560x1024 and does so with no problem. And that's one of countless displays that support resolutions that high, if not higher.

People talk like HD is something new, but PCs have supported those resolutions for years. It's not like everything is going to jump to 1080p any time soon anyway, the focus will likely be on 720p for a while, which isn't a high resolution at all as far as PCs are concerned.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Malc]

It's not HDMI that's the issue, it's HDCP. The Dell 2407 monitor does HDCP over DVI. You can even connect a BD or HD player to it from their HDMI output via a HDMI->DVI adapter. The BenQ FP241W supports HDCP over both it's HDMI & DVI ports.

I don't get your point about it looking like a "regular DVD" if you have a "true digital HDMI connection". I'm even sure what you mean by the latter.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[spathi-wa]

the BenQ will only stretch the image if driven by an HD device directly. Using software to drive the display should allow the user to letterbox the output and get 1:1 pixel mapping, I guess.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Malc]

Why would you even want a 17" monitor that can display 1920 pixels across? I have a three year old Dell laptop that I run at 1280x800 because I get too much eye strain running it at it's native resolution of 1920x1200. In fact, why you even want a 17" display - other than my laptop screen, I haven't used anything smaller than 19" for 7 or 8 years. I don't know where you're looking, but there are a lot of sub 30" LCD screens that handle 1080p just fine. I don't think size is an issue here either, otherwise how was my Dell laptop affordable three years ago?

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Malc]

Yes correct. I do think it makes their "mulitmedia" label a little tenuous as it requires use with a computer to working properly. It's still an awesome monitor, but it's not meeting the expectations of some people who are trying to plug in set top boxes and game consoles. Why have HDMI, component, RCA, etc if they were only planning to support computers? Multiple of each DVI and analogue D-Sub connectors would have been sufficient, and more useful.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see a lot of HD content on p2p but they all come from HDTV sources, check the nfos...
There's no HD disc rips at the moment.

Anyway you can find plenty of hd-dvd and blue ray drives for PC, there's no need to buy a microsoft product to get your hands on a pc-compatible toshiba drive, heck, high-end laptops even have them built-in.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[evilviper]

(although it's a big step above the 640x480 that a standard def TV does).

Standard TV is 720x480 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[DaEMoN128]

normal tv isnt 640x480, I believe it is 320×200 and 640×200 on NTSC and 320×256 and 640×256 on PAL.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Firehed]

At this point, I don't think it matters. Movies with the ICT enabled won't be out until 2010 or so, and it's the ICT (image constraint token) that forces it to down-res the movie if a full HDCP signal chain can't occur. While I haven't tested it and have no intent to do so, I'm fairly sure that as long as the ICT isn't enabled, there's no need at all for HDCP-compliant equipment.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[h4x0r-3l337]

Anyway you can find plenty of hd-dvd and blue ray drives for PC,

Are you sure about that? I just spent some time looking, and the only one I could find was the $750 Sony Blu Ray drive. It appears there are no other PC drives for sale at this time, other than as part of a complete system.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Sureshot324]

Also a big reason HD-DVD drives are so expensive is it simply takes a lot of horsepower to play HD-DVDs. HD-DVD drives actually have pretty powerfull processors. With the HD-DVD addon all the video processing is done by the xbox360 itself.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

A three year old laptop that has a display that does 1920x1200? I find that rather hard to believe...

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Rosonowski]

I'm typing this comment from an even older dell inspirion 8200 that does 1600x1200 @ 15", so his claim doesn't sound that far out there to me.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[The-Bus]

Point taken. Granted though, that the person looking to save $150 on an HD DVD player probably did not spend $800 or $2000 on a monitor.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Dare nMc]

According to

conventional (analog) broadcast TV (US) is 270 × 480
a svhs could get to 400 × 480
since a dvd is 704 × 480 you must need a upsampling dvd player to get the most out of it even today.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[Malc]

Dell Precision M60. I remember finding it hard to believe that nobody was shipping standalone monitors that could do a decent resolution at a decent price when these Dells had such high res. screen.

