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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."
Wow, the link is dead before the article is even up.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
no text.
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
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.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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?
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.
no, but its good for ripping the movies, i can see the flood of HD-DVDs on p2p and bt even now
Man, you sound like the anti-Baysian stuff I see at the bottom of spam nowadays.
(laugh, it's a joke
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...most prophetic slashdotted domain name of 2006.
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.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
"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?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'm only 10 years old, my grammer is not the best yet,
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.
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...
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).
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
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.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
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.
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You must, however, remember that Microsoft sales the consoles at a loss.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
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
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?
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.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
http://dict.die.net/hack/
The first entry might just be what you were looking for.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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.
Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
This is an external HD-DVD USB drive, not an external Blu-Ray USB drive.
HD DVD discs are outselling Blu-Ray discs by a large margin, at least at Amazon.
http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm
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.
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 $400. Quite a few of my friends also have panels that are capable of 1080p, as well.
Of course, none of us really intend to buy an HD-DVD drive, or a Blu-Ray drive, or any commercial HD content for quite a while. The reasons for this are very simple: DRM and a format war.
There are a lot of monitors that are HDCP compatible.
I have one.
The other trick is more having a graphics card that is HDCP compatible. Those are hard to come by, but most of the newer ones are.
A lot of components needed for HD-dvd are not included in that player but are off-loaded to the 360/PC.
Since I'm sure the EULA prohibits one from tampering with the hardware of the X360, I'm sure M$ will patch XP to disable any such hack. Get it to work on Linux though... /didn't RTFA, can't.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
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.
http://uneasysilence.com.nyud.net:8080/archive/200 6/11/8303/
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
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!!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
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.
Couldn't get it to work on there either...
Har?
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.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
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.
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.
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?
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?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Gee thanks for spamming slashdot, retard.
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.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
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
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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.
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.
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.
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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?
Well, hopefully she'll get better over time.
(If you are 10, or working on your grammar, I do sincerely apologize, the openings are just too sweet to resist.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But they make it up in volume!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Standard TV is 720x480 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
normal tv isnt 640x480, I believe it is 320×200 and 640×200 on NTSC and 320×256 and 640×256 on PAL.
Stop signs are only Suggestions
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.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
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.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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.
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.
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...
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.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
You probably shouldn't be telling the world how you can't resist the sweet openings of a 10 year old.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Point taken. Granted though, that the person looking to save $150 on an HD DVD player probably did not spend $800 or $2000 on a monitor.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
According to
conventional (analog) broadcast TV (US) is 270 × 480
a svhs could get to 400 × 480
since a dvd is 704 × 480 you must need a upsampling dvd player to get the most out of it even today.
Dell Precision M60. I remember finding it hard to believe that nobody was shipping standalone monitors that could do a decent resolution at a decent price when these Dells had such high res. screen.
There is a lot more to being a smart adult or even a smart kid than simple technical savvy. Around here, that's just a minimum baseline.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The way I understood it, is that not all HDMI connections will support HD content. Especially those on older equipment. So a lot of people will buy new HD DVD or BlueRay players, and they will not get the "full deal" even thought their monitor/TV will support the resolution.
I also thought XP will not support HD content at all, and Vista only will thru DRM.
If I am wrong, please 'splain...
ooh - low blow... and there's me with no mod points :)
For the record, my Dell 30" does 2560x1600 and watching HD-movies on it, is pretty cool in a geeky way =P
I own a 360 because I like the capabilities, and I'm a n00b to posting on slashdot, but I think you guys are doing exactly what M$ 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.
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.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Is that like, a roundabout way of saying "civilians", or something?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......