Internal HD DVD-ROM drive, someday?

[kyleb]

I'd like to be able to watch some HD DVD movies, but it seems the only options to do that so fair are with standalone players, laptops, and external drives. Surely we are bound to see a standard 5" internal HD DVD-ROM drive someday, but does anyone have any clue of when?

 

[RobertR1]

While not internal, you can get the HD DVD add on and it'll work with PC's also.

 

[kyleb]

I know this, I just don't care to pay for an external enclosure only to have yet another component to fit into my rack, especially not one that looks like a sawed off chunk of my 360. But surely someone is bound to start selling an internal HD-DVD drive sometime soon? One that read Blue-ray disks as well would really rock, and a slot loader would make it perfect, but I'd settle for just a basic internal tray drive that would let me watch HD DVDs.

 

[willardjuice]

Doesn't some Toshiba laptops have HD DVD drives? So surely they must exist already...maybe just not retail...

 

[RobertR1]

Ask Amir on AVS

 

[Capeta]

Umm...can't you just get the HD DVD addon and gut the bare drive out?

 

[Sxotty]

Umm...can't you just get the HD DVD addon and gut the bare drive out?

I think that yes you can, but some custom cabling is required.

 

[Capeta]

Custom cabling? Isn't it just a standard half height drive?

 

[kyleb]

I've heard it was full sided with a normal SATA connector but I haven't seen one striped out of the case. But I'm not interested in messing with that, I'd rather buy one I could keep under warranty, and comes with decoders for the PC, and a normal faceplate.

 

[mito]

HD DVD in the PC

HD DVD representatives also said that in 2006, HD DVD won a clear edge in the PC market. According to Techno Systems Research (TSR), a major Japanese market research company, 60 percent of the high definition optical disk drives for PC applications produced worldwide were HD DVD. In slim HD DVD drives for portable PCs, the advantage increased to 70 percent, according to the HD DVD promotion group.

Among the manufacturers that have recently added to the breadth of the HD DVD family are Samsung, Lite-On, Alco, Jiangkui/ED Digital, Meridian, Onkyo, and Shinco.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19994

 

[mito]

hp hd-dvd rom

 

[Pete]

Custom cabling? Isn't it just a standard half height drive?

Hacking the XBox 360’s HD-DVD for the PC

 

[mito]

The supplier advices that users looking forward HD DVD playback should have a powerful dual-core central processing unit, such as AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+, Intel Pentium D 945 or more advanced. The company also recommends users to ensure that their graphics cards is, at least, as powerful as ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT. HP notes that the graphics card and monitor should be HDCP-compliant, even though there is unofficial information that this is not a compulsory requirement for high-resolution HD DVD playback nowadays.

.....................

 

[kyleb]

Right, I've got all that, and apparently there are all sorts of drives avalable in Japan? Anyone know a good importer?

 

[mito]

I started looking here.

Now I'm drooling at their headphones........

 

[mito]

There's a heated debate going on at AVS forum. They're saying that the xbox360 hd-dvd player wil be revoked by AACS for the PC.

360 hd-dvd player to be revoked for the PC

 

[Ty]

There's a heated debate going on at AVS forum. They're saying that the xbox360 hd-dvd player wil be revoked by AACS for the PC.

360 hd-dvd player to be revoked for the PC

Doh. Another reason why no one should consider the 360 add on as a PC HD-DVD drive. It's cheap but you get what you pay for it seems.

 

[Skrying]

I started looking here.

Now I'm drooling at their headphones........

The A900 are a great pair from Audio Technica if you've never owned some semi-high end headphones. They are huge, but for a gamer or general listening they are very good.

I personally thought HP was suppose to be shipping HD DVD units, this never happened?

 

[mito]

The A900 are a great pair from Audio Technica if you've never owned some semi-high end headphones.

I bought mine from them last year. I am still in love with them.

 

[Zaphod]

There's a heated debate going on at AVS forum. They're saying that the xbox360 hd-dvd player wil be revoked by AACS for the PC.

That doesn't make much sense. The Digitaltrends piece says that:

If the bypass proves successful, the AACS will have little choice but to revoke the keys used in existing Xbox 360 HD DVD drives, meaning those drives would be unable to play discs manufactured after the revocation date.

First, if they revoke the dives' keys they will play *no* disks, not just new disks. Reportedly, the hack is non-identifiable, so the only alternative to stop it would be to revoke *all* the drives. Likely not going to happen.

Secondly, the currently poked hole will only reveal a VID, which in itself is not all that useful. Sure it'll allow for easier decrypting on a couple of recent disks, but it is already being blocked by a new MKB (for which keys are not yet in the public).

Third, they might force through a firmware update and patch all software players to disallow playback from the non-upgraded drives (or just disallow it for licensed software players altogether). However, this is quite useless as well since the key-retrieval does not rely on a software player to work. Pirates can still use the drives to decrypt the discs regardless (if they have the proper keys) and reverse engineered playback of unencrypted data will be here soon enough. Thus, doing so ill mostly inconvenience legitimate 'regular Joe' users without plugging the holes.

It seems to me they have the choice between jumping through a lot of hoops to possibly dissuade a bit of casual piracy/backups/fair use at the cost of inconveniencing everyone using it with a PC, or kill the drive altogether. Only the latter will stop it from being exploited by pirates with distribution in mind.