Re:it's all in the pricing

[jdcope]

The way I understood it, is that not all HDMI connections will support HD content. Especially those on older equipment. So a lot of people will buy new HD DVD or BlueRay players, and they will not get the "full deal" even thought their monitor/TV will support the resolution.

I also thought XP will not support HD content at all, and Vista only will thru DRM.

If I am wrong, please 'splain...

Re:it's all in the pricing

[-noefordeg-]

For the record, my Dell 30" does 2560x1600 and watching HD-movies on it, is pretty cool in a geeky way =P

er, n/m it's back now (nt)

[RingDev]

no text.

199$ is cheap?

[Kenja]

Given that there are a number of IDE & SATA drives hitting the market for under 150$ I guess I just dont see what the big deal is.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you care to point them out? Not trying to be snarky as I'd be very interested in SATA HD-DVD drive for my HTPC. Especially for south of $150.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[Kenja]

Well, its a bit delayed but NEC has one comming out this year for 120$.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/29/snag-an-nec-hd- dvd-drive-for-just-120/

Re:199$ is cheap?

[ookabooka]

"Given that there are a number of IDE & SATA drives hitting the market for under 150$ I guess I just dont see what the big deal is."

Yeah, because blockbuster is definately gonna be renting out SATA drives soon. . .The reason why it is worth it is because the media will be worth pennies (if that). Say you wanted to store x gigaquads of data (I love the word gigaquads, yes I know it's meaningless). Would you buy zillions of SATA hard drives or 1 hd-dvd burner drive, and zillions of discs. They are apples and oranges, you cant really compare them like that.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[MrWim]

boh!

Re:199$ is cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

... what?

You, um, do realize that SATA and IDE aren't synonymous with "hard drive" right? The poster is referring to SATA and IDE HD-DVD drives. And I've never heard of _anyone_ renting a disk drive at Blockbuster, so I guess I'm not sure what the hell you're even talking about.

If we're talking about apples and oranges, you're talking about friggin' carrots or something...

Re:199$ is cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't mean SATA hard drives, he means SATA HD-DVD drives.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[camperdave]

Yeah! Try returning that XBOX360 to Blockbuster without its DVD drive. You'll wind up paying far more than $199, I'll bet.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

um, you do know the xbox 360 hd-dvd drive doesn't burn hd-dvds right?

Re:199$ is cheap?

[h4x0r-3l337]

Uhm, that's about some guy selling one (1!) unit on eBay for $120 back in March. It says nothing about that being the regular price for this drive, and I still don't see this drive available in any stores.

Re:199$ is cheap?

[funkdancer]

Ditto that. I've had a look for HDDVD players for putting together a HTPC to play HDDVDs on my Viera 50PV60A, but so far zilch, nill, de nada, ingenting, nothing, keines.

Astounding

[hal2814]

Someone got a USB device to work on a computer with USB ports! What will they think of next? Can we have a new word that means what "hack" used to mean?

Re:Astounding

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah its called poser... I find most people with the knowledge to be be called "hackers" really hate the term... its thrown around too much and instantly drops credibility when attached to someone. seriously we should just drop its use entirely. let the media have it already..

SS

Re:Astounding

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote for Freln.
Usage:
I frelned
I am frelning
I will freln

Re:Astounding

[aiken_d]

USB is an electrical interface, with some standard logical extensions. There are these things called "drivers" that are needed to get devices to work, if those drivers aren't built into the underlying OS. A USB plug in itself does not mean compatibility -- if you have any doubt of this, run down to a local computer store and look at all of the USB peripherals that specify what platforms and operating systems they will work with.

A "hack" is generally accepted to mean a clever approach to achieving something by bending the rules; by using things in ways they weren't intended; or by coming up with a more clever approach than what was previously accepted.

Now that you know all of that, I'm you'll agree that getting an HD-DVD drive that was intended for use on an xbox 360 to work on Windows does indeed qualify as a "hack." I hope this clears things up for you!

-b

Re:Astounding

[hal2814]

They took a device that was already hardware-compatible with a PC, found (not built, found) drivers to work with it, and called it a hack. You can call searching for drivers a hack if you want to but I don't buy into that definition. I lost the floppy disks for an old video card once and had to find drivers that didn't exactly match but were good enough. Was that a hack too? Not in my book.

