While Samsung’s Blu-ray disc player has finally arrived in the UK, we’ve yet to see Toshiba’s HD DVD system on this side of the Atlantic. Instead, Microsoft is first to champion the high definition (HD) movie format in Europe by offering an add-on drive for its Xbox 360 games console.

Priced at £130, the player connects to the console via USB and installation has been made as easy as possible. Insert the accompanying set-up disc, attach the drive when requested, restart your console and you’re ready to go.

We also had to download an automatic software update via Xbox Live, but within 10 minutes of opening the box everything was up and running. At the moment the player comes bundled with an HD DVD copy of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, plus a stylish programmable universal Media Center remote control, which you can use for your TV as well.

The drive is designed to work either horizontally or vertically, though small rubber feet on the bottom make the former the more sensible choice. Annoyingly, however, it also requires a separate power adapter rather than drawing power from the Xbox 360.

Two USB ports on the rear make up for the socket used by the drive, and allow those with a wireless adapter to keep it hidden at the back of the system.

The player can only be used to watch movies - Microsoft is adamant we’ll see no games in HD DVD format, and the unit even refuses to play normal game discs.

Given the notably slow operation of first-generation Blu-ray and HD DVD players, we were keen to check out the drive’s performance.

Sure enough, in tests it took almost a minute to go from powering up the console to watching a movie. With the console already on, however, the time to start a movie dropped dramatically to just 10 seconds. The drive is also relatively quiet compared to the console itself.

We also had no complaints when it came to picture and sound quality; even compared to an upscaling DVD player, improvements in the high-definition transfer of King Kong were immediately obvious. Colours were bold, the overall image was crystal clear and there was loads of extra detail at both 720p and 1080i settings, especially in jungle scenes and the fight between Kong and the T-rex. Truly impressive.

The film’s Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack also appeared more detailed than on the original DVD, although the 360 downmixes everything to 5.1 channels. In fact, the only thing we didn’t like was the HD DVD menu design as chapter selection can be a bit of pain.

If you already own an Xbox 360, Microsoft’s HD DVD package provides a great way to sample high-definition movies without committing too much money to a new format. In fact, given the price of standalone players, it’s a bit of a steal.

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