quote

I'm giving my 360 a proper going over getting ready for the official Ars review, and one thing we haven't talked about yet on the journals is the DVD player. Unlike the first Xbox, the 360 will play DVDs right out of the box, and the wireless controllers make a handy remote if you don't have the premium pack.

I've thrown a few discs at it, with mixed results. The good news is that it is a progressive scan DVD player, and so far it has played every burned DVD I've thrown at it. The bad news is the video quality just isn't that great. On Episode 3 it looked decent, but my Samsung progressive player blew it out of the water. On other discs I noticed so very apparent dithering and artifacts in the black areas of the screen.

While it's a nice bonus, don't expect this to replace a good DVD player in your home theater.

Damn! I use the DVD player on the Xbox a lot! Because its the only one I can use 24/7!

Yeah I do too, I really don't like using my PC but if it is a big difference then who knows.

Perhaps you new HD TV will save you partly though?

Well I'll tell you. I would not go hanging my hat on one review from some guy from who knows where. I would be very interested in what some of the pro reviews say about the DVD quality before I go writing the 360 off as a high end DVD player. The truth is that I would seriously expect that this unit should play DVD's as good as the best units out there. If not, then Microsoft REALLY *bleep*ed up!

Played Batman Returns or Begins or what the hell ever on my Xbox 360 and it looked saweet.

Well it is progressive scan which probably means it plays them better than your current XBOX DVD player.

It probably means it scans the data on the disk like 5-10 seconds before it actually is outputted through the T.V. So it can have time to interpret the data longer or something.

Progresive scan means it updates all the lines on the screen instead of just every other line on the screen resulting in smoother more fluid video. The term for the every other line of updating the lines is Interlaced.

Hence, 1080p (progressive) and 1080i (interlaced). XBOX360 doesn't support 1080p though, just 1080i and 720p and 720i.

quote ChiroVette

Well I'll tell you. I would not go hanging my hat on one review from some guy from who knows where. I would be very interested in what some of the pro reviews say about the DVD quality before I go writing the 360 off as a high end DVD player. The truth is that I would seriously expect that this unit should play DVD's as good as the best units out there. If not, then Microsoft REALLY *bleep*ed up!

Well, I don't really watch too many DVDs anyway, and if I do, a slight visual difference won't matter to me. It probably plays fine anyway.