Re:Astounding

[dascandy]

How about calling these guys Plug&Play-ians or such?

I remember the time when you had to manually configure DMA channels, IRQ lines and ports... Those were the days!

Re:Astounding

[ClosedSource]

I disagree. Using USB for any kind of communication with devices is standard use. If you used a USB port to directly recharge a car battery or something equally unusual, that would be a hack.

Re:Astounding

[tcg2k5]

qoute "The XBox 360's affordable HD-DVD, with the help of some custom drivers and a specific player, has been hacked to work with any Windows XP machine."

It does not say they found them or if they designed these drivers themselves.

Application available to public

[Skaber]

Xboxhacker forums has links that points directly to the files. http://localhostr.com/files/c46c39057dc3fbe73d9f.r ar Xboxhacker points out that there is currently no available PC player for hddvd, so all you get is access to the dvd content.

Re:Application available to public

[CerebusUS]

Xboxhacker points out that there is currently no available PC player for hddvd

This is the part everyone is missing. Allowing the USB HD-DVD drive to work on your PC buys you absolutely nothing at the moment. The importnat parts are all done in software on the 360.

Re:Application available to public

[Red Flayer]

This is the part everyone is missing. Allowing the USB HD-DVD drive to work on your PC buys you absolutely nothing at the moment.

This is the part that you're missing... this allows you to play HD-DVDs on your PC... since there are no PC HD-DVD players, this is a new capability.

As to

The importnat parts are all done in software on the 360.

Well, of course, unless you intend to watch a HD-DVD movie. The point isn't the games, it's the other HD-DVD content.

Re:Application available to public

[masteroffm]

actually with the nvidia purevideo codec and the right drivers playback for blu-ray and hd-dvd is currently available http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_hd.html

Re:Application available to public

[CerebusUS]

No, see you missed it again.

this allows you to play HD-DVDs on your PC

The only HD DVD content there is right now? Movies. There's NO software available for your PC to play those movies. So you can hook up the drive, you can access the drive, you can look at the data structure on an HD-DVD movie, but you can't actually play the movie that's there.

When you buy this device, it comes with an installation disc for your 360. That installation disc loads the software HD-DVD player onto your 360... the drive itself doesn't know anything about how to play those movies. Hooking this drive up to your PC will not let watch that HD-DVD King Kong movie you rented from netflix.

Clearer?

Re:Application available to public

[sycotic]

*sheesh* RTFA dude, they discuss what software will play HD-DVD content ;)

Re:Application available to public

[Red Flayer]

No driver, got it... thanks.

Re:Application available to public

[Malc]

How long do you think it's going to be before there are software players on the market? Not long.

Clearer?

Re:Application available to public

[Rakishi]

Uh, RTFA? WinDVD 8 seems to play HD-DVDs just fine.

Re:Application available to public

[PsychicX]

Um, what? If we take a look at the blog linked in the post (emphasis mine):

Knowing there was already software available for Windows XP to play HD-DVD's, could simply plugging the HD-DVD drive into a PC work? Well, no Windows needs drivers.

If Windows wants drivers, drivers it will get. After installing these drivers magic started to happen. The HD-DVD drive was now recognized in Windows XP. Now we needed a piece of software to actually play the HD-DVD. And after some hard work we managed to find a version of WinDVD 8 that was able to play an HD-DVD movie even on my low end hardware (Granted with some stuttering).

So it's an honest to god HD-DVD player.

Re:Application available to public

[ben there...]

Come on. HD-DVD (like Blu-Ray) supports MPEG-2 (DVD-format), MPEG-4 H.264 (Quicktime is one example), and VC-1 (WMP).

Which of those formats do you believe there is not a player for?

Re:Application available to public

[PorkNutz]

No, you don't got it.

There are drivers that work, but there is no HD-DVD player software available yet to let you watch the movie that is stored on the disc.

Some peoples children... I swear!

Re:Application available to public

[Anonymous Coward]

Games? no no no, Microsoft have stated that there will never be HD-DVD games on the 360. Why? Look how friggin easy the thing is to hack via simple USB :P nobody'd every buy their games and they'd lose more billions than the original XBox ever did.

