A first look? Months after the initial release? Fine. My first look. I held off buying one because I was on the fence over it – a special offer for MGS employees sucked me right in. I picked up the drive earlier this week, but I didn’t get around to getting a HD-DVD movie until today.

What are my thoughts?

My first thought is the same thought that I’ve had with using a 360, Xbox or PS2 as a DVD player: why in the hell can’t they remember where I left off if I stop a movie?! When my last DVD player broke, I wasn’t going to get a new one. I tried using the PS2 I had at the time – clunky experience with no remote control. My Xbox? Not only did I need a special playback kit but it didn’t remember my last saved point either. And of course, I couldn’t turn it on remotely, but that was a typo for the entire Xbox – not just movies. When I got my 360, I was extremely hopeful. After all, you could take control over almost every feature on the thing with a remote or game controller. Sadly, the 360 doesn’t remember the last saved position either. FWIW, my “new” Sony DVD player – from over three years ago – saves the position [of a stopped movie] for the last six movies it has played, meaning that it saves the position between disc ejections!

In this case, the HD-DVD player is no different from the DVD player on the 360.

Having said that, the rest of the experience is remarkable. The sole connection to the 360 is via USB yet the experience is still 1080p and 5.1 sound. With all the “proper” equipment, mind: my TV caps out at 1080i and I have an optical cable for sound. Neat stuff. And I got an addition USB port as part of this – whoo!

The picture? Spot on. Better than DVD? Hard to say because my eyes suck. I watched Superman Returns. I figured it was best to go with a modern movie and one that had good effects throughout – I wasn’t disappointed. Everything was bright and crisp – the sound was bouncing all over the place. Did I try to put my hand through the glass? Maybe! But a regular DVD can have the same experience – the question is always “is it better” and on my nearly three year old TV, I couldn’t say for certain. At the very least it certainly wasn’t worse.

What was even more interesting to me was finding an answer to the question of “why should I get HD-DVD or Blu-ray?” I can’t speak to Blu-ray – the only thing I know about it is that they had more Blu-ray titles at Fry’s than they did HD-DVD, which was a bummer. That and Part 1 of Season Six of The Sopranos has been released in DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray formats. No one gets to escape the Mob.

Anyway, one of the neat things with HD-DVD are the way the features seem to have been standardized. In a movie, you no longer have to stop to jump around the disc. All HD-DVD movies include a slide-in menu which includes Pause/Resume, Setup, Scene Selection, and Extras (if there are any). With the menu up, the movie continues. Scene selection is now a time line: it shows you here you are and lets you slide around the scenes, while the movie continues to play. Also, as part of the disc trailer, they mentioned that for some discs you could run PIP with the main movie and the corresponding behind-the-scenes extra. That’s some really cool stuff.

One tip with regards to the 360. When I first started the movie, it was only pumping out stereo sound even though the disc was 5.1 (and 7.1). I’m not certain, but I think the audio setting got reset to Stereo when I plugged in the HD-DVD drive: my games have been playing in 5.1 for a long, long while… one setting flip and the movie went 5.1

The fact that I got a HD-DVD player for $200 is pretty sweet either way – a solid purchase.