Support NeoGAF

[Jonneh3003]

CD addons didn't die in the 90's, in 2006 Microsoft released the HD DVD Player for Xbox 360 for just $199. There's something I love about obsolete hardware, of course HD DVD would eventually and brutally lose to blu-ray but there's something quirky and lovable about this little box.

I love how it matches the original Xbox 360 model, in fact the 360 in it's launch state has such a god damn brilliant uniform. The console, the controller, the dashboard, the addons, even the remote control shared the design template.

I'm sad to say I no longer have a HD DVD player for 360 but I would love to pick one up on the cheap, I may rarely if ever use it but I think it's a really cool little box.

 

[wwm0nkey]

I did, hardly used it though

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I bought it because I had just gotten an HDTV and it was pretty much the first time I had any kind of disposable income an adult.

Didn't regret it at all. We spent so much time watching Planet Earth on there when my kids were little.

 

[Black Hat]

Yep. I did.

Can remember the 'dynamic range compression' bug that wasn't fixed for months as well.

At the time I thought HD DVD would win the war for sure due to the name. Haha... seems silly now.

 

[Phionoxx]

I did. Also not sure where it is. Think I have it boxed up in Storage. Thankfully I didn't get much of a HD-DVD collection going prior to the format war ending up in favor of Blu Ray so it wasnt too painful swapping them out.

 

[Sydle]

I did because I just upgraded to a HD TV and it made sense at the time. I think I bought 5 movies (they were so expensive!), so it didn't get a lot of use, but it was impressive at the time.

 

[TaintedHotSauce]

When is Microsoft going to be adding support for this on the Xbox One? There's dozens of people waiting.

 

[Xyphie]

Got mine for 10€. I actually use it whenever I need a DVD reader on my PC.

 

[BTails]

Oh yeah, I still have mine. I had just bought an HDTV, and wanted that aweet HD content. Watched King Kong probably 6 times. I also bought a lot of HD DVDs, some of which are still my go to version of the movie (John Carpenter's The Thing looks WAY better on HD DVD vs the Bluray)

 

[darthbob]

Used it once. Once.

looks sweet tho

 

[gamz]

I did with king Kong.

 

[JaseC]

I briefly considered doing so but figured I'd wait for the "war" to "end". There was no sense in adopting a format that was potentially a non-starter... which it was.

 

[MrBenchmark]

I had one day it came out and remember watch serenity on it loved it had a large collection of HD DVD's.

 

[LukasTaves]

OMG I totally forgot that was a thing.

I didn;t bought, in fact even them I was hoping for both formats to kill eachother in favor of digital stores.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

Oh yeah, I still have mine. I had just bought an HDTV, and wanted that aweet HD content. Watched King Kong probably 6 times. I also bought a lot of HD DVDs, some of which are still my go to version of the movie (John Carpenter's The Thing looks WAY better on HD DVD vs the Bluray)

I'd love to know which movies look better on HD DVD and hunt them down.

 

[Jarrod38]

Got it at Best Buy and then I got like5 free HD-DVDs after mail in rebate.

 

[Quadraphonic]

My favorite thing about it was that after it was discontinued, Shane Kim suggested that you still keep it around because it gave you an extra USB port.

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsofts+Shane+Kim+Speaks+on+Xbox+360+HD+DVD+Uses/article11523.htm

"The HD DVD player also adds two additional USB ports to your console,” concluded Kim.

 

[boyshine]

Bought it when HD-DVD was officially dead, and both the player and movies could be bought for nothing. I guess I have about 20 movies for it, watched them all. I remember liking the format more than Blu-ray then. Menues felt faster and smoother on HD-DVD and several movies looked better than the first Blu-ray releases.

 

[fernoca]

I did. Was happy with King Kong and Superman Returns. XD

 

[LordRaptor]

Picked one up dirt cheap to hackintosh a dell netbook

 

[RS4-]

Picked one up dirt cheap to hackintosh a dell netbook

lol, same here man, same here.

My HDDVD drive is sitting under my bed. Got quite a few discs too; yes king kong is one of them, but ESotSM is another, and the imported T2!

 

[mrmickfran]

$200? Amazon has em for $11 lol

 

[aesupreme1]

Bought it when it was still a big deal, getting exclusives and such. Ended up buying a back up when the format failed for around $40.