Re:Application available to public

[Ash-Fox]

Which of those formats do you believe there is not a player for?

The content protection technology specified by AACS LA (Advanced Access Content System License Authority). Which will be used on commercialized HD-DVDs.

Re:Application available to public

[XSforMe]

"Allowing the USB HD-DVD drive to work on your PC buys you absolutely nothing"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't HD-DVD content supposed to work only under "sanctioned" devices? I mean, they even went as far as creating the HDMI interface to allow such content to project under "approved" devices.

Doesn't this hack gets us closer to being able to extract whatever content is in those discs? Sure, we still need lots of tinkering to figure out the mapping of the drives and a ripper to extract such contents , but alas, the hardware is there and it is even on the cheap!

So where do I ....

[Lumpy]

get a copy of BluRayDecryptor or anyBluRay or BluRayShrink?

I would love to take the main movie and convert it into a nice HD mpeg4 for mediaportal system.

Re:So where do I ....

[srk2040]

HD-DVD is not bluray, HD-DVD is just more layer on top of existing DVD format. I believe Microsoft was backing HD-DVD while Sony was backing bluray.

Re:So where do I ....

[twistedsymphony]

You're right that HD-DVD is not Blu-Ray but HD-DVD is also not "just more layer on top of existing DVD format"

HD-DVD uses a blue laser just like Blu-Ray, the Video discs uses the same codecs as Blu-Ray. The biggest differences is the location of the data layer in the plastic substrate. Blu-Ray's is located closer to the edge with only a .1mm protective layer of of the substrate while HD-DVD is the same distance as traditional DVDs with .6mm of protective layer. being closer to the edge allows Blu-Ray's laser to view the data layer at a higher resolution and thus they can squeeze more data in there per layer. But with a thinner layer of substrate it leaves the disc more prone to physical damage which can also lead to lower production yields.

HD-DVD has more in common with Blu-Ray then it does with DVD...

uneazysilence.com was winner...

[Anonymous Coward]

...most prophetic slashdotted domain name of 2006.

Hardly surprising, really

[Samir Gupta]

The site paints this to be a cool hack that MS never intended, but really, Microsoft may have always intended for this to happen officially in the future. They already officially support Xbox 360 controller use on Windows, for instance and have released drivers. This is the logical next step.

Really, it's part of their strategy to converge the 360 and Windows gaming worlds together... witness the recent reorganization into a single games division, for instance.

Re:Hardly surprising, really

[gEvil (beta)]

I have a hunch that if this were to happen, it would only be supported under Vista.

Re:Hardly surprising, really

[eemerton]

I agree. Microsoft knew this thing would work on a PC. This is Microsoft pushing the HD-DVD platform. With Sony having their drive built into the PS3, it's awfully tempting to just buy Microsoft's external player.

Re:Hardly surprising, really

[Monsuco]

Really, it's part of their strategy to converge the 360 and Windows gaming worlds together... witness the recent reorganization into a single games division, for instance.

The one thing I dont get about that is, if the 360 and Windows were supposed to have similar games, why use PPC processors in the 360?

Re:Hardly surprising, really

[rabiddeity]

They already officially support Xbox 360 controller use on Windows, for instance and have released drivers.

Almost, but not quite. MS started plugging their new "XInput" standard to replace DirectInput; it's apparently used internally in the X360 to handle controller and microphone input. The DirectInput drivers they released are deliberately very limited; they don't support force feedback and they have limited shoulder button functionality. The "easy" solution for MS is just to demand that everyone just use XInput, or code in both DirectInput AND XInput support. But at present, I'm not aware of a PC controller manufacturer that has released XInput drivers, meaning the first option isn't at all viable. And the second is quite cumbersome. (The actual solution is 3rd party drivers, a messy fix.) Why would MS make life harder on developers? Why else, but to merge the markets.

On the whole, I think MS releasing the X360 controller into the Windows gamer market is an aggressive stance toward PC game developers. Basically they're saying, either make your games XInput compatible (and one step closer to X360 compatible), or else get tons of tech support calls from X360 controller owners wondering why their "Windows compatible" controller doesn't work. We can guess which direction most large game houses will take.

Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Yvan256]

This may have created the cheapest HD-DVD player on the market to date.

Excuse me, but last time I checked, a computer running Windows XP wasn't free. Some people have Macs, others have PCs running Linux/BSD/etc.

Saying that it's the cheapest HD-DVD player because you can hack it to work with a PC running Windows XP is as stupid as saying it's the cheapest HD-DVD player because you only have to connect it to your Xbox 360.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is generally assumed that possessing an XP system is a given, much like that you breathe air or eat food. Imagine someone touting "the cheapest food on Earth" and you're like "excuse me, some of us are fed intravenously".

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Control Group]

This is a fair point, and you're certainly not wrong. But I think there's some value in the comment, since I'm pretty sure the penetration of computers running XP is three orders of magnitude higher than the penetration of the XBox 360.

So, yes, it's only cheapest if you already own a PC running XP, but that includes an awful lot of people - most of whom don't have 360. So, for them, it could be the cheapest HD-DVD player available.

Nonetheless, you're right; presenting it as an absolute statement is poor logic.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

A computer may not be free, but together with one of these Xbox HD-DVD drives, it can still be significantly cheaper than your average home theater setup and an HD-DVD player.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[tokul]

You don't need xbox in order to buy xbox hd-dvd player.

It is USB drive.

Mac recognized it and was able to play DVD content.

Once you have HD-DVD player program for Mac, Mac should play HD-DVD content just fine.

They haven't tested xbox hd-dvd player on Linux or BSD yet, but I suspect that it will work on Linux and BSD.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[HTH NE1]

Once you have HD-DVD player program for Mac, Mac should play HD-DVD content just fine.

Any chance a Mac with Final Cut Studio or just the latest DVD Studio Pro, capable of authoring high-definition DVDs would be able to play movies from this device?

Are these drives (and an HD-DVD movie) rentable so I can test this myself?

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Yvan256]

I'm afraid it's even more complicated than "Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD". In both cases, AFAIK, there's 3 officially supported CODECs: some version/type of Windows Media, MPEG-2 and H.264.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[evilviper]

Some people have Macs, others have PCs running Linux/BSD/etc.

Who said it only works on Windows? That's just what they used in TFA.

The drive was properly recognised by Mac OSX, but a HD-DVD player simply wasn't known/available.

So, if anything, this just gives motivation for some people to start working on cracking the AACS DRM, so it can work under OS X/Linux/BSD.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[Yvan256]

Who said it only works on Windows? That's just what they used in TFA. The drive was properly recognised by Mac OSX, but a HD-DVD player simply wasn't known/available.

I'm sorry but the two sentences written by "Dan" only said:
"The XBox 360's affordable HD-DVD, with the help of some custom drivers and a specific player, has been hacked to work with any Windows XP machine. This may have created the cheapest HD-DVD player on the market to date."

So, his "hacked to work with any Windows XP machine" blurb was misleading, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was mislead by this.

And no, I didn't read TFA. We're on Slashdot.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[StikyPad]

It was recognized automatically on the Mac as well. If you're running Linux, you probably have a copy of XP. There may be 1 or 2 people who don't, but they're the exceptions. And of course, if you don't have any form of PC, then no, this wouldn't apply to you, although -- and this is purely anecdotal -- I haven't noticed a lot of people without computers reading Slashdot.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player? What?

[dfghjk]

The news isn't that it's a USB device. The news is that software already exists that allows XP to support playing HD DVDs.

"Once you have HD-DVD player program for Mac, Mac should play HD-DVD content just fine."

You're really going out on a limb there. Once HD-DVD is supported, you think it will be supported?

"Mac recognized it and was able to play DVD content."

Think I'll test that when mine arrives.

I Can See The Interest In This...

[Real World Stuff]

But I prefer to watch HD movies on my HD television. Movies on my windows box are usually run in the background while I do other things. Now with a media center PC I can send movies to the 360, and one could use the HD-DVD to do that function. But, why not just hook it to the 360 anyway?

All in all I'm a fan of any opportunity to have low cost hardware available because an OEM is willing to take a loss.

Re:I Can See The Interest In This...

