Xbox 360 A Dud?

[LatinR33]

Hey guys ive been doing some reading on cnet and it seems the 360 is a dud as heaps of people seems to have probs with freezing,overheating and the "red lights" of death. What is your take?? Also heard there is an xbox 360 version 2 codename zephyr also in the works which will include hdmi. Interesting could this be confirmation version 1 is no good????

[MacGuyver]

Yeah there have been lots of stories of people with dud 360's (my brother was one of them, it's fixed now) but there are a lot more people out there that have machines with no problems at all. A friend of mine got a 360 for Christmas and hasn't had any issues with it yet. It seems there are always problems with launch machines nowdays, just make sure you get a good warranty with your console!

The second version of the 360 seems to address the overheating and noise issues as well as others (includes HDMI port too!).

[Beer Baron]

well like all things you only tend to hear the bad stories. I'm not a 360 fan personally but they are a pretty damn good console, and most people I know with them love them and have had little to no problems.

[SKYLVIA]

when does this ver. 2 come out? i havent got one yet, but if i do, im thinking ver. 2 is the way to go

[LatinR33]

So far its rumour which has some real value due to leaked pics of the new xbox 360 with the hdmi output at the back. personally id get this if it ever sees the production line.

[predator]

Some of the early ones have had problems, but I personally haven't heard of anybody that has had any problems.. including me..

There is no advantage to HDMI for the 360, seeing as it has component and VGA connections already for highdef and you probably wouldn't notice any quality difference at the end of the day. Why do you want HDMI particularly? or have you just heard it's some wizz bang thing?

HDMI is really just sony's way of protecting content and a two way communication between the TV and console for rights management. Sceptics say that is why it's on the PS3 - so they can lock people down later on from bluray movies, games, etc.

[SKYLVIA]

microsoft using sony components? i thought it was microsofts way of battling the PS3's Blu-Ray?

on a semi-related topic

Man kills 17-month-old daughter for accidently unplugging Xbox 360

This was Tyrone Spellman's explanation to police: He "snapped" after he thought his daughter had broken a $600 Xbox game console.

Alayiah Turman was only 17 months old, born March 29, 2005. Spellman beat her to death, prosecutors say.

In an alleged confession read at his preliminary hearing yesterday, Spellman, 25, said he was playing one of Tom Clancy's "Ghost Recon" games - a violent combat epic - in a front bedroom of his family's Brewerytown home that Thursday morning, Sept. 7. He had taken Alayiah into the room so her mother, Mia Turman, could rest.

"She pulled the cord and the whole game console fell over," Spellman said in his statement, read by Homicide Detective John Cummings. "I thought it was broken. I popped her in the face. I picked her up and tossed her in a chair."

Later that day - at 12:37 p.m. - Alayiah was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital.

Spellman, also known as Anwar Salahuddin, was held for trial by order of Municipal Court Judge Gerard A. Kosinski on charges of murder, endangering the welfare of a child, and related offenses.

Alayiah's slaying was one of several child deaths examined by The Inquirer in an October article on the city Department of Human Services and its oversight of child-abuse and neglect cases.

DHS visited Spellman's rowhouse on the 1500 block of North 29th Street twice in August - each time seeing only the baby's mother, Mia Turman, 21, and Alayiah, inside. Turman told the agency that no one else lived there.

In September, Cheryl Ransom-Garner, then DHS commissioner, told The Inquirer that a social worker had reported the child looked happy and had no bruises. But Turman's mother, Marvine Turman, told The Inquirer that she had seen bruises on the child.

Yesterday's hearing focused on the injuries Alayiah suffered on the day she died.

In his statement, Spellman said that after he tossed his daughter in a chair, he put her on a bed. He then went to tell Turman, who was eight months pregnant and sleeping in a different bedroom, that he was going to a store to get "something to smoke and something to eat."

When he returned, Spellman said, Keith Walker - identified after the hearing by Spellman's supporters as a tenant in the house - told him that Alayiah "fell and had blood on her nose."

