Xbox 360 HD-DVD shows its colours

[wraggster]

Microsoft has treated lucky punters the first public demo of its external HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360. Kevin Collins, senior program manager at the Seattle giant, put the hardback book-sized device through its paces at the DVD Forum in LA, inexplicably choosing to play The Phantom of the Opera, while showing the drive's navigation and interaction features.

Collins refused to be drawn on pricing and a precise launch date, choosing only to assert that it will be one of the cheapest HD-DVD players available, and that it will arrive in the "holiday season". Collins added that: "All the audio and video processing is done inside the Xbox 360," so his claim that it won't break the bank has a ring of plausibility to it.

With prices of standalone HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players likely to be astronomical, and software libraries less than extensive, the battle for the next generation of DVD will only really get under way in earnest when the PlayStation 3 arrives in November with its built-in Blu-Ray drive, and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive also takes its bow. What price on Microsoft launching it the week before the PS3 arrives? Leipzig or X06 surely hold the answers.

[MasterChafed]

I think blu-ray and hd-dvd both have their strong/weak points. Here are my thoughts, blu-ray holds massive (almost hard drive) quantities of information. hd-dvd also holds a lot but not nearly as much (comparison, hd-dvd about 20-30 gigs, blu-ray about 50 gigs) But(and this is where I think hd-dvd may win this battle) hd-dvd's will be much cheaper and the players are much cheaper than thos of blu ray discs/drives. So all in all, I think blu ray may be a waste of space/money as most games/movies will never get up to 50 gigs unless the grphics in the games plan on having a great, GREAT amount of detail, or a lot of content. And hd-dvd will hold more than enough information to easily win over the pricey blu ray.