Was just looking at the XBox specs, because I am thinking about buying it and giving my current player to my girlfriend, to get her into DVD.

Then I looked at this:
http://www.xbox.com/Hardware/expansi...laybackkit.htm

The DVD kit has a remote that has next to no feature buttons, especially no Audio, Angle, subtitle or zoom buttons.

What the hell is that?

As far as I know, neither the X-Box nor Nintendo's GameCube will have DVD playback ability. I have heard rumours of both eventually being released with the capability for playing DVD movies, but not for the initial release.

If anyone has information contrary to this, please correct me!

-matt

It has that "Display" button, no telling what kind of menu that will open up. Quite likely that all of those functions might be in the display menu.

I would assume you could access most of those features, if not all, through a menu system, but I don't really know.

X-box will play DVD movies, but not without the remote. I suppose there could be a hidden way to use the controllers (maybe with a code) but time will tell. That would really suck if the remote didn't have those buttons. The player I bought for my parents doesn't have "audio" or "angle" either (you have to select those functions from a menu that the player places over the top of the screen). I guess they think they're helping J6P.

As for the Gamecube, the initial system won't play DVD's. The tray is too small anyway, so there won't be an upgrade for that. However, a version that will play DVD's is slated for next year:

The Gamecube DVD player is confirmed in Japan, but no word if it will ever reach the US, but the X-Box will require purchasing the DVD Movie Playback Kit ($35) which will unlock the software to decode them. This is what I've read. Sounds very possible if you can't watch the movie and control it with the controller.

As I remember, PS2 DVD Player has very few features also. The XBOX DVD Player definitely won't meet a hardcore's demands, but hopefully it'll have excellent image quality and sound.

Well the PS2 at least had the audio and subtitles accessible from the controller without needing to go into a menu. But I'm kind of surprised about this on the X-Box since you're actually putting out $35 for it. I figure you would get something far more functional than what is being shown. At least the PS2 remote is only $20 and far superior in interface than what MS is showing. With the PS2 remote and driver update, it has pretty much all the normal features you would expect.

I saw a picture of the X-box remote and get this:
It uses a frickin' RCA universal remote! It hasn't been altered at all, except that it has green buttons instead of the usual purple.
I can't stand RCA's universal remotes, they have almost no functions on them. I can't believe they want you to pay $35 for this useless remote. Still, it raises the interesting question of whether if you just bought a regular RCA remote, if it would work. I doubt it, but you never know.

I wonder if my Sony RMAV2100 would do the trick? Not that it matters anyway, I'm getting a GameCube and we already have a DVD player...

It wouldn't work because you also need the infrared remote sensor that plugs into the controller port.

It wouldn't meet DVD video standards if it didn't have those capabilities. I'm sure x-box will have them.

Here's more info on the PS2 remote:

http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/re...=ps2sonyremote

While I'm sure X-Box will have all the basic features I'm just still surprised that the remote is so limited. I'm pretty sure that you will be able to use any RCA remote as long as you have the infrared sensor. The PS2 remote will work with any Sony remote and vice versa.

Here is the reason as to why you need to use an X-BOX remote for DVD playback on the X-box. Rumor has it that X-box costs approximately $375 to produce, and at $299 microsoft is taking a big hit (if they ship 4 million units at this production price, they will lost $300,000,000 alone on hardware production). To include DVD PLAYBACK right in the box at the $299 pricetag, microsoft would have to pay the royalty fee (which i believe is around $10u.s. per dvd player) to the DVD board which then in turn dispurses (sp) that money to all the people who came up with the dvd standard (which i believe is philips and sony and a few other companies(correct me if i am wrong.)) By making a seperate package consisting of a remote and whatever other hardware is needed to unlock the DVD functions to X-box, microsoft is then only paying a royalty on every REMOTE it sells as opposed to every X-box it sells. This also allows them to make a profit, because they would probably make close to $20 profit on each remote sold. Now a gaming machine that plays games in 1080i and a full-fledged progressive scan DVD player for $335 does NOT sound like a bad deal to me.

vwbeetlvr - just so you know...the xbox does not do progressive scan dvd playback. It does progressive scan gaming but not dvds. You will no doubt come back will all kinds of information that would say that I am wrong. But I do know for a FACT that it does not.

Maynerd