The Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive :

When the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on drive was first announced I questioned how good of a job it would be able to do. Typically these sort of things don’t instill the highest amount of confidence in me, but I was still curious and eager to see how it would perform. After the drive launched, I had a hard time hunting down credible or consistent opinions on the peripheral, so just after the holidays I decided to pick one up and see for myself if the drive was worth the $199.99 price tag. For a reference point, I tested the drive on a 27″ Samsung 1080i HDTV and on a Mitsubishi 65″ 1080i HDTV while using component cables for video and an optical cable for sound.

After hooking up the drive and running the mandatory Xbox 360 dashboard update (which took about 2 minutes), I was ready to drop my first disc into the drive. Along with the drive I picked up Batman Begins, Superman Returns, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and King Kong (free with the drive). My fingers shook with anticipation as I placed Batman Begins into the disc tray to take it for a test run. The result was simply stunning. The drive was producing HD content that was superior to what you get with HDTV broadcasts and my wife and I were blown away. The sound quality through the drive was great, but due to output restraints, the drive won’t be capable of TrueHD sound either now or in the future. Still, with a good receiver, there’s nothing wrong with DTS sound.

Over the next few days we quickly went through our HD-DVD collection and are already itching for more. At $199.99 I couldn’t be happier with the drive’s performance. It’s always risky being an early adopter with new technologies, but at such a low price I don’t feel like it’s much of a gamble. If you have an HDTV and an Xbox 360, the HD-DVD add-on drive is worth a look. Even though the drive can’t output 1080p because it lacks an HDMI port, the 1080i or 720p signal you get will be enough to knock your socks off on a good TV set. Be warned, however. Once you start watching movies in HD, you’ll soon be spoiled and longing for the days when all movies are available in this format.