Looks like there's not gonna be much HD support for movies on the Xbox. AT most u'll be getting 480p probably with dvds. Too bad they can't support the next gen format. Also the Included harddrive is probably too small to host any HD Movies. Usually they take up like 20 gigs.
Don't you Need a special HD DVD to get HD dvd's?
Don't you Need a special HD DVD to get HD dvd's?
Technically yes. A DVD only hold 4.7gigs worth of information single layered. Much more space is needed to have a movie in HD. Hence why sony is moving on past DVD for the ps3 with blu ray.
A progressive scan DVD player will display 480p (enhanced definition), but most of us with HDTVs know that doesnt cut it (or atleast imo). You can buy DVD players that upconvert the signal to 720p/1080i. While that gets the job done, its not as high quality as real HD. I am hoping the MS makes the 360 upconvert DVD for people that will be entering the HD market because of next gen gaming.
The DVDs will be dual layer as is already standard on Xbox, and under WMV9 you can get a 90 minute 720p movie on a single DVD. Microsoft has several samples of such available for purchase under the Windows Media HD section of their site. It's mostly documentaries with lots of nature footage and other stuff to show off the resolution.
I haven't seen a specific announcement yet for the Xbox 360 VPU but ATI has indicated they plan to support WMV9 acceleration in future chips and may have included that in the Xbox 360 chip. (Such acceleration can also serve similar codecs like MPEG-4 and H.264.) A likely alternative will be to install a suitable optical drive in your PC and stream the compressed video over the network to be decoded and displayed by the 360. This lets them offer HD video support as part of their Media Center Extender support.