Microsoft attempts to re-enter living room with HD xBox 360 movies
Posted on 07/11/06 16:57 by Seán Byrne                             
Microsoft attempts to re-enter living room with HD xBox 360 movies

If Microsoft succeeds in its way of delivering High Definition movies as it hopes, it looks like that if HD DVD and Blu-ray fail to grab much of a market share, HD movies delivered as downloads may become the successor to DVD, at least when it comes to rentals.  While Microsoft may be set to launch a HD DVD add-on for its Xbox 360, they are preparing to launch a High Definition movie and TV programme download service that would allow Xbox 360 users to download content directly to their console directly from the Internet without the use of a PC.

Microsoft aims to offer over 1,000 hours of content by the end of the year, including MTV & CBS TV programming and movies from Paramount and Warner Bros.  This Xbox Live service will offer TV programming as purchases and movies as rentals.  With the growing xBox 360 market, this is another aim to bring Microsoft into the living room and thus take on other services such as Apple's iTunes which also offers movies and TV programming as well as Apple's iTV set-top box.  So far, no pricing has been announced, although it is expected to be competitive against other services for standard definition programming.  There will be a small premium for the content in high definition.

While the content will be stored on the Xbox 360's hard drive as it is downloaded, unfortunately customers will not be able to transfer or move content off the Xbox 360 to a PC or any other device.  On the other hand, should the popularity of the service grow enough, Microsoft may look into other options such as larger hard drives for the console.

As TV programming will be offered as purchases, it is unclear at this time how Microsoft will allow consumers to back up their purchased content, particularly if consumers will not be allowed to transfer content from the console to anything else, unless they give consumers the option to re-download it if they replace their console or otherwise accidentally lose a programme they downloaded.  Finally, while Microsoft plans on offering movies in high definition, they are unlikely going to match the quality of a movie on Blu-ray or HD DVD.  For example, assuming a typical Blu-ray or HD DVD title is ~25GB, it would take at least 18 hours to transfer this over a typical 3Mb link running at its theoretical maximum rate. 

Further info can be read at the San Francisco Chronicle here.

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By bluray, Tuesday 07 November 2006 17:39
If Microsoft wants to bring the Xbox360 into the living room, then I suggest they make it compatible with movie watching. From what I can gather from Googling the Internet, the Xbox 360 is loud-very loud. IMHO It is going to be important to reduce fan noise to a minimum. MS should create devices using silent methods, e.g. larger slower running fans, liquid cooling or passive methods, for this purpose. Movies are different than games, as they have silent parts for a variety of reasons. I worry that the reported fan noise will disrupt the otherwise enjoyable movie experience. I would think this would be the priority and must already be on the minds of those at MS working on this new initiative: To engineer an appropriate device, that is at least as quiet as a present day DVD player or HTPC, for viewing in the entertainment room, prior to offering content to play upon it. IMHO, It seems they have placed the cart before the horse- a shopping cart of course. Wink
By ivid, Tuesday 07 November 2006 20:47
No, the 360 is only loud when a DVD is in the drive. When playing videos and game demos off the hard drive, it is silent. However, when it is playing DVDs and being loud, its FREAKING unacceptably loud to the point that I had to move it to another room and run cables through the wall because I cannot stand it. Thank god for cheap USB extension cables and wireless controllers !!! Its ridiculous... Regarding these HD movie downloads, well MS, unfortunately my PATHETIC 20 GB hard drive is full of game demos with almost no space left, so unless you're going to give me a bigger drive for free, where am I supposed to store a HD movie ? Let me guess, I have to buy a new hard drive so I can rent movies....F that !
By ivid, Tuesday 07 November 2006 20:49
Since it seems I can no longer edit my posts after the sire re-vamp, just to clarify my above statement, the 360 is load only when playing DVD games, not DVD movies. For movies the drive runs slower and so is more quiet (not silent however).
By JClarkKent2003, Tuesday 07 November 2006 21:55
sounds like a joke, HD content over the internet? hah........
By crustyteacup, Tuesday 07 November 2006 22:51
crustyteacupthis came as a little bit of a shock. when it comes to consoles i'm a die hard microsoft fan, but i have to say there kind of jumping the gun here as the first thing that came to my head was theres only a 20gb hard drive in this beast. maybe they have plans to allow you to transfer content you've bought to your pc for burning. i think this comes at this time purely as a shock tactic for sony. i think microsoft want the best possible online experience cause thats the thing thats going to distingush the ps3 and 360, its no longer about exclusive games and graphics. theres always rumours about bigger hard drives for the 360, i think microsoft will have to release one now or this idea will turn out crap.
By ljhamilton, Wednesday 08 November 2006 09:37
Now surely the size of the file all depends upon the compression method used, if something like mpeg-4 or wmv is used a hd-movie wont be anything near 25Gb. Considering you can download HD wmv clips from microsofts. for example one of the files is 3.33 long and 212mb @ 720p so using those figures a hour and a half hour long film is only 6.2Gb. From what i understand both blu-ray and HD-DVD are still using mpeg-2 compression which is not that efficient compared to some of the newer compression types available nowadays.
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