Add to these woes that it doesn't even have basic functions that we have come to take for granted in a dvd player (such as slow motion, frame by frame steps forward and back,etc). I wouldn't even sell this piece of junk to get part of my money back. I would have to lie in order to get rid of it and I just will not do that.

It skipped it stuck it froze! I had it four hours and it worked for 3 minutes, they wanted me to send it to them so I they could repair, um its a week from Christmas are they nuts!!! Dont waste your time dont waste your money!

Not only that, but now I find out that it isn't capable of true 1080p output?? What a piece of junk... Buyer beware!

Finally i got him to agree that there was no way to fix the problem and he went on to tell me that I HAD to ship the drive back. I was also informed that my warranty was only good for 90 days....since when it legal to give only a 90 day warrarnty on an electronic device? I thought there was a law stating it had to be one year.

If your buying this from AMAZON in hopes of getting the free movies that they say you get, I wouldn't count on it. I ordered this ONLY because of the offer. I got it in the mail and when I tried to get the free movies they stopped the offer.

A bigger issue, in my opinion, is the 360 system noise -- don't worry, it's not that bad, but you'll still notice it. The add on doesn't make any noise, and the 360 doesn't kick on any extra fans so it's as quiet as it can possibly be, but it's not as quiet as a PS3 running it's fans at low speed. Overall, the system's biggest flaw is not being able to choose the function of the eject button on the remote.

I wish I would've known that HD DVD will soon be obselete,but that is fine because I am going to load up on HD DVD's before they are stopped being produced.

Having to download constant updates to make your Microsoft Windows product work properly may be acceptable for an internet connected computer, but a HD-DVD player? This is not acceptable. I do not have my Xbox 360 connected to the internet and it should work properly whether I do so or not.

This means that Deep Color support provided by HDMI 1.3 is probably not supported- but I don't have an Xbox with HDMI so I can't be sure. Finally, it is a bit of a haste switching between HD DVD and the Xbox but... meh not that big of a deal.

First of all, I'm a huge supporter of Blu-Ray. However, I do not want to invest in a Blu Ray player until I'm ready to invest in a PlayStation 3, which, with the current game library, that won't be happening any time soon. It may sound like a waste to some, but with my current setup this is the way for me to go.

it was good while it lasted...too bad amazon probably won't do any promo's for people who bought this product awhile back..in hopes that it would continue to grow...

In the 8 months that I've had it, I've used my 360 more for movies than for games so I guess I wore it out pretty good. If you buy this, try and get an extended warranty beyond the 90 days. Otherwise get a dedicated hd-dvd player (which I'll do next) with an extended warranty.

And if you want to hookup your XP Media Center machine to the 360, you can use the remote with it, too. The only problem I had with the setup was not related to the HD DVD player, but the 360. The USB port on the back of the 360 appears to be either defective or just USB 1.0 because the video was very choppy, although the audio was fine.

The HD DVD player is not noisy at all, but the XBOX 360 is WAY too loud and it seems as though the 360 has to stay on while the dvd player is running. Too bad because I really wanted this to work. I have a fall 2007 XBOX 360 Premium with HDMI.

The only thing I see that is bad with the HD DVD for the Xbox 360 is NO HDMI, and that makes it a little of a hassle because of the changes you have to make with your remotes even with the Harmony Logitech remote, you still have a little bit of a hassle. Now they have a new X Box with the HDMI but it is quite expensive, I don't understand why Microsoft did not just add a HDMI port on the HD DVD? For less then 200.00 still a good deal.

Switch to support Blue Ray only. Effectively signing a death sentence of all HD-DVD players on the basis that now most studies support Blue Ray. Do not buy unless, you have a HD-DVD library you need to support, HD-DVD format gets a reprieve later on (very doubtful), or you just have money to burn and dont care.

Probably not as good as a stand alone player but not bad for the price. I can't have a disk in my 360 and then put a movie in. If I hit eject on the remote it ejects the 360 and not the HD player.

