Playback kitsch (Xbox Official DVD Movie Playback Kit)

Member Name: JPShooter

Product:	Xbox Official DVD Movie Playback Kit
Date:	22/05/04 (192 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good DVD picture, lots of audio and visual options, long range remote

Disadvantages: No dts support, should you really have to pay?

It's nice when things are multi-purpose. A phone that's also an mp3 player, a bed that's also a sofa, a games console that's also a DVD player. The latter boast can be made by the Playstation 2 and the XBox, but for the XBox you require the DVD playback kit. The kit consists of a set of instructions, a receiver unit which is placed in a controller port and a remote control with all the usual DVD trimmings.

The kit costs roughly £20 on the high street and is as easy as it gets to set up. Put the receiver in a controller port, put in a DVD and you're off. Of course, that is after you've bought some AAA batteries to put in the remote, because Microsoft do not supply any with the kit. Considering the cost to include a couple of cheap batteries, I think it wouldn't have been too much to ask. It's not like remotes use up a lot of power. Also, only the remote can be used for controlling the DVD menus, the controller does nothing during DVD playback, so you really do need to get some.

The quality of the playback is pretty good as far as I can see. I've used 2 different DVD players on my television (one cheap and one reasonably expensive) and have noticed little difference in quality, even up close, and the XBox playback is comparable to the other players. The XBox menu system allows you to choose from 3 different screen layouts, normal (for 4:3 TVs), letterbox and widescreen, so you can select for what type of television you have. There are also audio options for mono, stereo or Dolby Digital Surround. I have tried mono and stereo, and both were reasonable without being spectacular. how much this is due to the televisions it was tested on and how much is due to the XBox audio playback is arguable, however. I have not tried the Dolby Digital playback as I don't have the means to do so.

Navigation and the menu system the kit employs is pretty straightforward, similar to the options you get on DVD
playing software on PCs, only more limited. One missing feature I noticed was the time remaining on the disc and chapter, common to most DVD players and DVD playing software. The options, displayed by pressing "display" (amazingly enough) at the top of the remote are; Subtitles, Viewing Angle, Audio options, Settings (which takes you to the normal XBox settings menu), A-B Repeat option, and Zoom (which goes from 2x to 10x). There are also shortcut buttons on the remote for the Title screen, Menu, Info (which just gives the Title, Chapter and current run time) and a back button. There are also all the buttons you would expect, like the number keys, selection keys and play controls.

The remote is quite comfortable and the buttons felt pretty good. The receiving unit worked from pretty much everywhere in my room, even from behind some obstacles. I'm not sure if the unit is RF or infra-red, but it works good whatever it is. The manaul, such as it is, provides information about how to use the kit, how to play DVDs, some troubleshooting tips and a freephone support number should you require it.

So all in all, the kit is pretty useful. I think it is a bit of a cop-out to force consumers to buy the kit to be able to play DVDs, especially seeing as the Playstation 2 does this without the need for an extra purchase. But having said that, PS2 owners have to shell out for memory cards and XBox owners don't, so I'll let it go. However the one thing PS2 owners do have over XBox owners in terms of DVD playback is that the PS2 supports dts sound, whereas the XBox only goes to Dolby Digital. Now you could argue that if you wanted and had the setup to support dts sound, you wouldn't be using a PS2 to play DVDs, but all the same it would have been nice to have the support there from the XBox.

I like to able to use my computer and watch DVDs from my XBox at the same time, and it is relatively cheap to do so. You can get
DVD players pretty cheap now, but I guess £20 isn't too much to part with if you want a DVD player, have an XBox and don;t want to buy separate. It's ideal for some people, not for others. It's ideal for me, and I think it was money well spent.

Summary: