Some HD-DVD discs incompatible with Xbox HD-DVD player

I just rented Discovery Atlas: Australia and tried to play it with my Xbox HD-DVD player. The screen went blank after a few seconds without loading so much as the menu. I tested the player with King Kong and V for Vendetta and both worked perfectly fine.

A little searching dug up this posted at Microsoft’s site:

There is a known issue with this disc, due to a weirdness in its AACS data. No workaround for the current version, sorry.

Apparently, this disc is totally weird and won’t play on the Xbox (assumedly forever). Just a heads up in case someone out there wants to buy first and gets saddled with a bum disc.

I’m going to keep an updated list here as to what discs are incompatible with the Xbox HD-DVD player in case someone actually reads it.

03/20/07

• Discovery Atlas: Australia Revealed
• Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed
• HDScape Exotic Saltwater Aquarium
• Chicago/Earth Wind & Fire - Live at the Greek Theatre

Apparently Microsoft is working on a patch for the add-on HD DVD drive that will remedy the problems people are seeing. We will see if that fixes the problem.