Xbox One Won't Support SDTVs

| 22 May 2013 18:20
no sdtvs

Also missing: Support for Dial-up, Punch Cards and Betamax.

Are you one of the handful of gamers still using an SDTV? If so, the Xbox One might not be for you. Despite looking like a VHS player from the mid-90s, the console will not support SDTVs out of the box. The Xbone, to use its not-quite official name, lacks any kind of analogue output. Instead, you connect the console to your TV via the current industry standard, HDMI.

While HDMI-to-whatever converters are cheap and plentiful, it's not clear if the Xbone will actually support sub-720p resolutions. I wouldn't be surprised to find out it couldn't; Numerous 360 games ran into problems when it turned out they were more-or-less unplayable on SDTVs.

To most of you this won't be a big deal. In fact, it'll probably be seen as a long-overdue step forward. If you can afford a device likely to cost somewhere in the $400-$500 range, you can probably afford to put out $200 for a television that wasn't around during the Nixon administration.

The move has led to speculation that the console will likely be embracing High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), a protocol that checks what kind of receiver you have connected to your device to prevent unauthorized copying of digital content. The PS3 currently supports full HDCP encryption, which is why it's famously incompatible with recording or capture devices connected via HDMI. Considering HDCP is quickly becoming a standard for digital television, and the Xbone is all about the television, it seems likely the console will support the encryption protocol.

Source: Gimmegimmegames

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