Everyday Gamer

For those of you with the HD DVD add-on and having problems loading up discs such as Transformers, Knocked Up, or any other title with web-enabled features, I have some tips to help.

I put in Transformers earlier this evening, connected to Xbox Live. As expected, the loading screen (now confirmed to be a cookie download) appeared. It took about a minute to download. I guess it depends on your network connection and Dreamwork’s server situation to determine just how long you have to wait. The movie played fine. The second time I played the movie, the loading screen took about 5 seconds and then the movie loaded fine.

Naturally, when the wife gets home, I booted up the movie and it froze on the loading screen. Reset the console, and another lock-up. The entire console locks up, meaning you can’t exit to the Xbox 360 dashboard. I disconnected my wifi adapter, rebooted my console and booted up the movie. No loading screen, and the movie loaded up just fine. So, after watching the movie, I decided to tinker, and I’ve come up with some great solutions to this problem:

Solution #1: Disconnect your console from your network. Works like a charm, but unfortunately you won’t be logged on to Xbox Live to download demos, trailers, etc. in the background. Not the best solution but good in a pinch.

Solution #2: Boot up your console, and either disconnect from your network or load up a non-web enabled movie. After the movie starts to play, hit the “Display” button on your media center remote, then head to “HD DVD Network Settings”. There, uncheck the box titled “Enable Network Access”. From this point forward, you can load up any web-enabled movie and the cookies won’t load, thus preventing the console from locking up and allowing you to watch the movie without issues. The downside to this method is that you won’t be able to execute any of the web-enabled extras on the new HD DVD titles with those features, including 300, Freedom Vol. 1-2, Transformers, Knocked Up, etc.

That’s where the best solution comes in:

Solution 3: Boot up your console, and either disconnect from your network or load up a non-web enabled movie. After the movie starts to play, hit the “Display” button on your media center remote, then head to “HD DVD Network Settings”. There, make sure “HD DVD Network Settings” is checked to allow web-enabled access, but in the “Cookies” section, select “Decline all cookies”. This will allow you to access the web enabled content, and at the same time block the cookie loading when you boot up the movie, preventing any lock up issues.

Now, I tested Transformers with the cookies blocked and I was able to still download the widget with the robot life bars, GPS locations, character info, etc. I did test this on Knocked Up, and it booted up fine without any loading screens, though I haven’t tried registering with Universal to use that disc’s web features. Let me know if you have any issues, but I think solution #3 is a real winner right now.