Xbox Live Marketplace has been busy adding videos all year and it looks like March will be the same way, with Afro Samurai hitting the service in HD only next month. More South Park is coming too, starting March 10, along with a free episode of Lewis Black's new show and Robot: Chicken: Star Wars. No word on if the latter two are available in HD, but check after the break for some of the movies showing up for rent next month.

As promised, those MGM flicks have hit Xbox Live Marketplace, satisfying our deep seated need for downloadable HD Rocky and James Bond flicks. Disney's releases popped up on the service last week, however since High School Musical 2 was a TV movie, its available only for purchase, at a cost of 1920 MS points ($23.99), the same as the Blu-ray version on Amazon. Its hard to make the argument the Xbox 360 doesn't need a Blu-ray add-on if HD movies cost the same amount for a lower quality (and more restrictively DRM'd) edition, not that we were really looking forward to downloading all 720p's of Zac Efron or n e thing.

[Via Gamerscore Blog]

While our favorite past time is to argue the merits of our preferred HD movie format, there are many out there like Jason from CE Pro that believe that neither format will survive. And while we agree that there are many compelling HD alternatives to both formats, here are ten reasons why either HD DVD or Blu-ray will survive.

1. They offer the best picture and sound quality
2. You own the disc, no one can expire it or take it away
3. Discs still cost less per GB than a Hard Disc
4. Discs don't 'just' go bad and cause you to lose your movies
   
5. Discs are portable and can be shared with friends
6. Eventually HDM players will cost less than upconverting DVD players
7. Xbox Live Marketplace HD expires and is locked to the device
8. HD VOD is limited in selection and availability
   
9. Even when VUDU gets HD, it costs too much, and the content is locked on the box
10. HD Movie channels crop, compress, and offer worse audio than DVD

Sure, no format lasts forever, but one of these HD movie formats will be here for ten or twenty years.

As the Apple TV hits the streets and the PlayStation 3 debuts in Europe, Microsoft took some time out to make sure people know who is leading this digital-distribution-to-the-living-room thing, sending out a press release pumping their efforts so far. It's second to iTunes overall as an online distributor of film and television content, but quickly points out it is number one in the living room and the only one currently sending TV shows and "major" feature films films in HD over the internet. With double digit growth every month and over 400% increases in downloads since launch it appears they've got a lot to be happy about, even with the incoming competition. Disc, internet, cable or OTA, we've got plenty of choices on how to get content to the HDTV, now lets see who can provide the most/best/cheapest/???.

This may sound a bit familiar to those paying close attention, but on November 22nd -- the year anniversary for the Xbox 360 -- Microsoft is announcing something fairly momentus, not for the gaming community, but for the CE industry. The Xbox 360, along with Akimbo, will be among the first mass-market devices able to download high def television programs -- and the first we know of in the states able to download HD movies. The service is called Xbox Live Video, and the fall update enables customers to spend their Microsoft points on standard and HD television from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Turner, and UFC, as well as HD movies from Warner Bros., Paramount, and so on. We're still a little in shock, ourselves, that Microsoft was able to in one fell swoop hit TiVo, Apple, Netflix, and a handful of others, but looking at Live over the last year, the move isn't that massively surprising. Of course, not even the vision of on-demand HD movies and TV downloads in six million homes at the flick of a switch could be without its variety of niggling concerns; being that we all know the devil's in the details, click on to get the particulars of the service.

The recap episode of Battlestar Galactica was posted on Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday and we regret to inform you it was not high definition. We're not entirely surprised at the resolution, a 720p-encoded file would have been a long download, not to mention the Xbox 360's smallish 20GB hard drive. Unfortunately it gets worse, the presentation was in widescreen, but with included bars at the top and bottom as though it were intended only for 4x3 SDTVs. Why they opted for a version that looks like it was taped off of Sci-fi network onto someone's VHS we will never know, but with the artifacting and low quality of the file we cannot recommend this to anyone in good faith. Hopefully they will do better when the episode is aired on Universal HD in September and it will be presented natively in widescreen. Oddly, despite the low quality of this file, you can download two HD clips of upcoming kids show Viva Piñata that look fantastic; hopefully future downloads will follow their lead instead of the quick and dirty approach apparently used on BSG.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Supes is back, and he's on Xbox Live (he cheats at Halo 2, that flying thing is a total glitch). Sure you can download HD trailers on your PC but that might not be hooked up to your TV. Superman Returns, one of the first movies made with HD DVD in mind, hits theaters on the 28th.

Via Major Nelson, the HD content available is:

• Superman Returns Trailer #2 (480p/720p)
• Superman Returns Trailer #3 (480p/720p)
• Superman Returns: Action (480p/720p)
• Superman Returns: Ride (480p/720p)
• Superman Returns: Greatest American Hero (480p/720p)
• Superman Returns: Power (480p/720p

Now a whole new generation of kids can jump off their garage roof w/ homemade capes and costumes learning the very important life lesson: You can't fly. Or maybe that was just us.

One of the laments of my summer drought post was that one of my favorite programs, Entourage on HBO-HD, would not be in high definition since it hasn't for the first two seasons. However today they have posted up a 720p trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace (along with a theme and gamer pics) proudly touting itself as a Hi-Def trailer, so it seems likely that we will get 1080i display of the adventures of Vince & friends. Summer HDTV watching is definitely looking up now.