While it says it is stuck at 5%, it's actually downloading. If you resume, you'll see it jump up to 15 or 25%.

Picked up my replacement 360 at the UPS center. Looks brand new (was in the static bag and had the protective labels on the tray, etc). Has a build date of 1/26/06, I think my old one was built around 12/15/05. I didn't send the hard drive back so I just popped that back on and had to screw around with the setup a bit but I was able to get back onto live with no issues. all is well for the moment.

Anyone think microsoft in there next update on fix the dvd player? on widescreen tvs full screen material gets streched.

Lots of DVD Players do this... just means they don't support Pillarboxing.

It's kind of annoying, but I don't use the 360 for a dvd player anyways b/c it's so freakin loud.

Where I have it I cant hear it, The only reason I use it as my DVD player is my HDTV only has one Component hookup. and its a pain unhooking the 360 and hooking the dvd player back up.

again, are you sure it's not your TV doing it? My TV locks into 16:9 mode when receiving a progressive signal (as the 360 outputs for DVDs when properly connected). So when I watch 4:3 DVDs on my regular player I have to put my regular player in interlaced mode. It could be the XBox player doing but double check that it's not your TV that's doing the stretching.

Wow, really? Your TV locks into 16:9 mode? Mine, I have to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 manually via the aspect ratio button.

yeah I can switch the aspect mode button when it's on 480i, but when it's getting a 480p, or 1080i signal (doesn't support native 720p) I can't change the aspect ratio. Though I wonder if there's something in the service menu I could do to change that.

no its not the tv, its the 360 my dvd player toshiba, i dont have to watch fullscreen dvds in interlace, I watch them in progressive scan and it isnt streched. the 360 just streches them

Nope - mine is working fine as well. Got ripped MP3s and will be using it as my primary stereo as soon as I can get all my CDs on it.

Oh man I don't envy you one bit, I've gone through this process before for probably 600-700 albums it takes forever. :(

I've been working on doing that as well.

I wish there was a legit service, or something like iTunes, where if you actually own the cd, you could pay say $5 to download the digital files so you don't have to rip them.
But then again, I can see it being abused with people borrowing cds from friends.

No matter to me now, I have all of the stuff on my HDD and soon I'll buy a backup for that plus I have most all of those CDs then burned to a CDr so then I'm left with 4 copies of every album I own. :D yeah that's a little ocd for ya :D

I may hook up a HDD to my 360 as well....however, I can stream them fine from my PC, so I may just continue to use that. I do want an extra HDD though for all my MP3's. I've been archiving my CD's as well. I back them all up on CDR or DVD+R's.

I have one external drive already hooked up to my PC, but that is to backup my system. I would like a 25GB HDD for my music for my 360.

If you own the CD, downloading the music from someplace like www.allofmp3.com is probably OK. (I am not a lawyer).

The Ridge Racer demo is now available on Marketplace.

As is Jewel Quest.

You would think they would have done a better job on the graphics the PC version looks way better.

You should bring that HDD to the meet so that we can have some tunes. Music makes playing video games more fun.

It would be great if someone could update the first page with more links to reviews, etc, when the games are released. It's a great one stop shopping place for the various reviews on the games.

Frys Southern CA ad:

XBox 360

NBA Live 2006
Burnout Revenge
Fight Night Round 3
Dead or Alive 4


$47.99

Chris

That's only on the first page! On the inside of the Fry's ad, they still have Ghost Recon for the same price... 47.99.

I wish we had a Fry's near us. :(

I must be blind. On page 3 of the Fry's ad, they show Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfighter for the XBox (only) for $37.99

Chris

Hmm... you may be right about that. I'll have to check.

They did have Ghost Recon for 360 on sale for the Tuesday to Thursday sale, but most Fry's didn't even have the game in yesterday, so I assumed they extended it to today, and didn't even look twice at the inside ad.