If you are a HI-DEF enthusiast, you may have been looking for components that can add to your true HI-DEF experience. As a casual gamer, I use my console for media playback. Especially the media stored on my PC and the HI-DEF DVD’s. My home theater receiver does not support Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio. There were no affordable receivers that supported these formats until recently. Now that Onkyo, Denon, Sony and others have affordable receivers that support these formats, I am looking forward to listening to the audio in the HD movies in those formats.

Xbox 360 does not support these formats. At least, the Xbox 360 HD DVD player down converts them to Dolby Digital and pass them to the receiver. So, if you buy a new receiver that supports these new formats, a PS3 at $500 is the best bet. PS3 supported Dolby True HD from day one (through HDMI PCM only). Microsoft doesn’t care. Sometimes they are not good even in ripping off features. If not for some fantastic games from their partners, Xbox 360 would have bitten the dust by now. Come this holiday season and PS3 will have a games lineup that rivals Xbox 360 games in quality. Definitely nothing will match the Halo 3 fan base. But I bet 2008 will be when PS3 will regain it’s top spot.

I don’t have a PS3 yet. I only have original Xbox and Xbox 360. I am slowly losing my loyalty to Xbox 360. If I buy a PS3, I may never go back to consoles from Microsoft. Ultimately I spent more money on Xbox 360 to get far less features and 2 two pieces of hot (literally) hardware. Most of my xbox 360 disks are scratched beyond readable condition. Imagine playing very hard to reach a check point in Gears Of War on insane difficulty and before the check point is saved, you get a message “disk unreadable” and going back to dash board. It happened to me many times.

HDMI, what is it? My Xbox 360 Premium (?) Edition asks. Downloads? I am full, I have only 20 GB. Go get a 120 GB hard drive for $175. I am sorry, I call myself Premium or Pro Edition.

1. Option to stop displaying notifications while watching a movie or video. Right now you have a global option to turn on and off the notifications.
2. I was completely disappointed when I saw that I could only text chat with MSN messenger users. I want video chat, now.
3. I think this will be a tough one. Right now turning on the console requires your controller to be more directional towards the console. Once switched on, it doesn’t matter if it is in direct line with the sensor. 
4. It takes longer and longer to boot up after every update to the dash board. It is becoming like Windows XP. By the end of the life cycle, Windows XP took ten times more to boot than it took in the beginning. I am pretty sure Vista is headed that way too. Fix the boot up process.
5. Increase the download queue length. It is a ridiculous artificial limit. 
6. Fix the streaming from Windoz or lose the business to other vendors. Period.
7. Bring web browsing to the console. Others have done it already. Make sure at least Microsoft audio video formats are supported from the Web.
8. I need an HDMI 1.3 cable for my premium system.
9. Support for 7.1 channel audio. I understand the fact that I have not seen an HD DVD with 7.1 channel audio yet.
10. Get better drives for the console and HD DVD. I have lost many game disks including my Call Of Duty 2 and Halo 2 disks to scratches after playing in Xbox 360. I have those disks with me as proof. Right now Gears of war is showing “disk unreadable” message once a while. My HD DVD drive showed red indicator on the drive bay one day and would not play, eject or even show up on the dash board. I turned off the console and next day everything was fine.
11. Fix the Arcade games achievements. Here is a bug. Download a free trial of an arcade game. Play it and when it shows that you would have earned an achievement if you unlocked the game, unlock it. You won’t get the achievement and you will never be able to get it because the game thinks you already earned it. Bummer.
12. Fix the appear offline feature. I do not want to appear online when I just want to go and check the market place. Give me an option to appear offline by default just like MSN messenger.
13. Option to disable the power button on the controller while in game. It may also increase the battery life if the LED is off.
14. Turn off the audio when screen saver is running.
15. A deeper screen saver where all output signals are turned off after certain period of inactivity. My TV or Audio Receiver may have settings to turn off automatically when it does not receive any input for a while.
16. Fix the audio quality for movie play back. Example, play Terminator 3 on a cheap DVD player and Xbox 360 both connected to a home theater system. Cheap DVD player has better sound quality. I tested using 5.1 Dolby Digital output from both. The DVD player is a 4 years old ($50 at that time) DVD player from Panasonic. Both were connected to the receiver using TOS link (optical cable). Shouldn’t it be just a pass through? May be the audio output signal is very weak from the 360. I am not an expert in this subject.
17. Increase the preview window size in video market place and show relevant content. I don’t consider watching credits as previewing.
18. Do some kind of defragmentation on the disk so that arcade games gets listed in the sort order to start with. Right now oldest games appear first and then new games start appearing in the list above and below to make the sorted list.

More plus points for Play Station 3 here. Xbox 360 does not have the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD. Dolby TrueHD is the true lossless audio compression format that can playback 7.1 channels.

There is catch though. Right now most discs that offer Dolby TrueHD are from HD DVD camp. Another lossless audio format, DTS-HD Mater Audio is not widely supported yet.

Standalone blue ray or HD DVD players do not have as much capability as the Play Station 3 when it comes on Nov 17, 2006. So, if you are looking for the next generation player that supports true HD audio and video, your only choice right now will be Play Station 3 and it is a lot cheaper than the stand alone players. It is also a true next generation game console for free.