Spellman called 911 while Walker tried to resuscitate her.

Mia Turman testified yesterday, her voice at times nervous, as Spellman stared at her. Turman and Alayiah had moved into Spellman's house about a month before the child's death.

Turman testified that Spellman woke her about noon Sept. 7 and that, when she saw Alayiah, the baby's nose was bleeding, "the side of her face was bruised," and "she wasn't breathing."

Under cross-examination by Spellman's lawyer, Bobby Hoof, Turman agreed that Spellman had told her Alayiah had fallen off a bed and had been found lying on a barbell.

Edwin Lieberman, the city assistant medical examiner who performed Alayiah's autopsy, testified that in addition to bruises around her head, Alayiah suffered "tremendous injury" inside her head "caused by at minimum three separate blows" to the right side, top and back of her skull.

Alayiah's skull was fractured to the point that a piece of bone had fallen out, he said.

When asked by Assistant District Attorney Yvonne Ruiz what could have caused Alayiah's internal head injuries, Lieberman testified that a fist could have caused them or her head could have struck a smooth surface, such as a tabletop, wall or floor.

Under cross-examination, Lieberman dismissed Hoof's suggestions. "A simple fall as you are suggesting from a bed would not cause a skull fracture," he said. Nor, he said, would falling on a weight.

After the hearing, Turman, surrounded by relatives, let off her anger toward Spellman, who she said showed no remorse.

"My baby don't deserve that," she said.

only in america

Edited January 9, 2007 by SKYLVIA

[LatinR33]

I dont want HDMI. Just asking if the xbox is a dud and whether its worth buying one as they only have like a 90 day warranty supposedly. I dont want to shed out $1000 bucks for a PS3. Also been told the fan gets loud and annoying also and if red lights appear might aswell throw the xbox away or use it as an expensive paperweight. not to mention overheating.

[kralster]

I like it. I've had mine since launch day and have not had a problem yet.

And the games are just starting to come really good now.

With Gears of War, WWE, TDU, Rainbow Six Vegas.

The new system with the HDMi output doesn't really worry me though.

I've got my 360 connected via component and it looks really good at 1080i on my sony 32in lcd.

I'll use the HDMi port for my PS3 when i get that.

[LOOF]

I got 1 as a present from the first batch and since then it has broken but I think that is because I played for more than 12 hours a time over the weekend, but as for warrantys I bought a 2 year warranty from EB games for $80 and I'm glad I did cos I'm on my second xbox360 and it didnt cost me a cent to get it changed.

[Chris_R33GTSt]

My mate Junkers got an Xbox360 for Christmas and less than a week later it blew up. Red lights on the front, it was completely Brickified. M$ are going to replace the unit so we will have to see what they have done to resolve the issue which appears to be heat related.

From the new Xbox is going to have a die shrink on the IBM PPC Cpu from 90nm to 65nm this will aid in cooling. It is exactly the same wafer and has the same features. It is still up in the air as to whether the official 2nd gen Xbox will have the digital compositor chip to send a Digital (DVI or HDMI) signal to a display. Currently the Xbox cannot output a digital signal as it does not have the chip that translates and upscales the video. In this sense the PS3 is much more advanced as it DOES have HDMI/DVI output.

Since Micro$oft has not officially given any details other than the die shrink on the CPU we will have to wait and see what sort of rabbit they pull out of the hat.

[Ronin]

Ive had mine for 6 months or so, it never misses a beat. I flashed it too.

[predator]

Currently the Xbox cannot output a digital signal as it does not have the chip that translates and upscales the video.

Actually the 360 does have an upscaler chip, it is the ps3 that doesn't.

Anyhow, doesn't matter at the end of the day, as you can read a number benchmarks out there that in terms of video playback from a HD-DVD on a 360 vs Blu-ray on PS3, or DVD, there is little to no difference in quality.

[32vspecII]

no problems with mine

bit noisy tho

[Chris_R33GTSt]

Actually the 360 does have an upscaler chip, it is the ps3 that doesn't.

