Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player Key

[DanITman]

I just read this interview with the Xbox team and the development of the HD-DVD drive. It looks like all of the HD-DVD player software actually resides on the HD-DVD drive itself and not the Xbox. Does this mean that their player key resides on the xbox 360 or the actually HD-DVD drive? Here is a quote

The HD DVD playback software is a separate application, just like a game. It lives on the HD DVD player. As such, the player code doesn't affect the rest of the system (other than when it's running). We made some changes to the dashboard to recognize the HD DVD player.

Since there are so many Xbox drives in circulation I figured this could be one of the first to attempt to extract the key from. I know we are currently getting VK's but if we could get a player key then we could skip the step of extracting the VK's. At least until it gets revoked.

http://console.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI3MCwxLCxoY29uc29sZQ==

[tonyp12]

Easy to test, install the HD player software through the included CD.

Now move the hd drive to a new xbox that have not installed this hd player sofware, does it play?

The HD drive does not have a a lot of memory, but the core of a hd software player could probably fit there.

The device key probably well hidden, and getting it is probably not much easier than from powerdvd

[HDLife]

THose 2 memory units that XP and vista recognized and MS recently puts out a driver for could be a problem down the line if they are dialing home to get updates.

[Metro]

That's a very interesting scenario. The installation disc supplied with the drive contains two tiny (6MB) binary files which is way too small to be a player program. Unless there's something else in a hidden format.

This means that if we take the MS interview at face value, those binaries are the 'dashboard change' and the actual player code is on that board at the back of the physical Tosh drive, presumably hiding inside one of those 'memory units' whch sit on the internal USB hub.

The MS XP/Vista driver is only a stub to stop Device Manager from whinging that it has unknown devices.

So if it's some sort of ROM, maybe playing with the vendor/device IDs in the registry could persuade Windows to see it as memory (bind recognised USB storage drivers to the 'memory unit' class IDs in the registry, for example) and read the contents? Just thinking aloud here... Food for thought - good catch DanITman!

[DanITman]

There were two things that got updated when the drive was released.

1.) Dashboard Update
2.) Disc that was included with the Drive.

The dash update came on Oct 31st which allowed allowed the drive to be compatiable with the Xbox 360. Then you had enter a disc once you got the drive that installed some software.

Then you had to connect one more time online to get some sort of patch.

I'm not sure where the key is held for the player. If MS was smart they would have put the key in the 360 because it much more secure then the actual drive.

[DanITman]

Easy to test, install the HD player software through the included CD.

Now move the hd drive to a new xbox that have not installed this hd player sofware, does it play?

The HD drive does not have a a lot of memory, but the core of a hd software player could probably fit there.

The device key probably well hidden, and getting it is probably not much easier than from powerdvd

How do we know that the drive doesn't already have the software included when shipped. It came with a disc but there wasn't much on the disc.