Does an HD-DVD Drive for a PC Exist?

[SpaceCoyote]

Seems like a nice and easy upgrade for my HTPC, but can't seem to find one anywhere.

Do they exist?

[Grandmaster]

They're not available yet. And when they will come out they'll be expensive.

So expensive that many people are buying Toshiba HD-A1s for $400 and stripping out the drive. Others are waiting for the 360 add-on to be released so they can remove the drive from that :D

[SpaceCoyote]

Aaaaaah.

Interesting idea about the 360 add on though.

[bradavon]

Why would a PC drive be less than the whole HD-A1? That makes no sense.

[Tom Whitaker]

Might the 360 drive not work on a pc via usb?

[GProject]

Might the 360 drive not work on a pc via usb?
Depends if the 360-drive connects to the 360 by USB. I'm not well versed on my X-Box 360 connections, but I'm sure someone here will know.

[Geezer]

The drive does connect to the 360 via USB indeed :)

[Grandmaster]

Microsoft will not support the 360 add-on with PC drivers. The best we can hope for is that the drive can be removed from its housing and installed internally. But even then there may be issues with ACSS - the drive taken from the Toshiba machine only wants to playback material that doesn't have ACSS.

[Tom Whitaker]

Thanks for that. It's interesting - seeing as MS is backing HD-DVD with hopes for world domination by the format, surely it'd be in their interest to let the drive work with PCs, and even Macs! I'm sure there's some complicated licensing-related stuff that explains why they won't/can't.