Ok, appologies if this has already been covered anywhere else on this forum or is indeed widely known but i wanted to ask someone in the know-

i am about to upgrade to HD (blu-ray will come later) and am doing so via the xbox 360's HD drive. It will be a UK purchased drive. Can i import US HD-DVD discs and more importantly will they play on said drive.

thank you for your patience.


wupton

I think so...but there are others on the forum far more knowledgable on such matters than I...

Yes you can, there is no Region coding enabled on either HD-DVD discs or players - Mine is a UK player and console and 90% of my discs are from the USA.

For DVD playback you will be region locked to the origin of the Console.

Guys - I was hoping to help but may have some contradictory / conflicting info.

There's a statement in this month's DVD Review mag that says categorically that the HD-DVD medium is region free. I have the 360 HD drive and have had no problems with imported discs so far (V for Vendetta, Children of Men and Serenity) so based on that I'd have said you should be fine.

However, when you look on playusa.com at the HD-DVDs there is a statement that they will only play on American players. I'm not 100% how accurate that is or whether it's there to deter people but on discs such as Children of Men which has the HD on one side and SD on the other, the SD side is region coded as Region 1.

Also, the last time I went to a fair, one of the traders was implying that region coding was likely to be introduced on HD at some point but to his knowledge they're region free at the moment.

Sorry I couldn't give you a definitive but would rather at least provide some relevant info.

Excellent, i thank you for that and shall now continue my quest for upgrades- 300 may now be ordered with some peace of mind.

cheers guys!

That's my next purchase. playusa have it for £18

Play just state that as a matter of course on all import titles, rest assured you'll be fine with the imports.

If, and it's a big if, region coding is introduced it's been stated many times that all current hardware will simply remain region free anyway - so even if they did bring it in a current xbox drive should still work with future titles.

Thanks for that Ben - much appreciated