While the Xbox 360 is a great game machine, apparently DVD movie playback leaves a lot to be desired. By many accounts, the HD-DVD add-on plays back high definition content well, but according to a report on ExtremeTech, the DVD playback engine has horrible playback flaws. Many argue that the DVD playback on the Xbox 360 is good enough, and since the technology is essentially included for free, there is little room to complain. However, ExtremeTech details the flaws with specific examples, starting with the failure of the Silicon Optix HQV benchmark disc. A “perfect” device would score 130 points for the tests on the disc, but ExtremeTech indicates that the Xbox 360 scores a meager 20 points total. In contrast, the Home Theater Blog review of the Playstation 3 gave the console 120 points for DVD playback.

ExtremeTech follows up with specific DVD examples of the flaws in the DVD playback, and some of the examples are stark. The comments for the article are also somewhat illustrative, highlighting some possible issues with the review itself. There are some just complaints; despite ExtremeTech’s claims that the Xbox 360 fails to outperform cheap DVD players, all of the comparisons come against an $800 Denon DVD player. In fairness to ExtremeTech, the Denon serves as an example of the gold standard DVD player that gets things right, but some examples against a lower cost DVD player would have been nice. Other complaints stem from the fact that some of the source material might be unfair due to flaws in the mastering process; perhaps the article’s author will clarify some of these issues. Overall, though, the flawed DVD playback sticks out only because of Microsoft’s excellent execution in gaming and HD content, and given Microsoft’s responsiveness in the past, highlighting the issue may mean that a future system update will fix the problems.