[Slashcrap]

But I prefer to watch HD movies on my HD television. Movies on my windows box are usually run in the background while I do other things. Now with a media center PC I can send movies to the 360, and one could use the HD-DVD to do that function. But, why not just hook it to the 360 anyway?

I too long for that wonderous day, undoubtedly far in the future, when PC graphics cards with TV outputs are finally invented.

Re:I Can See The Interest In This...

[Real World Stuff]

My apologies, I should have clarified... you know... little words, etc...
I prefer watching HD movies on my Panasonic 42" Plasma High Definition Television while sitting on my couch, most likely jerking off, versus watching a 17" Dell LCD monitor while sitting at my computer. Less likely to mung up the keyboard. You know, with the jizz. Damn that Tom Cruise and his lusty smile. Gauging from your posts you know EXACTLY what I mean.

Re:I Can See The Interest In This...

[Slashcrap]

My apologies, I should have clarified... you know... little words, etc...

Dude, you don't need to apologise for me making fun of you.

I feel all guilty now.

Wait, was that some kind of reverse psychology shit? Have I just been trolled?

You sick bastard!

I kid, I kid.

Still dead

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

It's returning a 404 error that the article can't be found. Either Micro$oft got to 'em before Slashdot could or they moved the article to avoid killing their server.

Pick one

[jbeaupre]

http://dict.die.net/hack/

The first entry might just be what you were looking for.

Fight the power!

[pfz]

Be free to do what you want with what you own! It's almost as if Microsoft thinks people will ignore good harware at a low price just because of some silly software. All hail the original X-Box hacker bunnie and his badass book, Hacking the XBox...

check him out in the documentary:
ALTERNATIVE FREEDOM:
a documentary about the invisible war on culture:
features:
Lawrence Lessig
Richard Stallman
DJ Danger Mouse (of the Grey Album and Gnarls Barkley)
doseone
and more...

http://alternativefreedom.org/

Re:Fight the power!

[rivetgeek]

Gee thanks for spamming slashdot, retard.

Re:Fight the power!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes some freedom, the trailer requires Quicktime. Is it just flag waving?

Not really news

[skyman8081]

There was a post on AVS Forum by a member who works at MS not too long ago about using the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive on a PC. His reply that It isn't supported only in the sense that MS didn't test it for the PC, but there was nothing specifically being done to prevent it being used on a PC. So I'm really not surprised that it is being done this quickly to be perfectly honest.

Mac Support?

[tji]

The article mentioned that it was recognized as a valid USB device (no surprise there), and the DVD Player.app started up when they inserted a DVD. But, there was no app able to play a Blue-Ray disc.

BR DVD playback would make an excellent addition to my core duo Mac Mini HTPC.. I wonder if MacOS 10.5 (Leopard) will have Blue Ray support?

Re:Mac Support?

[Yvan256]

This is an external HD-DVD USB drive, not an external Blu-Ray USB drive.

Re:Mac Support?

[Sepodati]

This is /. and look at the confusion. Can you imagine mom and dad going to the store in a few months and trying to figure this crap out. The Best Buy and Circuit City salesmen are going to have fun... :)

---John Holmes...

XP, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that this wasn't done on a linux box. It'd be : a) cheaper, and b) cooler. Now M$ will just throw a sock in the works to fuck it up, somehow.

  http://lyricslist.com/

No doubt MSFT will "patch" against it

[lawaetf1]

Since I'm sure the EULA prohibits one from tampering with the hardware of the X360, I'm sure M$ will patch XP to disable any such hack. Get it to work on Linux though... /didn't RTFA, can't.

Re:No doubt MSFT will "patch" against it

[uhlume]

Doubtful, since this doesn't require any modification of the hardware. Microsoft already officially supports this sort of "tampering" with other XBox 360 peripherals (they even provide Win98 drivers for the 360 controller, with XP support out of the box) so it'd be at least moderately surprising if they turned around on this one.

Re:No doubt MSFT will "patch" against it

[lawaetf1]

True... but I guess what strikes as me improbable is that I believe M$ originally sold the X-BOX at a loss to gain market share (and hopefully make the money back in games). I don't know if that's the case for the 360 but if people are buying a share of the hardware on M$ dime, only to rip out the guts for other uses... it doesn't take a bean counter to see a revenue hiccup.

