Hi-Def DVD

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endlesszeal

Senior Member
For those who are looking to use their current rigs to watch HD-media better get ready to pony up for upgrades or get a whole new system.

With the xbox 360 HD-DVD player hooked up to a PC with an Intel Core Extreme X6800 ($1k+ cpu) and 2GB of RAM, it used an average of 30.8 - 56.5% of the CPU~! Its even worst with the blue-ray system, averaging 66.6% and maxing out at 88.33!! However, using the 8800GTX ($500+) video card and hardware accelartion it drops to 17.7-40.1% and 40.6-59.4% respectively.

Watching HD-Media is so strenous that they recommend only using a Intel E6600 ($300+) processor or higher. That must be paired with a good graphics card, preferably the 8800series from Nvidia which cost $450+.

Finally, putting this into prospective, about 1 yr ago, the fastest processor avaliable was the AMD FX-62 (2.8ghz) for $980. This is easily eclipsed by the Intel E6600. So basically any 1 year or older will be struggling with HD and forget about using anything single-core.

Now aren't you glad you waited for the 8800 cards like I said B?

Oh yeah the HD-DVD drive cost only $200 while the Blu-Ray drive cost $500+, but the HD is only a ROm and not a burner like the Blu-Ray.

HD-DVD:
AnandTech: HD-DVD Playback - On the Xbox 360 & on NVIDIA GPUs
Blu-Ray:
AnandTech: HD Video Playback: H.264 Blu-ray on the PC
CPU War:
AnandTech: Intel's Core 2 Extreme & Core 2 Duo: The Empire Strikes Back
 
So basically, just like CD's and CDR's when they came out - and like ALL technology:

Wait till the shit is cheap and works.
 
Meh, DVD is good enough quality for me, I don't really care about having higher def. video. I also don't have the $$ to build a new computer....well I do, its just that the money is reserved for suspension and tires.
 
it didnt take too long for computers to adapt to cd and dvd rom, but it seems like hd will take a while because the sheer resource hog it is. i remember both cd and dvd roms came out and computers were quickly able to adapt relatively fast probably due to that fact that it was the starting of the mhz war and cpus were getting crazy fast crasy fast. haha.

hd-dvd is another beast because even todays 1000 cpu is having a hard time with it and within the next year or the fastest thing might be amd's k8l which is supposedly 20-30% faster than core which means instead of 80% loads itll be 60%, which is still a lot. of course there is quad core which should had hd with no problems but thats still out of reach for many consumers, so im speaking for adaption in mainstream because no everyone can afford 2000+ computers.

but yeah, unless u have shit loads of money id wait too.
 
it makes no sense to me to hook up my computer with either of these. 17" or 50".... i think im' going to watch movies in my home theater, not on my laptop.
 
I use the HD-DVD drive for my 360. I can see it in 1080p using my hdmi cable. Well worth the cost of 600 bucks to see films in HD. The drive is 200 bucks but it comes with an all in one remote worth $30 and a dvd of king king that i think is 34.95, so it is definatly a good deal.

I wonder how they got the drivers to work on the pc?
 
If the Xbox360 is anything like the old one, its basically a PC with special protection software. Xbox in the modder communities "unlock" retail HDD to replace the 8gb ones in the unit therefore have the ability to save a lot of games on it. It even uses IDE ribbon cables for connection.

So with this in mind, it wouldnt be that difficult to create or hack a driver to support the drive on an xbox. Hell it seems like if there is a hdd, you can put linux on it. So anything is possible.
 
pissedoffsol said:
there's already a linux distro floating around made especially for the ps3
yellowdog or some shit
Click to expand...

That is correct. Linux for the PS3 was out before the PS3 was out :D It's neat to see eight penguins on your screen, I'll tell ya that.

I imagine that it won't be long before there are dedicated hardware decoder cards designed to remove the load off of your CPU when playing high def video streams. They had the same thing for standard DVD videos back when your system would choke playing those. Give it some time.

Personally I'm waiting for HD capture cards to drop below the four digit range. MythHD... that's the ticket!
 
endlesszeal said:
If the Xbox360 is anything like the old one, its basically a PC with special protection software. Xbox in the modder communities "unlock" retail HDD to replace the 8gb ones in the unit therefore have the ability to save a lot of games on it. It even uses IDE ribbon cables for connection.

So with this in mind, it wouldnt be that difficult to create or hack a driver to support the drive on an xbox. Hell it seems like if there is a hdd, you can put linux on it. So anything is possible.
Click to expand...

As an aside, there's a trick to unlocking the X360. Basically you rip out the DVD drive and flash its firmware. After that you can play all the imports and legally backed up games you wish ;) From there, Linux isn't too far away.
 
But beware. Flashing any firmware, unofficial or official can brick your shit. Ask the lucky xbox 360 owners who flashed with ms' official release not to long ago.
 
endlesszeal said:
But beware. Flashing any firmware, unofficial or official can brick your shit. Ask the lucky xbox 360 owners who flashed with ms' official release not to long ago.
Click to expand...

Same thing happened with the PSP with the release of 3.01

The one good thing about doing the 360 trick is it doesn't flash the Xbox itself. You have to plug the DVD drive into your PC in order to make this trick work. I'd trust that a bit more than flashing an entire console where the updates have been known to brick the damn thing.
 
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