However, early adopters of the 360 that do not have an HDMI enabled port on their Xbox may be annoyed that this player will not allow them to play movies in 1080p. A majority of 1080p TVs today do not allow for 1080p playback via component cables. Instead you'll get playback in 1080i or 720p which is still very good as the differences will be minimal especially on sets that are smaller than 42".

My review isn't about the HD-DVD player itself, but more about the Amazon customer service. I received a faulty HD-DVD player...the Xbox 360 wasn't recognizing the HD-DVD player and the eject button wouldn't even work.

However, drive access seems very slow, perhaps that's just a function of access to HD DVD's, but it is very slow to start up reading HD DVD's. It did serve the purpose for what I bought it for, though, and that was to read and play HD DVD's via my PC. And so for that, it is good, especially for the price.

This means that Deep Color support provided by hdmi 1.3 is probably not supported- but I don't have an Xbox with hdmi so I can't be sure. Finally, it is a bit of a haste switching between HD DVD and the Xbox but... meh not that big of a deal.

The HD DVD player is not noisy at all, but the XBOX 360 is WAY too loud and it seems as though the 360 has to stay on while the dvd player is running. Too bad because I really wanted this to work. I have a fall 2007 XBOX 360 Premium with hdmi.

The only thing I see that is bad with the HD DVD for the Xbox 360 is NO hdmi, and that makes it a little of a hassle because of the changes you have to make with your remotes even with the Harmony Logitech remote, you still have a little bit of a hassle. Now they have a new X Box with the hdmi but it is quite expensive, I don't understand why Microsoft did not just add a hdmi port on the HD DVD? For less then 200.00 still a good deal.

However, early adopters of the 360 that do not have an hdmi enabled port on their Xbox may be annoyed that this player will not allow them to play movies in 1080p. A majority of 1080p TVs today do not allow for 1080p playback via component cables. Instead you'll get playback in 1080i or 720p which is still very good as the differences will be minimal especially on sets that are smaller than 42".

but for now its Dolby only. To my knowledge, this also means that uncompressed sound and other True HD formats are also unsupported at this time. Second, unless you have the new Xbox with hdmi you wont be able to use an hdmi cable with this unit...

I was disapointed to learn that the player does not have and hdmi output, this means that 1080i is the highest resolution, no 1080p. Because of that i just bought a bluray player

If you want to spend your money on something that will be obsolete in a few years go right ahead. The truth is when ICT HD Disc copy protection kicks in a few years it will require a secure HDCP handshake between the player and TV via hdmi 1.3 input. This means you will most likely not be able use this (or any other) external HD-DVD player that doesn't connect directly to a TV in the future.

PS - Remember you only get 1080p with hdmi from the Xbox to the TV...also I bought this three weeks ago and submitted by free movie application at the same time, I am waiting to see how long I will be waiting for the free movies..hopefully not too long....

Second, to get full 1080p you will need hdmi support last I checked. Most newer Xbox360's have these built-in, but even if you have to run at 1080i or 720p, it's still better than DVD's 480p! Overall, this is a solid device, and for those who have a 360 and don't want the hassle of buying a separate standalone player but would rather integrate into their existing system, there is no better way to go then this.

As for the sound, the player does not utilize the Dolby TrueHD surround sound even if you have an hdmi enabled Xbox 360. Because the current hdmi-enabled 360s use the hdmi 1.2 spec instead of the current 1.3 spec, Dolby TrueHD cannot be decoded.

Switch to support Blue Ray only. Effectively signing a death sentence of all HD-DVD players on the basis that now most studies support Blue Ray. Do not buy unless, you have a HD-DVD library you need to support, HD-DVD format gets a reprieve later on (very doubtful), or you just have money to burn and dont care.

That fact has nothing whatsoever to do with this player. Rate it on its picture quality, features, price, whatever but not on the format. Its not like my 30 HD DVD titles are going to self destruct or somehow become VHS quality.

Buying this device right now would be foolish. The news that Warner Brothers is dropping support for HD-DVD and going BluRay exclusive is the death of HD-DVD. You will only be getting about 1/3rd of all movies released on the HD-DVD format.

Right now no format has been chosen (only 2.5% of movie sales are either format) and it seems most likely that the industry is slowly leaning towards a dual format supported world, HD DVD/Blu Ray discs and dual format players.

