Ed

"Hardrive"?

Really? Cmon.

At least he didn't spell "Coming" wrong when he was making this really sad fake.

Wow. $1,250 in total prizes.

How generous you are in your promotions, Microsoft.

Tek: one correction, HD-DVD is perfectly capable of 1080p. The data on the discs is encoded at 1080p. The 360 is also capable of displaying the content in 1080p.

The first HD-DVD players could only output 1080i, but the xbox and the second gen hddvd players do 1080p just fine.

It's highly unlikely that you'll see gamercard.zune.net, live.zune.net, or forums.zune.net.

Look at the xbox.com source nad you'll see a line like this:

var ProductionDomains="live.xbox.com,forums.xbox.com,www.xbox.com,gamercard.xbox.com";

It looks like some lazy zune.net coder decided to just s/xbox.com/zune.net/ on most of the code.

I might be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

It looks to me like the problem is that Microsoft is doing sync-on-green for the VGA only at 1920x1080, and separate h/v-sync at lower resolutions.

Why they did this, I don't know. It only affects sets that can't handle sync on green over VGA, like the XBR2/3.

I haven't heard of this problem with any other 1080p set, and, as I've mentioned before, my 1080p set is working fine. 1920x1080x60hz, flawlessly.

Now I just need some 1080p XBLA games... or maybe 1080p table tennis. Mmmm.

christopher, I can guarantee you that MSFT never promised upscaling of dvds to 720p over component.

Component isn't considered a "protected" output, and so the CSS rules say you can't output more than 480p. This is why all (legal) upconverting dvd players have HDMI/DVI+HDCP outputs, and only upconvert over that output.

VGA is, oddly, a protected output, and so Microsoft can upconvert DVDs over a VGA cable.

Check out:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/06/20/ask-hd-beat-dvd-upconverting-over-component/

That said, there are DVD players that upconvert over non-protected outputs. They do so at their own risk, though, and I think they could have their license to use the DVD logo+trademark revoked. I have an Oppo 971H which upconverts to 720p/1080i over dvi (without HDCP). It's not quite legit, and they could get sued, which is why MSFT isn't doing the same thing.

Obviously movies that aren't CSS-encrypted would, presumably, be fine to upconvert over an unprotected output. Whether Microsoft does that, i don't know.

Anyway, I'm sure Microsoft had some big legal memo that says they can upconvert over VGA and a theoretical HDMI output, but not Component/Composite. Sucks to be you, huh?

Dave/#2:

I'm hoping for Connect360 to support it, too, but I wouldn't hold my breath. You can only stream wmv, so you'd have to transcode to wmv, which, of course, is not entirely easy to do on a Mac.

But maybe we'll see it happen.

Agreed entirely with #2 and #3. That is not in any way a real jack-o-lantern. It's a mediocre photoshop job.

I have my suspicions about the second pumpkin, too, but I'm fairly sure it's real. And even if it's not, it's still the best pumpkin on the page, real or fake.

I just got it, along with the fall update, as well.

And my 360 is now running at 1920x1080. Yes, I have a 1080p TV and full 1920x1080 over VGA. Suck it.

Check back to when MSFT initially announced XNA. Merely wanting to play homebrew games on your 360 will cost you something like $100/yr... membership fee for the "XNA Users Group".