Xbox Live Marketplace adds HD & SD content from ABC, MGM
While HD DVD and Blu-ray have both lost key supporters recently, Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace seems to just keep adding new content providers, this time bringing MGM and Disney-ABC Television Group to the fold. Conspicuous in that both are exclusive Blu-ray supporters, Xbox 360 owners will -- later this month -- have access to ABC hits like Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives in HD the day after they air. So far, MGM's announced just classic and catalog flicks like the Rocky series and The Usual Suspects, with "most" available in HD. Still looking for a Blu-ray add-on or built in HD DVD?
Filed under: Other hardware, Others, ABC, Internet
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jango fett @ Jan 7th 2008 4:07AM
I guess this mean they didnt really need an hd dvd drive inside of the 360 after all! Imagine if they also began to release sony pictures movies in there aswell!? that'd be awsome, crazy and ironic! lol
Kattleox @ Jan 7th 2008 9:00AM
It would be, but last I recall, and I could be wrong, MGM was a Sony Pictures subsidiary.
And, besides that, as is mentioned below, the audio quality and the bitrate is weak in comparison to the HD disc based brothers. I think it a weak effort, at best. It has to be, unless you think that you can fit a 30GB disc on a 20GB harddrive without some sort of compression.
GhostDoggy @ Jan 7th 2008 5:16AM
Microsoft will have to do a lot better on their Live network before I'd consider anything beyond what was previously conducted on their network. This past holiday of network troubles seem to continue. Games that I've played with 5-6 friends without problems before are now unable to maintain session connectivity--and this after a week long period of not even being able to use Live at all.
Microsoft can use as many excuses as they wish along side their re-interpretation of a network outage, but its not going to change the fact that they continue to illustrate incompetence, mismanagement, and lack of scalable architecture. Come this March i will not be renewing my account.
Erwos @ Jan 7th 2008 6:50AM
Those problems happened over the holidays. That's hardly the time that _Microsoft's_ vendors are going to be delivering very good service. I think the outages were unacceptable, but I don't think we'll see them repeated.
mixja @ Jan 7th 2008 6:13AM
I wonder what quality HD and what codec will the content be? I'm guessing the bit rates will be quite low, say 10Mbps to keep the video files to a reasonable size for download.
If I want to watch high definition and pay for it after paying for shiny new 1080p HDTV, I want the 30Mbps+ bitrate that Bluray allows for...
Erwos @ Jan 7th 2008 6:49AM
The audio is only in DD-5.1, too, since that's what the 360 can output. I suspect we'll be waiting for the next Xbox before we see 1080p+TrueHD. Then again, given what's in the HDTV market right now, 720p+DD-5.1 is a pretty good point to start with.
I am feeling very good about digital distribution obiviating the need for next-gen discs in the next Xbox and Wii.
locke6854 @ Jan 7th 2008 7:12AM
amen. downloadable content would limit sound quality and video quality to stay small enough to download. The average high speed connection around here is 3mbits and 1.5mbits for cable/dsl. DSL in my area increased to 5 and 10, but I havent upgraded... yet. Still, most files and websites don't even allow the full bandwidth. I know I've never seen anything take advantage of my full speed other than dslreports.com speed tests.
I paid for an hdtv and a quality sound system, i want to buy media that takes advantage of them.
longhairbilly @ Jan 7th 2008 8:38AM
New content on the marketplace is great and all, but until they do something about the prices and rental time, I still won't use it much. To date I have rent only two movies.
Paying $6 for a movie is a lot. As a Netflix user I get on average, 12-15 movies a month, most in HD DVD. For the same price as Netflix I can rent three movies over Xbox.
And having only 24 hours once you press play is rushing it. If I am going to pay $6 let me watch it a few times. Add a three day rental in the price to at least add replay value.
Larry @ Jan 7th 2008 8:41AM
Microsoft is one deal with Netflix away from really putting a hurt on HDM. If Apple would release an affordable dvr/movie rental box HDM could be in trouble.
Mr Stevo @ Jan 7th 2008 9:51AM
I have a question for the math experts. Let's say that the average broadband connection is 2mb/sec. And, the file size of each movie would be 18gigs (this is a hypothetical, but most likely an accurate number). Ok, how long would it take to download mentioned file if the speed remains steady at 2mb/sec?
I'm curious because I don't think we're ready for HD movie downloads in a reasonable amount of time. I completely welcome the idea, and think that's the direction we're heading. But, I don't think the infrastructure is ready for such massive data traffic. I download content from Amazon's Unbox, and I usually leave it downloading overnight. And maybe, that's probably the route to take until our broadband speeds increase.
Michael @ Jan 7th 2008 2:48PM
38 minutes and 24 seconds.
Michael @ Jan 7th 2008 3:13PM
My math was wonky. Don't know what I was thinking.
It's actually 20 HOURS, 28 minutes and 48 seconds.
Now, if we all had FiberOptics at up to 30 Mbps and got that at a constant stream, that 18 GB movie would take us closer to 1 hour, 21 minutes, and 55 seconds.
Greg @ Jan 7th 2008 11:02AM
For a real HD experience, we are talking about movies up to 40Gigs (cf Shoot'em Up).
A 40gig dl at 2mb/s (a very respectable speed. you're unlikely to see this outside of Urban areas) will take you more than 5hours to dl. Likely more than 3 for half this size.
Hoping for no Network congestion, Xbox malfunction or a mere power interruption, of course.
Xbox Live will be happy to have -if ever- Itunes numbers.
Between the people who won't get broadband (or can't), and the ones that prefer to have physical media anyway for max experience, download directly to TV is still only an annoying alternative (gotta wait hours before watching) to Rental, and will likely stay that way for a long time :)
The model most directly concerned is Netflix, and they're on it, that'll hardly replace physical sales.
Funny though to see MS dropping HD DVD like a hot potato (not one mention of it during Gate's Key speech).
Michael @ Jan 7th 2008 3:25PM
I think you're getting your megabits and megabytes mixed up. Mbps is megabits and MBps is megabytes. We download at Mbps speeds, so that 2Mbps is really only .25 MBps. Well, you have to do the math for GB for the movie. There are 1024 MB per GB. So, at 40 GB that's 40960 MB you have to download at 0.25 MB per second.
Unfortunately this would take over 45.5 hours.
Michael @ Jan 7th 2008 3:32PM
What I'd REALLY like to see happen from Microsoft regarding high def is for them to release a dual format add-on to replace the HD DVD add-on. I don't need it built in, but that would be pretty awesome too.
Imagine buying one box to play your 360 games, your Xbox games, your HD DVDs and your Blu-ray Discs.