Got some free HD-DVDs sent to me

[gunrock]

I want to rip them to something like H264 main profile mkv but don't have a HD-DVD drive. What's the best plan?

[sj33]

You do ultimately need a HD-DVD drive if you want to be able to rip from the discs. You should be able to find the 360 external drive for cheap as chips on ebay, and that will work on the PC.

[KusoGaki]

The 360 HD-DVD drive is ?5 on cex's website.

[VR46]

Sure I saw CEX had some of the discs priced at a quid each on HotUKDeals the other day too.

[gunrock]

thanks fellas, I think I might pick up a HD DVD player from CEX. A fiver? That's amazing depreciation. Bloody hell, that must have cost MS a bomb.

[dvdx2]

Output of Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio codecs, as well as multi-channel LPCM, is not supported on the Xbox 360 HD DVD player since the Xbox 360 itself does not support them. As a result, only conventional stereo LPCM, Dolby Digital and DTS (optional feature available within the HD DVD audio settings) are available as output, although HD audio can be enabled when used on PC.

I wouldnt bother with one of these, if you want HD audio codecs, i'd go for the tosh ep35

[sj33]

The 360 HD-DVD drive is nothing more than an external HD-DVD drive. The above audio limitations are limitations of the 360 itself, not the drive (which is just a drive in a caddy).

Gunrock wants to rip the discs, in which case the drive is fine. Hell, PC media players should handle the audio codecs fine nowerdays, too.