Normally under personal settings when you hit the middle button on the controller, change that to appear offline or busy. Not sure if there is another way associated with the hd dvd player. Got one at a big local electronics dealer here in Omaha yesterday with King Kong, so it appears the initial run with the bonus is not in danger of running out yet.

you can disable notifications when you are watching movies. It's in the personal settings.

Basically, what the guys just before me said.

Push the xbox button-select private settings-select notifications-uncheck the box that says Show notifications while watching a movie. Worked for me. I don't think I could have standed getting all my notifications while watching a movie.

I bought the CompUSA adapter, but it was a no-go on my Westy LVM-42 (even though I did have the DVI-I inputs). I ended up getting a relatively cheap VGA switchbox from Amazon and now have both my PC and 360 connected to my VGA input, with no loss of PQ that I can see.

PS. Haven't seen mentioned yet... one thing the add-on has over the A1 is that it will play PAL discs... but not multi-regional. If/when someone comes up with a hack, the add-on will give me everything that I am looking for.

Thought some of you might be interested in this:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=483697

Combine this with the HD DVD add-on, and you have a next-gen gaming console and HD DVD player for as little as $400. Pretty sweet deal...

So to watch a regular DVD, should I pop it in my regular 360 drive or the new HD-DVD drive, or doesn't it matter?

doesn't matter.

Might as well pop it in the HD-DVD Drive. It will put less tear on your 360 laser and if you want to play a game later you won't have to switch discs.

More and more people at AVS seem to be having the audio issues. Specifically it has to do with how the add-on is compressing (very badly by most accounts there) a DD+ audio track to DD.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=749463&page=3

ex...
"I would have to agree that there is something wrong with the sound on the add-on. Dull is the proper word here. It just seems to lack the crispness we've gotten used to with the A1. At least on my setup. The surrounds also seem much quieter than with the A1. I have both and also two copies of Kong. Switching between the two and there is a noticeable difference in clarity. The sound just doesn't envelope you quite the same.

Hopefully, MS will get this fixed...."

Even the mod there is looking into it. Just because people here haven't really noticed this specific thing doesn't mean it ain't so. Audio is 1/2 the experience at least to me... I think I'm going to wait for the hd-a2.

The problem is not with the drive but with the decoding algorithms in the 360. If people would raise the issue with MS, they will fix it with a firmware update.

Anyone who expects an "add-on" to perform as well as a stand-alone player is out of their fucking minds. People at AVS just like to bitch.

If I used AVS to research electronics before I bought them to see if they were good products, I'd have no electronics.

If that's all it will take then that's great. The sound issue is indeed noticeable. Also, how come the HD-DVD will do DTS on regular DVDs but I can't get it to do DTS on an HD-DVD (We Were Soldiers)?

Since the addon doesn't have hdmi would it be much better for me to get the VGA xbox360 cable over the component one I have?
(52 mitsubishi 1080p tv)

The drive is just the transport - it transfers the data to the 360 where the 360's CPUs decrypts and decodes it. The Toshiba HD-A1 is no different. It has a motherboard inside running Linux (or some variant) that handles all the decrypting/decoding functions. People have taken the A1's drive out, plugged it into a PC, and were able to playback discs successfully.

As far as the HD-DVD DTS issue, it was posted on avsforum that MS chose to remix DTS into DD+, something to that effect.

There are rumours that MS will announce an HDMI cable for the 360 in a couple weeks. Don't know how that is possible given that the video outputs are analog - maybe the video port does more than previously believed. According to the November 2006 Update Feature List, component will give you 1080p. If you want to upscale SD DVD, you will have to get the VGA cable as upscaling is not supported over component.

As someone who only recently started going to AVS, I have to say, from what I've seen you are extremely right. Lots of whining going on over there and tons of people who have very little idea what they're talking about... If it didn't get more traffic than this area, I'd hardly ever go back!

That's signature material.

Well, Amir from Microsoft is now going to look into this so I guess it might be something.
I don't get the whole defensiveness here. If a feature (specifically, ONLY DD+ downconversion to DD) is actually supposed to be better than it currently is, bringing this up is a bad thing? The fact that the other audio tracks decode to DD just fine leads one to think that it SHOULD be better....

Well, again, people at AVS are looking for perfection in a little box for $200 when, most likely, they already own an A1.

I dunno. I haven't heard it for myself but if they can fix it, great. But I'm wondering if the general public will even notice it.

Just got my player. Been watching King Kong, and yeah, it's amazing. I know a couple of times I jumped back because I thought Kong's hand was coming through the TV screen to get me.

The setup is a breeze. Now I'm waiting on Batman Begins to get here.

They won't, this is something the buffs will want to know. This is just like the people who hardcore love DTS over DD. Some people notice, some people don't. Either way, you still notice a pretty decent difference in audio and more engulfment than on regular DVD's.

As long as this drive doesn't hiccup during playback like my A1 has been doing lately, I'll be fine with it. I'm really hoping 2.1 shows up soon. It may not be a major problem with these small glitches, they are starting to get really annoying. I want flawless playback and I'm thinking more and more about getting the A2. Being a 2nd Gen player, it should definitely be more stable for playback.

Anyone know if this drive can play Japan region HDDVDs? Looking to get Equilibrium. Thanks in advance.

The discs have no region code on them. Yes.