Mizouse

dunno where else to put this but

aparently someone cracked the AACS encryption with HDDVDs, i wonder how this will affect HDDVDs, but i guess its only a matter of time before bluray gets hacked as well

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/12/28/hddvd_encryption/

Stapler

Don't know what to tell ya, but yeah she probably just took the fist "out" she could get.

Lister00169

That might delay my purchase given the benefits of the smaller chip (less heat production, lower power consumption). I might try out the current X360 and see how well it fares on my electricity bill (don't play for more than 1 hour a day) and the heat.

Mizouse

seriuosly one thing that really doesnt make me want a 360 is how loud the damn thing is

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Don't let that stop you. I have one and it's hardly noticable. I have it in an entertainment center, but still... once you're playing a game and have the sound on, it fades into the background...

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

As I've posted before about the heat... it's not that bad. I got my system in late July and so far, so good. I have it in an entertainment center and I play it with the door closed... and it's never overheated. I've played it only for a half-hour, I've also played it for like 3-4 hours, and there have been times where it has been on for even longer then that and it's been OK. There is airflow in the console b/c there are small vents in the back of it... but other then that, nothing, and it's been OK.

As for power consumption... I've never noticed a difference on my bill from the 360. And honestly, I've never really checked in detail or actually gave it a second thought...

SwervinCL

You can't hear it at all when your playing a game. If you can and it bothers you that much. Just turn up your volume.

soopa

Don't let anyone fool you. The 360 IS loud, and it DOES exhaust a fair bit of heat.

I really doubt however that a smaller CPU is going to change this because the noise does not come from the fans. When the DVD-drive is not spinning, the system is completely silent... save for a muted whine from the Hard Drive.

The fans are very quiet.

Luckily too, the HD-DVD drive is well insulated and very quiet. When watching an HD-DVD movie the Xbox is nearly silent.

Like others have said though, when playing a game, the noise really won't bother you. It fades into the background and most people play games with a fair bit of volume anyway.

cusdaddy

Agreed. The major noise issue is the DVD drive which spins at a fast 12x. This won't be affected by the move to 65nm unfortunately.

When I'm playing games with the volume up to a normal level, I don't notice the sound of the system.

The great thing about the PS3 is how silent it is with the 2x Blu-Ray drive. Both systems output a ton of heat though and feel like little space heaters.

soopa

Yeah, the slower BluRay drive is quieter... but... slower.

Same as with the 360, the HD-DVD drive is whisper quiet. But, slow.

For gaming, I'll take a fast spinning drive over a quiet one any day.

cusdaddy

Agreed. The annoying thing with PS3 games is that in order to counter the slow load times, they make you install a portion of the game on the hard drive. When I first started playing Resistance, it made me wait 60-90 seconds while it was writing cache files to the hard drive. This was a one time setup but annoying nonetheless.

Other games like Ridge Racer, there is an option where you can install a 5-7gb file locally to improve load times. This is fine to improve load times but wastes HD space and is an annoyance a faster drive doesn't need to have.

Lister00169

Well, I bit the bullet and purchased the 360 from Mircocenter. $299 after MIR for the Premium system. Also, picked up Gears of War and NHL 07 and I must say that my eyes were bleeding with the wonderful graphics.

Next step, set up my Xbox to stream music from my PC

P.S. Gears of War is 39.99 at target. It was in the post x-mas circular, but not listed on the in-store display.

is300eater

welcome to the 360 family

Lister00169

Tank you, tank you! I am loving it so far; graphics are lovely, and I love how it plays back DVDs better than my parents DVD player

Now, I just need to get used to playing FPS on a console.

is300eater

^^^when you get "used to" FPS... and done with GOW, you gotta get Rainbow Six-Vegas!

Mizouse

maybe there is something wrong with my roommates but even when gaming with loud volume it bothers the hell out of me

maybe i just have sensitive ears

Mizouse

really? cause my roommate left his 360 paused on deadrising for 3 days straight and all i heard was a loud whine, would the 360 really be spinning the dvd for 3 days straight on a paused game?

soopa

yep. the drive spins whenever your in a game... whenever youre not in the 360 Dashboard.

same as your CD player spins even when youre paused.

soopa

great quote

Lister00169

thanks dude.

soopa

I guess the next Xbox will have more then just a 65nm processor...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/05/t...dename-zephyr/

HDMI + 120GB HD!?

I guess I'm trading in my barely broken in 360 today.

soopa

Although, we probably won't see this until June at the earliest given the delayed 65nm chips. Hmm...

jiggaman

will it be quieter?

lembowski

iTrader: (1)

So what does the 65nm processor do? I've been saving up to get a 360, if this processor doesn't do miracles maybe I can pick up a 1st Gen 360 for cheap.

soopa

65nm chip probably wont do a ton. someone who's more of a processor expert could elaborate.

i think the main benefit is it'll run cooler, and thus, the fans should be quieter.

but as we know, the CD drive is what's LOUD in the 360. so unless they're changing the drive, i doubt itll be much if at all quieter.

the big news here is an HDMI port and a 120GB HD.

dom

How easy is it to upgrade the HD in the 360? The HDMI and 65nm processor aren't deal breakers for me.

soopa

the HD is external, so its real easy.

Dan Martin

I imagine they are mostly moving to a 65nm design for cost savings and reduced power consumption (i.e. less heat), moreso than for any performance benefits. The games written for consoles are heavily optimized for the specific hardware they use. Should microsoft decide to give it a speed boost with the new processor, they will need a way to throttle back the speed for the older/current games.

There were people selling CPU modded versions of the first XBOX with processors that were twice as fast. The only problem was the games would run twice as fast, not just have twice the frame rate. Instead of running at 60fps, they ran at 30fps but everything in the game was happening at double time.

Moog-Type-S

You think that M$ will announce this as a v2 with fanfare...or just stop making the old version and just release v2 as un "updated" 360 with HDMI?

soopa

im guessing itll just be a low key update.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Damn, that sucks. I really want the HDMI port...

I wonder if they will do anything for current 360 owners. Probably not... fuckers.

dom

So the only thing holding one back from playing 360 games in 1080p was the HDMI port?

aesir11

If I bought a Best Buy warranty with mine can I trade up into the second version?

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

The 360 supports 1080p, but only via component. Problem is that most TVs do not display true 1080p via component... only HDMI.

With an X360 that supports HDMI, you can get true 1080p!

Whiskers

No....

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

and I thought they were only going to be releasing a new hard drive.

If this does come out in june, this will be what I'll be getting. I'm glad I held out.

aesir11

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

Oh, and this is another blow to the PS3

soopa

No, no. That's not the deal at all.

The current 360 supports 1080p over component (which is useless, unsupported by most TV's, like you said) AND VGA (which is useful since most every TV accepts a VGA signal up to its native resolution).

VGA, thanks to 1:1 pixel mapping and 64-bit colorspace, can easily rival the video quality of HDMI 1.2.

HOWEVER, most televisions do not allow for enough customization of display settings on their VGA input, making it harder to calibrate. Additionally, VGA connections are bulky. Relatively thick wires and large connectors. Plus, they're analog, making them susceptible to interference from power sources, magnetic fields, and other devices.

On top of that, most televisions don't have more than one VGA port (versus 2-4 HDMI ports), this is a bummer if you have more than one VGA device. Additionally, I don't think any receivers support video switching over VGA. On top of all that, a VGA video input means yet another set of wires for audio.

Then, so far as audio goes, HDMI makes it easier to support new HD-DVD audio formats like DTS TrueHD. Currently, these formats are converted to DD5.1 before being output from the Xbox. Couple that with the limited dynamic range people are experiencing through toslink, it makes HDMI pretty desirable.

These reasons make HDMI a better solution than VGA.

But that doesn't mean you can't get 1080p out of the 360 right now. I'm getting 1080p via the VGA cable on my XBR3.


That said, the 360 does not have 1080p content besides what is on HD-DVD. There are no 1080p 360 games. There's currently no 1080p games announced.

Nonetheless, the 360 has one of the best internal video scalers on the market. It can scale games, movies, etc to 1080p better than most devices and certainly way better than your TV can. This makes 1080p output from the Xbox desirable despite the lack of 1080p content. This + the convenience of HDMI makes an HDMI output desirable.

slayer202

idk about that. I think it is pretty gay that they are making a new version of the console to add those couple of things. it screws a lot of people trying to get them to buy ANOTHER 360