xbox hddvd.jpgYesterday I happened to pick up the HDDVD addon for the 360 and entered the world of Next gen DVD players, and I have to say that it was quite the surprise. I havent had a whole lot of time with it as of yet. As you know right now the Xbox 360’s HDDVD addon comes with a copy of King Kong, and I bought a couple of other movies to go along with it. Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy. I have seen all 3 of those on DVD but King Kong was the only one in my current DVD collection.

The HDDVD addon came with a remote (which I already had) the King Kong HDDVD, the drive, a USB cable and the power supply/cable. It was a snap to install, just plug it in and connect the USB cable, then use the included CD to update your 360 and I was watching King Kong in a matter of minutes.

A few things of note, the drive itself is bigger than you would expect, I dont see why it would be any bigger than any other PC DVD drive but it is. But its a nice  looking device, and its easy enough to connect/disconnect that you could just keep it in a drawer or something when not in use. Another thing, it is a little easy to mistake HDDVD disc with Blu-Ray disc in the store. The outline of the disc…in most cases…are a different color but they are shaped the same (A little smaller and thinner than a regular DVD case). I was in Walmart and they had both in the same section all intermixed with each other and there were a few times I picked up a Blu-Ray disc thinking it was an HDDVD disc. Also it looks like there are just plainly a lot more HDDVD movies than Blu-ray.

The King Kong disc that came with the drive mustve been made to be given away with the drive because other than commentary and a few picture artwork there arent any extra’s.

I didnt know what to expect but it basically played the movies without a hitch, as advertised. The visual quality of the movies Ive watched so far are truly amazing. Ive been watching regular DVD’s in 480p for a few years now and this was more of a difference than I thought there would be. The television I have isnt even a 1080P tv so I was watching the movies in 1080i and noticed how much better the movies looked. The sound was also something that I noticed right off the bat.

Overall I think that it is a really good deal, for $199. The movies themselves, while a little more than DVD’s arent all that much more expensive. I spent $24.99 each for both of the movies I bought, and there were some that were as low as $19.99. Some were $29.99 but most of them were the ones that included a regular DVD also. If you own a Xbox 360, I would wholeheartedly recommend getting this addon if your a movie buff.