We were wondering how long it would take to get a high definition blockbuster movie onto Xbox Live Video Marketplace, and it looks like Microsoft and Major Nelson just got in under the wire for 2006, adding Superman Returns yesterday. Weighing in at 7 GB for the 720p HD version (2 GB in 480p SD... for the masochists out there) for the 154 minute movie, it's finally time to clear off some of the Xbox 360 demos we downloaded and see if digital distribution works better in 2007 than it did last year. We'll be back with our impressions of the service, now that they've posted something we want to watch on our HDTVs.

The two biggest questions since Microsoft announced its Xbox Live Video Marketplace have been: 1. does anyone still has enough space on their Xbox 360's 20GB hard drive for movie downloads in high definition? and 2. does anyone -- even the guys at Redmond -- have enough bandwidth to feed the HDTVs of millions of Xbox Live subscribers? Since launching two days ago those questions have been answered with a yes and resounding no, respectively. Users have complained of slow downloads that time out, receiving different files than the ones they requested and being charged twice when trying to complete timed-out rental downloads. Major Nelson has chimed in on the issue, letting us know that the company is aware of the problem and will refund Microsoft Points to all those who call 1-800-4MYXBOX for assistance. Good luck with that, though, as at least one person was told there aren't any managers available to refund customers until after the holiday weekend. So while network engineers and management sleep off yesterday's turkey and camp out for cheap plasmas, you may want to hold off trying to download Clash of the Titans in 720p 'till things get straightened out.

[Thanks, WiFiSpy]

Read - My Xbox 360 video rental nightmare
Read - Video Marketplace Status

Microsoft just rolled out the much awaited update to the Xbox 360 dashboard including -- among other things -- support for 1080p over VGA and component but for some gamers and error screen was all they got. The company still hasn't said exactly what it believe is causing the issue, although some have said it may be due to either frequency supported by the VGA cable or the way it syncs with monitors, but Major Nelson confirmed on his podcast this morning that engineers are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. The TVs that suffer the problem appear to be some Sony (most notably LCD XBRs) and Samsung models that should be able to accept the 1080p input but as of yet, don't. Affected owners should hopefully have their mere 720p experience rectified soon, but will it be in time for the HD DVD player launch?

Once again, Xbox Live's Major Nelson has hosted some high definition experts from Microsoft on his weekly podcast, this time three members of the team behind the upcoming HD DVD add-on for the console. Unfortunately, there wasn't much new or interesting information about the upgrade beyond what is already available. The Toshiba-manufactured drive connects via USB 2.0 and outputs video through the Xbox 360's AV connectors, it will support the various interactive menus and iHD features, including the ability to download additional content from the internet. No price still, although they did state it would be the cheapest HD DVD player available. Whether they were referring to its price by itself, combined with an Xbox 360 Core System (>$200), or a Premium System (>$100) remains to be seen. Much like the previous podcast with Amir M., they were noticeably bolstered by the positive reviews HD DVD has received in comparison to Blu-ray and are very confident about its viability.

Given an opportunity to comment on any potential issues due to not having HDMI or DVI outputs they totally ignored potential problems with ICT and only chose to comment on the issue as pertaining to video quality. While we can certainly appreciate analog HDTV connectors as much as anyone and the budget Playstation 3 shares the same restrictions, we'd like to hear more on how this player won't be rendered useless by copyright protection before we buy.

On this edition of Major Nelson's weekly podcast he has a special guest, Tyler the HDTV expert. Among the things they discussed were what HD means, a few of the reasons Microsoft chose HD-DVD to support, why the Olympic broadcast isn't the best it could be, and the many different formats of HD. It's a pretty long conversation that I'll try to summarize here, but I suggest you give it a listen to get all the details on why 720p may be better for gaming than 1080i or even 1080p (which the PS3 will apparently have and the Xbox 360 doesn't).

We will leave the breakdown of spatial and temporal resolution to Tyler, but there are several elements here to consider.