XBOX 360 Wire

HD-DVD Drive - Bitterly Disappointed.

Having lapped up all the fuss surrounding the release of the 360’s HD-DVD drive towards the end of last year - I decided to take the leap and spend some of those lovely Christmas Rupees on this rather splendid sounding fellow.

Spending hours walking round Glasgow in search of the fabled device - none were to be had off the shelf. It would seem that either Microsoft didn’t manufacture enough of them pre-release, or they just didn’t anticipate the huge demand for the kit. I personally think a combination of both were to blame for the rather short supply. I know of at least 4 people who bought HDTV’s for the pleasure of gaming, but later screamed out for some proper content to display on their expensive screens - the HD-DVD drive gave us all the chance to take part….at long last.

I managed to pick up a brand new and sealed drive for £140 inc P&P from one of the forums I use frequently. A few days later it arrived, and I started to drool at the thought of seeing King Kong in its full HD Glory. I’m positive I got back from work in record time on that particular day.

Arriving home, I gently teased the kit from its rather tight fitting box. I’m one of those people who finds opening boxes a rather stressful experience. I guess I just like to keep the kit ‘virginal’ whilst worrying that the anticipation met with purchasing such an expensive add-on can only be met with a surge of disappointment.

I should have left it in the box after all.

The drive itself is very well built, and quite sturdy. The design lends itself well to being placed next to your 360 console with its matching off-white casing and silver tray bezel. It’s a crying shame Microsoft couldn’t find a way to power it from the USB cable - I had huge problems trying to find a spare power socket just to get it plugged in next to the collection of electronics which clutter my lounge. (HDTV, Sky Digital, Dolby 5.1 Amp, VCR, 360 Console & Tivo).

Firstly, you need to install drivers for the drive using the CD packed in the box. This is very easy, and nothing like updating drivers on a PC. You just pop in the disk and it does it’s thing. With that done, it’s time to slip your first HD-DVD flick into the tray and prepare to be stunned, well by the image quality at least…..

You see, there is a problem with the software drivers which Microsoft released. King Kong looks stunning, but sounded awful in comparison to any other sound source. For clarity, sound was being passed to my 5.1 decoder via the optical cable. Having been disappointed by the sound quality of the title screen, I skipped to some of the more frantic scenes to see if there was any difference. It didn’t happen. The sound lacked a certain ‘punch’ you would expect from a surround system with the centre speaker overpowering the audio emitting from the front and rear of the room. On closer inspection, it was almost as if no audio (or very little) at all was coming from those positions. I’d even go as far as to say it sounded Mono!

Bitterly disappointed, I jumped on to the interweb to find out if I was doing something wrong. As it turns out, the problem seems to be affecting thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of similarly disappointed gamers. Microsoft has admitted there is a problem, but only with Dolby 5.1 soundtracks. Using DTS settings appears to improve things at least. I’m told a fix for this is currently in testing and should be released towards the end of January - I’m still waiting. Until then, my drive shall remain in it’s rather tight (although no longer ‘virginal’) packaging.

Back to Lumines Live!

Posted by Bleem - January 20th, 2007 -