xbox 360

For those of you hoping to replace your progressive scan dvd player with the xbox 360 you may have to reconsider. A review on Arstechnica concludes that the xbox 360 dvd player does not even compare with budget (< $100) progressive scan dvd players.
Ben Kuchera of Arstechnica writes:

On the other hand, this is something that is designed to be hooked into people’s home theaters, and frankly on a large high definition screen the 360’s DVD player simply doesn’t keep up. The colors are murky, and in many scenes it’s easy to notice dithering and artifacts in the deep black areas of the picture. Considering the picture the system cranks out for games is so sharp and clear, a DVD player this mediocre is a head scratcher. Did Microsoft just not care enough to put the time and money into making sure the DVD player had a great picture? It seems as if they were more interested in a bullet point on the back of a box than having something that people would actually want to use on a day to day basis.

It looks like Microsoft dropped the ball on this one; hopefully some improvements can be made through a software update.
View complete review on Arstechnica