Microsoft – Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-On

Are you curious how Microsoft's HD DVD Add-on performs in a series of standard industry benchmarks? Well you are in luck, Secrets took it through its paces. Overall it performed well, but it was not on par with the big names such as Genum and Faroudja.

From the article:

The
performance of the add-on is very similar to the 360 as a standard DVD
player. Like the main console, the resolution is limited to 480p. The
console supports resolutions of up to 1080p, but the DVD forum mandates
that all DVD players limit their analog video outputs to 480p, so I
guess we’re stuck with that for awhile.

All
of the video processing and de-interlacing is done in software, and
Microsoft developed all of their own codes for this. They did quite a
good job, but fell short of what you might expect from a high-line
progressive scan DVD player.