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Xbox 360 HD DVD update

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 05 Apr 2007 11:40 User comments (6)

Xbox 360 HD DVD update If you recently purchased the "Nine Inch Nails: Beside You In Time" concert disc and tried to play it in your Xbox 360 HD-DVD player you were most likely let down by the poor audio quality caused by a bug in Microsoft's audio decoding software.
The concert disc features an amazing Dolby TrueHD lossless audio track but the The Xbox 360 HD DVD player cannot output a TrueHD signal and instead downsamples the lossless stream to a lossy 640kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.

However, even after being downsampled most users report that the tracks sound better than the everyday Dolby Digital track. This was not the case with the concert disc which was reported as having “static popping” and “clipping” noises, killing the experience of listening to the disc.

Fortunately for users, Microsoft has confirmed that their HD DVD team is aware of the bug and plans to address it in their next software update.

“We plan on shipping an update to the Xbox 360 HD DVD player in early to mid spring. In this update we will be adding DTS output, improved Audio, and improved title compatibility,”
relayed a Microsoft employee, according to what he had heard from the Xbox team. “The variability there is that this is a software project and we are fixing/enhancing a lot of things and we want to make sure we get them right. So it is difficult to give an exact day for the update.”



Children of Men has also been giving HD DVD owners headaches, although that problem may just be a physical problem and not a hardware or software issue. Hopefully we will hear of a resolution for the audio and playback issues soon.


Source:
Dailytech

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6 user comments

15.4.2007 11:47

Microsoft screwed up......no......really.....dumbasses

25.4.2007 12:05

A friend of mine reports that this problem doesn't pop up with his HD-DVD AddOn connected to a PC running Power DVD Ultra.

This is unfortunate because NIN:BYIT is probably the best concert video ever and on HD-DVD with Dolby TruHD sound it just doesn't get any better.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 05 Apr 2007 @ 12:39

35.4.2007 12:31

Quote:
This seems to be a software problem on the 360.
Thanks captain obvious.

Quote:
caused by a bug in Microsoft's audio decoding software

46.4.2007 03:56

lets not be too hard on the 360's HD-DVD player...after all it is new technology stuff like this was bound to happen

528.4.2007 11:54

I just bought the HD DVD of "Planet Earth" (that discovery channel series). When I insert it, I can see the first credits of the the movie, but when it should start the film, or at least the menu page, all I get is a black screen.

I just installed the Nov. 2006 DVD HD update from Xbox, but it still doesn't work.
Anyone got any ideas?

-Hutch5150

628.4.2007 16:16
hughjars
Inactive

The XBox 360 HD DVD add-on is the absolute business with a PC, it's the easiest way into high def, so inexpensive & there are none of the sound issues that the XBox 360 'base unit' has with it.

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