Anyhow, doesn't matter at the end of the day, as you can read a number benchmarks out there that in terms of video playback from a HD-DVD on a 360 vs Blu-ray on PS3, or DVD, there is little to no difference in quality.

I was referring to the analogue to digital converter chip that would allow the XBOX to display video on a digital panel via DVI-D or HDMI (ie DIGITAL SIGNAL). EG Plasma, LCD or Projector. The XBOX does not have the capability to transmit digital video from its display port. This is a major screw up for M$. Hopefully they will resolve this in the next revision as it is quite simple and very cheap (like maybe 15-20c) to buy this component wholesale and design it into the motherboard of the system.

As I understand it and i may be corrected but the XBOX can only do component, composite or VGA video.

BTW mate there is no thing as a chip that modifies the resolution (upscaler) I was refering to this as encoding the signal from the GPU to DVI/HDMI

These numbers refer to resolution: (1080P = 1920*1080, 720P = 1280*720) You dont want to screw around with interlacing as it is half of the progreessive scans resolution and looks shit house.

Google is your friend

Edited January 13, 2007 by Chris_R33GTSt

[predator]

I don't think it's a screwup, as nearly every article that has gone into this has said that in their testing, there is little to no difference in display quality using the PS3's fancy HDMI and the 360's component or VGA output cable.

In 'theory' HDMI offers better resolution due to being direct digital->digital, but in practice it matters little if nobody (or only the most pedantic person) wouldn't notice the difference. It's ridiculous when people say 'bah, the 360 doesn't even have HDMI, therefore it looks crap'. It's the same when people get silly over any wizzbang spec in the latest device on paper, without looking at whether it makes a difference to using the product at the end of the day. Here is a good article discussing this: http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/122868.html

I'd have it for free, but it's not a major concern to me if something didn't have HDMI. While the chip may only cost a few bucks, the licensing costs and integrating the correct copy-protection methodology into a device can translate into much larger, and could have pushed the 360 price up another $100 who knows.

In fact, HDMI has drawbacks that should be considered - namely the copy-protection that Sony will be phasing in (and other HDMI players), which will very much 'lockdown' what you can and can't play and from what region... and on what device.

And don't forget the fact that a unless you have a compliant HDMI TV (ok, it's becoming fairly standard now, but you're stuffed if you don't have it), when the 'phase2' kicks in, any high-def content that is attempted to be played back on a non-HDMI compliant TV will simply go back to 480 res, even if that TV can quite capably play true high-def content. Anybody that spent $10k, etc on a highdef TV older than 12 months or so ago is basically going to be up the crapper.

Eventually HDCP/HDMI may also tie specific media to a specific device or possibly one TV, meaning you won't even be able to sell your games or movies that you've bought to other people, and the like.

I'd be a bit more worried about that in the longer term.

BTW mate there is no thing as a chip that modifies the resolution (upscaler) I was refering to this as encoding the signal from the GPU to DVI/HDMI

maybe you should look that part up in google yourself - type 'xbox 360 upscaler' .. I was reading about it the other day. It's the same type of hardware in many dvd players and TV's that upsample a standard def DVD to 720 or 1080, etc. Although I admit it can't magically make resolution out of nothing, it can give slightly better pictures.

[LatinR33]

I want HDMI cause my Samsung LCD tv has two AV slots and there already used up with foxtel and my surround sound system. Ive got the HDMI there not used yet so that will be the connector for my game console.

[32vspecII]

have you guys actually seen the ps3 output on hdmi ?

xbox is much sharper and clerer over component

i was a bit shocked at the unimpressiveness of the ps3 output actually

component will do most people just fine

most displays and recievers have multiple component input these days if your worried about getting caught short

Edited January 15, 2007 by arkon

[LatinR33]

Yeah well aslong as it works and plays games and doesnt break down on me i dont care what system it is. You have to be some kind of super critic to notice differences in graphics between xbox 360 and ps3

[32vspecII]

well i just expected more from a system with 8 billion processors ruinning at 1.21 giggaflops per microsecond