Re:No doubt MSFT will "patch" against it

[Sancho]

Except that allegedly, there's no benefit to the 360 HD-DVD drive for gaming. The sole purpose is so that you can watch HD-DVDs. If Microsoft isn't making their money back on licensing and peripherals (which is how they can sell the 360 at a loss and still end up making a profit). It's unlikely that they're selling the HD-DVD drive at a loss since there is no peripheral market specific to the drive+360, nor will they get revenue from licenses for developing for the drive+360 (because games aren't supposed to use this drive).

It boils down to this: Microsoft is either releasing the drive at a loss to compete with Sony/promote HD-DVD over Bluray, in which case they shouldn't care what people connect the drive to, or they're selling it at a price point where they can make a profit on it, in which case they shouldn't care what people connect the drive to.

working hyperlink

[Virgil Tibbs]

http://uneasysilence.com.nyud.net:8080/archive/200 6/11/8303/

This reply brought to you by 1920x1200

[Anonymous Coward]

1920x1200. Beyond 1920x1080. Less than $1000. You haven't been shopping for a flat panel recently, have you? :P

Agreed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it does save money if you don't want to buy two seperate drives for your Xbox and computer. As someone who will watch HD-DVD on my TV fairly often, but only use HD-DVD on my computer occasionally, this is a nice development.

Was on Hack-a-Day earlier...

[gripen40k]

Couldn't get it to work on there either...

No thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't bother with either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray until we start seeing them thoroughly hacked at the very least.

DRM sucks and I won't put up with it, period.

Why is the drive priced so low?

[speedphreak]

Is the drive priced low to act as a Microsoft subsidized loss-leader to help establish the HD-DVD format. Or, is the hardware really that inexpensive, and the vendors are milking the early adopters for all they're worth?

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[Rico_Suave]

Probably because it's the Xbox 360 itself that's doing most of the heavy lifting. All the HD-DVD add-on has to do is read the raw data off the disc and send it over to the 360 for processing.

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the HD-DVD add-on has to do is read the raw data off the disc and send it over to the 360 for processing.
I believe what you meant to say is 'All the HD-DVD add-on has to do is read the raw (encrypted) data off the disc, encrypt it (again), obfuscated it, flash hand signs to the xbox 360 and get a correct response, then send the bits to the xbox 36.0

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[singingjim]

Electronics have a HUGE markup - especially in the early adoption phase. They try to recoup R & D expenses through outrageous initial pricing. Then their 60-70% markup after prices come down is just profit taking. I used to manage a home electronics store. [/credentials]

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[robaal]

Yeah, H.264 is supposedly very processor-intensive, with the high HD resolutions requiring ~2GHz (P4 or equivalent) CPU to play smoothly.

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[dfsmith]

Define low...

XBox360 + HD-DVD -> $400 + $200
HD-DVD player (Toshiba uses Pentium 4 + Linux) -> $500

Re:Why is the drive priced so low?

[Fauntleroy]

Define low... XBox360 + HD-DVD -> $400 + $200 HD-DVD player (Toshiba uses Pentium 4 + Linux) -> $500 Through that arithmetic, the Xbox360 functionality itself is worth 100$, which in my view is pretty darn cheap.

XBOX "loses" money for Microsoft

[green pizza]

All in all, Xbox has lost $4+ billion for MS.

The XBOX division of Microsoft has lost a lot of money, but it can be argued that XBOX has actually helped Microsoft in the long run.

Think of XBOX as a combination of Marketing and Insurance. By selling the XBOX, Microsoft ensures that their name and their products will be in even more stores and homes. By including Media Center Extender features in XBOX, Microsoft has a better chance of selling the Media Center version of Windows XP. By taking a huge chunk of the game market, Microsoft weakens Sony and Nintendo.

And the big one:

Ensuring a strong Direct X following. Most, if not all, XBOX games use Direct X libraries. There are only two platforms that can use true Direct X: Windows and XBOX. By keeping programmers on Direct X, Microsoft ensures that games will remain on Windows/XBOX and will difficult to port to other consoles and other OSes. The last thing Microsoft wants is developers to begin using cross-platform libraries which could allow for an OS transition sometime in the future. Besides, XBOX simply helps promote Direct X. Think of it: "Use Direct X, easily run your games on the most popular desktop OS and the second most popular game console without a major re-write!".