I was invested in HD DVD, I bought the high end Toshiba HD DVD player that went for $100's of dollars, for around $150 when the format officially tanked. I watched it for a couple of days fluctuate in price on Amazon, then pulled the trigger when it dropped ridiculously low. It shot right back up within an hour, I was lucky.

I still own my players with over 100 movies that ranged from 99 cents to regular price when it was still a competing format. But I'd say 80% of my movies on the format were purchased at 50-99% off. A hell of a deal in my opinion.

 

[sikkinixx]

Got it when it was $20 and used it mostly with my netbook as a DVD drive for a while (lol).

 

[The Argus]

My freshman year roommate did for my 360. I think we only watched King Kong (included) on our 720p Samsung DLP. Waste of time and money.

 

[DJ_Lae]

I bought it filthy cheap (with King Kong, or did they all come bundled with that?) and used it mainly to rip HD-DVDs to my computer.

Unfortunately Fast Times and Phoebe Cates' boobs suffered disc rot.

 

[Swass]

I did, and had about a dozen HD DVD's. The second I heard Warner Bro's was dropping support for the format, I knew it was over.. through the whole lot on eBay and recouped almost all my money. I think it was only a month later that Toshiba announced it would stop making the players.

 

[BulletBees]

I have two of them...

 

[Stitch]

I did. It was really cheap and came with like 10 HD-DVDs.
It was extremely loud so I cracked it open and removed the power cable from the Fan lol

 

[atomsk]

bought it for $50 when they killed it and got 6 free movies.

 

[Korgill]

Got it and a lot of movies for less then $50. I still display the Blade Runner Collector's Edition and I really liked the 5 Harry Potter movie box set that was in a little trunk.

 

[Meier]

I did right at its launch. I didn't have a PS3 at the time so I bought about 15-20 movies too. Oh well.

 

[golem]

I have one.. loved the quality of HD DVD

Thankfully most were upgraded to BR for free haha

 

[ascii42]

One of my roommates in college had one of those. It stopped working after a little while so he bought a standalone unit.

 

[GlamFM]

I did! Bought a couple of movies. Good stuff.

 

[t26]

I brought one. Ended up using it as an external DVD drive for my new laptop.

 

[EightBitNate]

A surprisingly large number of people bought it, apparently.

 

[DJ_Lae]

I have one.. loved the quality of HD DVD

Thankfully most were upgraded to BR for free haha

I don't know if it was specific to the format's specs or just because the movies were relatively early on in HD releases but all my HD-DVDs have far less invasive ads than Blu-rays. Most of my movies just go straight to the menu, if I remember correctly.

Or maybe they're almost all from the same studio. Dunno, but I liked it.

 

[coolbrys]

I really liked mine. For $200 I got like, 3 free movies at Best Buy, along with the 5 mail away ones. I felt that the menus were better and it had a slightly higher picture quality compared to Blu-Ray, but one of the formats had to lose. I lost the power brick to mine or I'd use it one last time to rip my movies. I need to find one of those....

 

[Jumpman23]

I did. Bought about 10 movies and used it pretty sparingly. Still have it sitting in its original box.

 

[SURGEdude]

Found one at Foodwill for like $7. Someday I'll buy a few dicks when I find them in the cheapo bin.

 

[Pejo]

I bought it, used it once for (I think) King Kong, and there it sat for all time.

Found one at Foodwill for like $7. Someday I'll buy a few dicks when I find them in the cheapo bin.

Niiiiiice.jpg

 

[blackMamba1187]

Still have it. Just recently/finally replaced my Bourne trilogy with blurays.

 

[DJ_Lae]

Found one at Foodwill for like $7. Someday I'll buy a few dicks when I find them in the cheapo bin.

 

[JeffG]

Yep...Bet on the wrong horse that time

 

[Deleted member 102362]

I bought it so I could watch Blade Runner in HD with my 360. Grabbed a couple other movies too.

 

[jshackles]

I did, still have it, along with a couple dozen movies.

 

[sTiTcH AU]

I did, still have it with about 20 HD-DVD's.

 

[sixteen-bit]

If you find one at a yeard sale or something it's a decent external optical drive for a laptop

 

[NZNova]

I own three of them.

Picked them up super cheap, and got a massive collection of HD-DVD movies for $2 each. Thanks, Blu-Ray!