Product Reviews

If you've got a High-Definition (HD) TV or projector and have been dying to find a cheap way to watch HD movies, Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player is a good way to do so, particularly if you also need to upgrade your games console.

The outer casing matches the Xbox 360's colour and styling, and can either lie down on top of the unit or stand up beside it. Installation is easy, and you simply have to insert the driver disc into the console and connect the drive using the supplied USB lead. The drive has two USB2 ports on the rear, so you gain a USB2 port by adding the drive.

The HD-DVD drive is seamlessly integrated into the Xbox 360's menu system. You can use the drive to play DVDs as well, so you don't have to swap out your game disc every time you want to watch a film. It comes bundled with the Universal Media Remote, which costs £20 to buy standalone. The remote is excellent; it's clearly labelled, nicely shaped and has backlit buttons, too.

The video stored on HD-DVDs has a resolution

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of 1,920x1,080 (1080p). You can output the video in 720p, 1080i or 1080p to match up to your television's or projector's native resolution. The Xbox 360 has both component and VGA outputs available; however, some 1080p HD TVs aren't capable of receiving a 1080p signal using analogue inputs.

At present, there's no HDMI or DVI output on the 360, which raises a different problem: HDCP. With no digital output, the Xbox 360 doesn't support HDCP, which could cause problems when protected content is released.

For a limited time, the drive is bundled with a free copy of King Kong. We tested the drive on a 720p LCD HDTV. The sharpness of the HD video is fantastic and an obvious step up from watching DVDs. Scenes with close-ups of the actors are the most impressive, where fine detail in their skin and hair really stands out. Better still, we couldn't detect any compression issues arising from the VC1 codec. The quality of the video is so good that we spotted flaws in King Kong's special effects that we never noticed on the DVD version.

The big problem with choosing an HD-DVD drive is whether or not this format is going to beat Blu-ray. Even taking this into account, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player is excellent value. If you buy an Xbox 360 Premium (around £410) it compares favourably to Toshiba's budget HD-E1 (£379); it's a bargain compared to the current range of Blu-ray players, which cost around £700. If you've already got an Xbox 360, it's incredible value and the easiest way to upgrade to HD DVD. Should Blu-ray eventually win the format war, you haven't really lost out.