Audio Video News

Ending months and months of speculation, Microsoft finally made an official announcement for its external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 gaming console. The drive will cost $199.99 and will be available in North America in mid-November and will come bundled with a copy of the HD DVD of Peter Jackson's King Kong.

Many industry pundits believe the game console battle between Microsoft's HD DVD enabled Xbox 360 and Sony's Blu-ray based PlayStation3 will have a major impact on the format war as a whole.

For its opening salvo, Microsoft's release touted the Xbox 360 sidecar as the most affordable way for Xbox 360 owners to jump into high-def on a 5" silver disc. In addition, the pricing of an Xbox 360 outfitted with the external HD DVD drive is now nicely in line with Sony's premium PlayStation3, which will cost $599 and is a fully-loaded (and fully integrated) Blu-ray Disc player.

However, as reported back in May, buzz has been around the Net for months that the Xbox 360 combo won't accommodate HDMI connectivity. The external drive connects to the Xbox 360 via USB, and the game console itself, which is not currently outfitted with HDMI, is what connects to the display.

Not only does HDMI connectivity result in higher quality video with many displays, but there are copy protection issues involved as well. The AACS copy protection that's employed on both Blu-ray and HD DVD allows the studios the option of enabling the Image Constraint Token (ICT), which down-converts high-definition video to 960x540 prior to being output from the analog component video outputs. The ICT hasn't been enabled by any studio on Blu-ray or HD DVD discs yet, but the specter always exists, and potential owners of the Xbox 360 need to be aware of this.

It's difficult to imagine Microsoft trying to compete seriously in the next-gen space against a wholly integrated PlayStation3 loaded with this feature (and many, many more) at the same price, so perhaps we'll see an upgraded Xbox 360 of some kind in the near future.