Digital Home Thoughts: Hands on With the Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive

"Steel yourself for a shock, but the HD DVD drive was actually looking like it was just going to be a regular 5.25-inch HD DVD drive slapped in a 360-styled external enclosure. Now that you've collected yourself after that bit of hysteria, we can tell you the (non-functional) drive itself had only a power plug (which looked to be of the variety that runs to the wall, no adapter required), a mini USB host port for connecting to the 360, two full USB ports for the device to otherwise act as a USB hub, and a spot for your 360 WiFi adapter to latch on the back since it could possibly be displaced by the use of the rear USB port to get this thing running on the console."



Unfortunately the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive that Engadget got to look at was only a non-functioning prototype, but it looks cool nonetheless. Now that we've seen the hardware, how about a look at the software implementation? I know that the 360 has some aspect ratio problems with DVD playback, and I'm sincerely hoping that they address these issues with an update before the HD DVD drive is released. How do you guys feel about being given the option of buying a high-def drive for movie playback on the 360, versus being forced to pay for the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 (whether you want it or not)?