A few quick 360 questions

[fish99]

Hi,

Like many people I'm interested in the new HD movie formats, especially since buying a new widescreen TFT (Dell 2007WFP - I know it can't display 1080p btw, but for the puposes of this discussion let's assume I'm going to get a 2407WFP in the future) and viewing lots of HD trailers on it. It seems to me that the cheapest way to get on the HD bandwagon will be the new HD-DVD drive for the 360 which will be around £140 I believe.

I don't have a 360 though, but with stuff like Gear of War starting to appear, I'm quite interested in a 360 for games too.

First thing that occurs to me - no HDMI or DVI leads seem to be available for the 360, just VGA and component, so what happens when films start appearing with content protection enabled?

Second thing - I have enough to get the core package right now @ £200. I'm guessing I can just stick the 20GB HD in this at a later point, pick up the VGA cable, and it won't be any different than the premium pack right? (well apart from the wired controllers which isn't a problem)

Third question - is this a good way into HD movies? The other options - HD-DVD / Blueray PC drive or HD-DVD / Blueray player, or indeed PS3, all seem to cost a lot more, and PS games have never really appealed to me (let's not turn this into a 360/PS3 discussion btw). I know from personal experience that DVD playback on both Xbox and PS2 was pretty poor (colour banding due to software decompression etc) - is the same thing likely with 360 HD-DVD and PS3-BR ?

Thanks in advance for all opinions and info,
Simon.

 

[fish99]

2007WFP doesn't have component sadly, and I hear bad things about the component input on the 2407WFP if I was to get one of those in the future. If anything VGA would be the best option since my PC uses the DVI input at the moment, and I wouldn't want to be swapping cables all the time (if a HDMI cable appeared and there was a HDMI-DVI converter available). Sounds like I shouldn't be worrying about HDCP at the moment anyway.

I hear contradictory reports about the PQ using VGA though, some people saying it has a blue/grey hue, others saying it's fantastic.

The format war thing doesn't worry me too much since I wouldn't be buying a great number of movies and the HD-DVD drive is pretty cheap. If I have to switch to BR a few years down the line that isn't going to bother me too much.

 

[fish99]

If you look around you can get some fantastic deals on the Xbox 360 at the moment. £279.99 with a shed load of extras.

...Don't want the extras? Sell them and bring the cost down to £200

I know you can't tell me the retailer due to competitor rules, but could you tell me what the extras are and whether that was core or premium plz? Cheers

 

[fish99]

Sorry for the confusion, I just meant the offers TomWilko was referring to, not the difference between core and premium. I got the impression he was saying there were some specific offers around at the moment and wanted to know what they consisted of.

Just so I'm absolutely clear about core/premium though - can someone just confim that there's no benefit from premium that can't be gained from getting the HD for the core system? Obviously I'm only referring to benefits that relate specifically to the HD, not stuff like wireless controllers, headsets etc...

It's just I could buy core + game + vga cable right now, and then the HD in a month. I know I couldn't save progress in said game, but I can live with that for a month. I'm not very good at saving up money you see

 

[fish99]

Cheers Tom, I'll check out those places you mention and keep my eyes open

Looks like that's everything I need to know then. Even if the HD-DVD drive turns out to be pants (which would be pretty surprising really) and I didn't get one, I've still got a great new console.

Thanks everyone

 

[fish99]

One last question - will a film typically be released in HD-DVD or BR and not both? Let's say there a film you're particularly after (LOTR triliogy for instance), it'd be pretty dissapointing if it came out only on BR if you had the HD-DVD drive for the 360. Is that the scenario we're likely to see?

 

[fish99]

Ok, cheers