360 HD DVD on PC

[meansizzler]

Got one from the trading forums, and hooked it up to the PC, installed UDF 2.5Driver and Power DVD Ultra 7.2, and it works great, using VGA Output as DVI does not support HDCP, great picture, as good as if not better than using it on 360, drive can also be used as a regular DVD drive to read software cd's.

One a side not the IDE to USB2 controller onboard is pretty intelligent, since the drive uses an external PSU and has no off button, the drive swtiches itself off when the PC is turned off. The fan at the back of it, 40MM I assume runs for 5 seconds after PC is off then drive completely switches off, it comes back on when PC is switched on. Now if they made all external drives like this, hard drive included we would not have to reach to the back everytime and hit the off switch.

Anyway drive gets a thumbs up form me, as an added bonus drive has 2 Extra USB2 ports which work under windows.., so for the sake of £130 or how much you paid, you get an External HD-DVD with 2 port USB hub., not bad at all, those with SFF computer can do away with the onboard drive and add an extra hard drive to their system and use the 360 Drive as there Optical Drive.., will also reduce the amount of heat in the system...

[si_dee_oli]

Hello,

Please excuse my ignorance, but does this mean I could get a 360 drive, plug it into my Pc with usb and with the software you mentioned play HDDVD via Dvi to my plasma ?

What would the minimum pc spec need to be to perform well?

Thanks

Simon

[sideysid]

Hello,

Please excuse my ignorance, but does this mean I could get a 360 drive, plug it into my Pc with usb and with the software you mentioned play HDDVD via Dvi to my plasma ?

What would the minimum pc spec need to be to perform well?

Thanks

Simon


You would need a HDCP enabled DVI/HDMI graphics in your PC for this, which is starting to become a bit more commonplace now.

[sideysid]

meansizzler, have you got an recent-ish AV amp?

If so have played around with the analogue outs of your sound card to the multichannel in of your amp, so to get full Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD?

[meansizzler]

Hello,

Please excuse my ignorance, but does this mean I could get a 360 drive, plug it into my Pc with usb and with the software you mentioned play HDDVD via Dvi to my plasma ?

What would the minimum pc spec need to be to perform well?

Thanks

Simon

Your DVI ports must support HDCP otherwise you have to use VGA output to get a picture which is what i'm using at the moment since my DVI port does not support HDCP

Also need at least 1GB RAM, AMD X2 4200/Pentium D 840

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c00845844&cc=uk&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_UKEN

[meansizzler]

meansizzler, have you got an recent-ish AV amp?

If so have played around with the analogue outs of your sound card to the multichannel in of your amp, so to get full Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD?

I don't use an amp to decode the audio, I have a soundblaster card which decodes the audio, Power DVD shows the audio on Serenity a 1.5mb/s, so I guess that is what is being fed to the card.., don't know why but my card decodes the audio even though it has no Dolby/DTS HD decoder just the standard ones, maybe the current batch of HD-DVD's only have a 16bit/48hz soundtrack which is why the Soundblaster's decoder can handle it, guess the high bitrate does not matter as the decoder is decoding it fine, since the inbuilt decoder on my soundblaster is good enough so need need for a seperate decoder even though i have it, I prefer the 5.1 analouge output of the soundcard.., eg.. Stereo Surround/WMA 5.1 not supporter over digital output..

The 5.1 analogue outputs of my soundcard are connnected tothe 5.1 analogue input of my Logitech Z-5500 speakers..

[Matt_C]

Okay, this could be a potentially pointless question, but bear with me please!

I have a nice CRT TV - I don't intend to change to an LCD or plasma or anything "HD Ready" for the next little while (prices come down to where I can afford one, technology get better etc - still think my CRT has better blacks and better refresh rate than most sensibly priced LCD's) and I intend to couple a PC to this for my digital media (various movies, mostly music)

This will be input to the TV via a VGA to RGB Scart converter I bought (not arrived yet mind) and audio will come from the PCI optical soundcard I have in the PC connected to my AV amp....

Now....

If I connected a HD-DVD drive to the PC and played a HD-DVD disc - would it be ANY better than watching a normal DVD through my normal DVD player via scart?

Can I have the multichannel audio from a HD-DVD transmitted via optical from the PC to the amp?

Or am I waffling?

[meansizzler]

You can get 5.1 audio, picture wise, it will be much sharper, less noise, if you have a Big CRT then you will notice the difference..., also depends how good the RGB Scart convertor is, if you want the best picture get an XBox 360 and the RGB Scart cable, will give a much better picture than from the pc since the video encoder on the 360 can output a native RGB Scart signal...

[Matt_C]

So it's not actually a completely stupid idea? Whoa, thats a first for me! LOL.....