Without getting into debates as to which hi-def movie format is the better one because that battle will still be going on for a while, I would rather tell you all why I purchased this product.

Why would you buy a player that uses an out of date format? Maybe cause its $50.

picked it up used at Gamecrazy for $39.99. I am only reviewing on here to help unskew all the idiots who are giving it a one due to HD DVDs death as a format.

Works well I did not want to invest more for HD until format wars more defined. I got it for 159.00 which was a bargain

Add to these woes that it doesn't even have basic functions that we have come to take for granted in a dvd player (such as slow motion, frame by frame steps forward and back,etc). I wouldn't even sell this piece of junk to get part of my money back. I would have to lie in order to get rid of it and I just will not do that.

It skipped it stuck it froze! I had it four hours and it worked for 3 minutes, they wanted me to send it to them so I they could repair, um its a week from Christmas are they nuts!!! Dont waste your time dont waste your money!

Switch to support Blue Ray only. Effectively signing a death sentence of all HD-DVD players on the basis that now most studies support Blue Ray. Do not buy unless, you have a HD-DVD library you need to support, HD-DVD format gets a reprieve later on (very doubtful), or you just have money to burn and dont care.

If you want to spend your money on something that will be obsolete in a few years go right ahead. The truth is when ICT HD Disc copy protection kicks in a few years it will require a secure HDCP handshake between the player and TV via HDMI 1.3 input. This means you will most likely not be able use this (or any other) external HD-DVD player that doesn't connect directly to a TV in the future.

If you already have an xBox 360 and spend the money on this over a stand alone, you will not be disappointed.

Even if you want to watch a movie on it that isn't HD it will still make your movie look like it is. Great buy for the money.

i love dvds, i have a ps3 and 360 i got to say after witching same movie on bouth i like HD DVD better, but if i was any one i would not buy one now becasue blu ray has won so save your money and get blu ray player, but if hd had won it would have been better

Probably not as good as a stand alone player but not bad for the price. I can't have a disk in my 360 and then put a movie in. If I hit eject on the remote it ejects the 360 and not the HD player.

However, after watching just one movie my xbox tanked and gave me the red ring of death (3 red leds). I unplugged the power to the xbox, and I managed to get it to work again but intermittently before it failed again. If I tried this with the HD drive disconnected, the xbox was fine.

PS - Remember you only get 1080p with HDMI from the Xbox to the TV...also I bought this three weeks ago and submitted by free movie application at the same time, I am waiting to see how long I will be waiting for the free movies..hopefully not too long....

i started shelling out $20-30 a movie left and right too. After about 2 months i started to have issues with the drive just stopping during play and booting me back to the xbox live dashboard. At first i thought that maybe the disc i was playing was dirty or maybe even the lens was dirty.

Right now no format has been chosen (only 2.5% of movie sales are either format) and it seems most likely that the industry is slowly leaning towards a dual format supported world, HD DVD/Blu Ray discs and dual format players.

Even if you want to watch a movie on it that isn't HD it will still make your movie look like it is. Great buy for the money.

Flipping between an HD-DVD movie and broadcast HD, the broadcast HD looks really fuzzy and blurry in comparison, and the compression artifacts really stand out.

Without getting into debates as to which hi-def movie format is the better one because that battle will still be going on for a while, I would rather tell you all why I purchased this product.

I just received this product today. The reasons why I bought is because of the price (50 bucks) and as a backup HD DVD player. Plus, it comes with a free King Kong movie and it is entitled for 5 free HD DVDs.

i love dvds, i have a ps3 and 360 i got to say after witching same movie on bouth i like HD DVD better, but if i was any one i would not buy one now becasue blu ray has won so save your money and get blu ray player, but if hd had won it would have been better

Finally i got him to agree that there was no way to fix the problem and he went on to tell me that I HAD to ship the drive back. I was also informed that my warranty was only good for 90 days....since when it legal to give only a 90 day warrarnty on an electronic device? I thought there was a law stating it had to be one year.