XBOX has been $4 Billion well spent. Expect iZunes to be a similar venture.

As a side example, consider Firefox vs IE 7. If you find yourself spending a majority of your computing time using Web 2.0 applications via Firefox, why use Windows at all? At that point you may as well just use Linux or FreeBSD to host your Firefox client, no need to spend money on Firefox. However, if your web app only works on IE 7, or works best on IE 7, then you have a soild reason to remain on Windows/IE7 platform.

Can't play BluRay 'cause it is a HD-DVD drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

The BluRay and HD-DVD are different standards... It is a hardware compatibility issue. Have to wait for dual standards drives next year.

As for playing HD-DVD, it is a matter of software.

My current resolution is HD too

[DrYak]

Typing on a 21" DELL 1110P monitor, with resolution 1920 x 1440 @ 80Hz.

The monitor was recovered from my University's trash, and after soldering a resistor it works again as if it was brand new.

So basically, it's a HD-grade monitor I got almost for free (the CRT was from garbage, the resistor was given by a friend. The solder metal is the only thing that cost me actually something).

I could play HD-DVD, I only need to see some patch emerge from the libdecss team or from DVDJon and be integrated into VLC or Xine (some researchers have already reported that the HD-DVD DRM is flawed, as reported previously on slashdot).

Re:My current resolution is HD too

[Malc]

Sounds sweet. I guess it's just a matter of removing the HDCP requirement.

Re:My current resolution is HD too

[tecmec]

Nooo! How dare you! I wish I had never seen that post, I had an old Compaq monitor with, presumably, the same Sony tube with the same brightness problem, but I threw it out :(. I wish I knew the fix was so easy before I got rid of it! lol

They may sell them at a loss...

[Jennifer3000]

But they make it up in volume!

How is this a Hack?

[12Iceman]

From the article it sounds like the guy just plugged the drive in the usb port, installed some drivers, and installed the program needed to play the movie. How is this a hack, it sounds just like installing any other hardware device?

Not really news? Why?

[Vr6dub]

Ohh that's right. EVERYONE reads the AVS forums. Hey people, I've got a boner. Oh sorry, that's not really news...my pants have known about it for a few minutes now. Didn't you get the memo?

Not Clever Enough

[camperdave]

All they did was plug it in and find a driver. They didn't do anything subtly, profoundly, or admirably clever. At best this is a script kiddie wannabe hack.

Enough with the "Funnies" already.

[Anonymous Coward]

In a separate article it's mentioned how the WEB is now "16 years old" and I recall how long I have been reading /. ... Guys, it's seriously going over the hill with this nonsense posts. WAY TOO MANY "funnies" and Off-Topics.

THE ENTIRE idea of the point system is to grade relevance, could you have another category for funnies please? It's really becoming way too tedious. I like slashdot, please do something about it.

Thanks for your attention.

Works fine with WinDVD 8

[Anonymous Coward]

A guy on AVSForum made it play HD DVD with WinDVD 8... the only problem is HDCP protection (the movie plays at 960x540 instead of 1920x1080)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=6f ebe647fb410235f68199f43c81a50a&p=8880622&&#post888 0622

Great Job

[larryboymi]

I own a 360 because I like the capabilities, and I'm a n00b to posting on slashdot, but I think you guys are doing exactly what M$ wants in talking up this capability of 'hacking' the drive to work on XP. This is all about winning the format war anyways, they could give a damn about someone beating their chest for making it more universally accepted.

Re:Not really news? Why?

[iainl]

You might not read the AVS Forums, but most of the serious home theater nerds either do, or follow one of the blogs that reported the post.

In short, if you didn't hear, you probably don't particularly give a shit.

Ununiformed?

[cbiltcliffe]

Is that like, a roundabout way of saying "civilians", or something?

No drivers needed!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This article did the same thing, but without the need to hack anything or install any drivers on the XP system:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=325