[sideysid]

I don't use an amp to decode the audio, I have a soundblaster card which decodes the audio, Power DVD shows the audio on Serenity a 1.5mb/s, so I guess that is what is being fed to the card.., don't know why but my card decodes the audio even though it has no Dolby/DTS HD decoder just the standard ones, maybe the current batch of HD-DVD's only have a 16bit/48hz soundtrack which is why the Soundblaster's decoder can handle it, guess the high bitrate does not matter as the decoder is decoding it fine, since the inbuilt decoder on my soundblaster is good enough so need need for a seperate decoder even though i have it, I prefer the 5.1 analouge output of the soundcard.., eg.. Stereo Surround/WMA 5.1 not supporter over digital output..

The 5.1 analogue outputs of my soundcard are connnected tothe 5.1 analogue input of my Logitech Z-5500 speakers..

Theres no amps currently that can decode Dolby TrueHD/DTS master, thats why the decoding will be done via PowerDVD (which you'll find is most likely decoding yours - not your soundblaster) then this decoded singnal is sent directly to the amp to amplify so its not doing any processing.

If you were connnecting to an amp, the reason why you would have to use analogue outs of your PC is that the SPDIF connection does not have the bandwith to carry the full bitrate of these new sound formats.

[pRot3us]

You would need a HDCP enabled DVI/HDMI graphics in your PC for this, which is starting to become a bit more commonplace now.

Not if connecting via VGA

[meansizzler]

thats why the decoding will be done via PowerDVD (which you'll find is most likely decoding yours - not your soundblaster) then this decoded singnal is sent directly to the amp to amplify so its not doing any processing.



Actually it's my card's decoders doing the decoding, I checked this myself, reason it can decode it is becasue the digital signal is sent to the cards decoders via the PCI bus so there is enough bandwidth for it, hence being able to decode the 1.5 mb/s stream, and since it being dolby digital plus it only has a higher bitrate so no change in frequency/resolution hence why the cards decoder can understand it.. reason i use the soundblasters in built decoder is beacuase it gives a much cleaner/sharper and more detailed sound than the software players decoder.., although not as loud..

Was wondering if there any amps that can decode a 5.1PCM signal via HDMI?,

[sideysid]

Actually it's my card's decoders doing the decoding, I checked this myself, reason it can decode it is becasue the digital signal is sent to the cards decoders via the PCI bus so there is enough bandwidth for it, hence being able to decode the 1.5 mb/s stream, and since it being dolby digital plus it only has a higher bitrate so no change in frequency/resolution hence why the cards decoder can understand it.. reason i use the soundblasters in built decoder is beacuase it gives a much cleaner/sharper and more detailed sound than the software players decoder.., although not as loud..

Was wondering if there any amps that can decode a 5.1PCM signal via HDMI?,

Yup - that would be DD+ not TrueHD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_TrueHD) and DTS-HD (http://gadgets.fosfor.se/dts-hd-master-audio-on-hd-dvd/) master audio tracks Im referring to, which can go up to 18mb/s bitrate. Click the links for the list of HD-DVD titles that contain these these tracks.

Yup - the Sony 3200ES upwards does this and so do a few other higher spec amps. Some of them limited to the amount of channels though.

[sideysid]

Not if connecting via VGA

Yup - but the post I was quoting was after using DVI. ;)

[si_dee_oli]

Thanks for the info, I think my pc wouldn't be good enough to run a 360 drive.

3.0ghz sempron
1gb ram
radeon 9800 graphics card with 256 something

Nevermind.

[Apone]

Meansizzler

The link you have supplied for the add on drive takes me to a Hp website. Is this drive the same as an xbox 360 drive?

My pc has an A64 37OO+ processor ans 1gb of ram along with a Radeon 300se graphics card which according to the box blub is hdcp capable.

The pc will play 720p files very well from the quicktime site so not sure if this is ok for HD dvd drive, any ideas?

Thanks

Mahmood

[meansizzler]

your card is not HDCP Ready, just capable of supporting it but the support was never added, so only VGA output will work, also your CPU is not up to the task i'm afraid... HP one is not the same as the 360 one, but they probably have the same drive inside...

[meansizzler]

Thanks for the info, I think my pc wouldn't be good enough to run a 360 drive.

3.0ghz sempron
1gb ram
radeon 9800 graphics card with 256 something

Nevermind.

CPU wise it is not enough.., using an AMD X2 4200 I get 80% CPU usage..

Pentium D 840/AMD X2 4200 MInium..

[Apone]

Thanks for letting me know Meansszzler. Back to the drawing board and for the format war to end, soon I hope.

Regards

Mahmood

[2nd Coming]

does anyone know if my Asus 7600GT with twin DVI will have the HDCP feature?

Could do with a HD Drive:grin:

[pRot3us]

Easiest way to check your system is with Cyberlink HD/BD advisor (http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/diagnosis.jsp)

[meansizzler]

look for the 7300GT HDMI, it's passive, www.scan.co.uk