However, drive access seems very slow, perhaps that's just a function of access to HD DVD's, but it is very slow to start up reading HD DVD's. It did serve the purpose for what I bought it for, though, and that was to read and play HD DVD's via my PC. And so for that, it is good, especially for the price.

I repeated this several time to make sure it really was the HD drive, and looks like it was. So, looks like the HD drive is not compatible with the xbox (nice move MS). So, I'm sending my drive back and I'm just going to buy the stand alone Toshiba HD-A2 drive, which isn't that much more expensive.

However, after watching just one movie my xbox tanked and gave me the red ring of death (3 red leds). I unplugged the power to the xbox, and I managed to get it to work again but intermittently before it failed again. If I tried this with the HD drive disconnected, the xbox was fine.

i started shelling out $20-30 a movie left and right too. After about 2 months i started to have issues with the drive just stopping during play and booting me back to the xbox live dashboard. At first i thought that maybe the disc i was playing was dirty or maybe even the lens was dirty.

Probably not as good as a stand alone player but not bad for the price. I can't have a disk in my 360 and then put a movie in. If I hit eject on the remote it ejects the 360 and not the HD player.

I repeated this several time to make sure it really was the HD drive, and looks like it was. So, looks like the HD drive is not compatible with the xbox (nice move MS). So, I'm sending my drive back and I'm just going to buy the stand alone Toshiba HD-A2 drive, which isn't that much more expensive.

If you already have an xBox 360 and spend the money on this over a stand alone, you will not be disappointed.

A bigger issue, in my opinion, is the 360 system noise -- don't worry, it's not that bad, but you'll still notice it. The add on doesn't make any noise, and the 360 doesn't kick on any extra fans so it's as quiet as it can possibly be, but it's not as quiet as a PS3 running it's fans at low speed. Overall, the system's biggest flaw is not being able to choose the function of the eject button on the remote.

The only real problem is when watching rented HD-DVDs - the system does not stand up very well to even slight scratches or smudges - so make sure you clean them before watching if needed. They can cause the system to hang, or skip until you get past that section and as others have stated, an offset in the audio track usually can be corrected by pausing the system for a few seconds. But, since the laser for HD/Blu-Ray is much more narrow, I'm guessing that is going to be the same for all HD players.

Second, to get full 1080p you will need HDMI support last I checked. Most newer Xbox360's have these built-in, but even if you have to run at 1080i or 720p, it's still better than DVD's 480p! Overall, this is a solid device, and for those who have a 360 and don't want the hassle of buying a separate standalone player but would rather integrate into their existing system, there is no better way to go then this.

And if you want to hookup your XP Media Center machine to the 360, you can use the remote with it, too. The only problem I had with the setup was not related to the HD DVD player, but the 360. The USB port on the back of the 360 appears to be either defective or just USB 1.0 because the video was very choppy, although the audio was fine.

The only real problem is when watching rented HD-DVDs - the system does not stand up very well to even slight scratches or smudges - so make sure you clean them before watching if needed. They can cause the system to hang, or skip until you get past that section and as others have stated, an offset in the audio track usually can be corrected by pausing the system for a few seconds. But, since the laser for HD/Blu-Ray is much more narrow, I'm guessing that is going to be the same for all HD players.

The Xbox is also lacking in its audio support.

I am able to use HDMI with that unit so I can take advantage of standard DVD upconversion and high definition audio. If you decide to go with this player, you won't be disappointed with the quality; I just think there are better options available.

First of all, I'm a huge supporter of Blu-Ray. However, I do not want to invest in a blu ray player until I'm ready to invest in a PlayStation 3, which, with the current game library, that won't be happening any time soon. It may sound like a waste to some, but with my current setup this is the way for me to go.

Right now no format has been chosen (only 2.5% of movie sales are either format) and it seems most likely that the industry is slowly leaning towards a dual format supported world, HD DVD/blu ray discs and dual format players.

It looks like both the blu ray and Hd are here to stay and not all dvd's manufacture both blu ray and HD. Jeff

i love dvds, i have a ps3 and 360 i got to say after witching same movie on bouth i like HD DVD better, but if i was any one i would not buy one now becasue blu ray has won so save your money and get blu ray player, but if hd had won it would have been better