I don’t know about everyone else, but my Xbox 360 does not perform well as a DVD movie player.
The menus in the movie works fine. Selecting a scene works as well as any other DVD player, but when I actually play the movie, it gets darker and brighter, and then back to darker. The colours are way off, and it looks rediculous. You would think that it would be better than a twenty dollar DVD player from Wal-Mart, but it isn’t, atleast in my experience. It plays more like a VCR with a very old, worn out movie inside. Sometimes the image gets messed up, other times it goes right to blue for a second.
I don’t have a high definition television, and so I am hooking it up with the composite cables, and other than this problem my experiences with the Xbox 360 have been pretty decent.
I am including a 1 meg Divx video file so you can see how bad the contrast is, and if you watch closely, you can see it cut out for a split second. This problem occurs on 95% of the DVD’s I put into the machine. Some, like my DVD of the first episode of Smallville, work perfectly fine.
If anyone else is having this problem, or knows a way to fix it, please let me know.
Video File: Xbox DVD Quality Problem
Update: Well it looks like people smarter than me most likely have it figured out. It looks like it may be a Macrovision problem, as I do have the Xbox hooked through my VCR because I can’t connect it to my old Space Command Chromatic television any other way.
What is Macrovision?
Macrovision is a copying protection system, that is installed on ‘most’ DVDs. Macrovision causes varying colour balances and distorts the picture on any attempts at copying to a VHS.
That is why my Smallville DVD works, and most others do not. It probably does not have Macrovision copy protection on it.
I would like to verify that it is Macrovision doing this, but I can’t connect the Xbox 360 directly to my television, so I will have to wait until my VGA cable comes in so I can connect it to my monitor.
Thanks to everyone that jumped on board to help figure this out. I am just glad it is my $50 television that is the problem, and not my $500 Xbox 360. I so need a new T.V.