Xbox 360 Video On Demand: CONFIRMED For December
Harry Potter and his spartan mates lead the charge
SPOnG told you last week that Xbox LIVE Marketplace Video Store will definitely be out in December. Microsoft has now confirmed this very thing.
December 11th is when the service goes live. The likes of 300, The Good German (Jurgen Klinsmann, obv), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will lead the charge, with standard definition films starting at 250 Microsoft Points (£2) and HD movies starting at 380 Microsoft Points (£3.20).
SPOnG caught up with Microsoft to find out more on movie size and download times and was told, "Typically an SD film should start at 1GB and an HD film at 4GB.
"Time: This will depend upon the bandwidth of the Internet connection the gamer has and the format and length of the video content.
"Many homes will be able to watch standard definition content shortly after initiating download while high definition content will generally require more time to download given the much higher data requirements for this first class experience."
The Microsoft rep also confirmed the time you'll be able to keep the content for, saying, "Movies can be stored on your hard drive for 14 days. Once you've hit play you have 24 hours to view the film, but you'll be able to watch it as many times as you want."
There will be 27 movies at launch, we were told, but more will be coming soon. Around half of the launch titles will be in HD. We also quizzed the rep on when we might expect TV content, but were told, "We are now focussing on the movie content, but we're adding new content regularly."
Arash Amel, senior analyst, head of Broadband Media for Screen Digest, commented, “As Hollywood turns its attention towards selling digital copies of its blockbuster movies, the delivery of movie content over the open internet has become a key battleground for a broad range of service providers. Screen Digest predicts that the total European movie download market will be worth €350m (£250m) by 2012, up from €17m (£12.1 million) in 2007."
"The Xbox LIVE Marketplace Video Store, as the first multi-territory hardware-based online movie delivery service in Europe, is expected to be a European market leader for movie downloads", he continued.
"Consumers in both the US and Europe have already made it abundantly clear that they are reluctant to watch two-hour long films on their PC, instead preferring to view them on personal devices or most preferably devices that can provide a link to their large-screen living room TVs and home entertainment systems", he said... for some reason...
...here at the SPOnG underwater castle we're more than happy to have our PC bang two-hour long, black and white, subtitled Russian masterworks from the 1930s onto the walls using our projector. What is this man talking about?
Anyway, you can see the full list of launch titles below.
300
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Zodiac
Matrix, The
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded
Ocean's Eleven
Perfect Storm, The
Swordfish
Three Kings
Training Day
Fugitive, The
Risky Business
Space Cowboys
Eyes Wide Shut
Analyze This
Demolition Man
Eraser
Executive Decision
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
Mars Attacks!
Clash Of The Titans
Superman III
Dead Calm
December 11th is when the service goes live. The likes of 300, The Good German (Jurgen Klinsmann, obv), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will lead the charge, with standard definition films starting at 250 Microsoft Points (£2) and HD movies starting at 380 Microsoft Points (£3.20).
SPOnG caught up with Microsoft to find out more on movie size and download times and was told, "Typically an SD film should start at 1GB and an HD film at 4GB.
"Time: This will depend upon the bandwidth of the Internet connection the gamer has and the format and length of the video content.
"Many homes will be able to watch standard definition content shortly after initiating download while high definition content will generally require more time to download given the much higher data requirements for this first class experience."
The Microsoft rep also confirmed the time you'll be able to keep the content for, saying, "Movies can be stored on your hard drive for 14 days. Once you've hit play you have 24 hours to view the film, but you'll be able to watch it as many times as you want."
There will be 27 movies at launch, we were told, but more will be coming soon. Around half of the launch titles will be in HD. We also quizzed the rep on when we might expect TV content, but were told, "We are now focussing on the movie content, but we're adding new content regularly."
Arash Amel, senior analyst, head of Broadband Media for Screen Digest, commented, “As Hollywood turns its attention towards selling digital copies of its blockbuster movies, the delivery of movie content over the open internet has become a key battleground for a broad range of service providers. Screen Digest predicts that the total European movie download market will be worth €350m (£250m) by 2012, up from €17m (£12.1 million) in 2007."
"The Xbox LIVE Marketplace Video Store, as the first multi-territory hardware-based online movie delivery service in Europe, is expected to be a European market leader for movie downloads", he continued.
"Consumers in both the US and Europe have already made it abundantly clear that they are reluctant to watch two-hour long films on their PC, instead preferring to view them on personal devices or most preferably devices that can provide a link to their large-screen living room TVs and home entertainment systems", he said... for some reason...
...here at the SPOnG underwater castle we're more than happy to have our PC bang two-hour long, black and white, subtitled Russian masterworks from the 1930s onto the walls using our projector. What is this man talking about?
Anyway, you can see the full list of launch titles below.
300
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Zodiac
Matrix, The
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded
Ocean's Eleven
Perfect Storm, The
Swordfish
Three Kings
Training Day
Fugitive, The
Risky Business
Space Cowboys
Eyes Wide Shut
Analyze This
Demolition Man
Eraser
Executive Decision
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
Mars Attacks!
Clash Of The Titans
Superman III
Dead Calm
Companies:
Microsoft
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Comments
SuperSaiyan4 4 Dec 2007 13:44
1/4
Anyone else agree that from the time you press PLAY you only have 24hrs within to watch it is not enough? How much is it to rent a movie from Blockbusters these days? At least you get it for usually 2nights?
Also what I dont get is all my HD-DVD's and well Blu-Ray movies need a LOT more than 4gb of space...From what I do know is that these movies are all supposed to be 720p but even at 720p how is it possible to get a HD movie at only 4gb?
Also what I dont get is all my HD-DVD's and well Blu-Ray movies need a LOT more than 4gb of space...From what I do know is that these movies are all supposed to be 720p but even at 720p how is it possible to get a HD movie at only 4gb?
Plasmoid 4 Dec 2007 16:41
2/4
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Anyone else agree that from the time you press PLAY you only have 24hrs within to watch it is not enough? How much is it to rent a movie from Blockbusters these days? At least you get it for usually 2nights?
Also what I dont get is all my HD-DVD's and well Blu-Ray movies need a LOT more than 4gb of space...From what I do know is that these movies are all supposed to be 720p but even at 720p how is it possible to get a HD movie at only 4gb?
Also what I dont get is all my HD-DVD's and well Blu-Ray movies need a LOT more than 4gb of space...From what I do know is that these movies are all supposed to be 720p but even at 720p how is it possible to get a HD movie at only 4gb?
I would imagine that they use a much better codec then the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players use, which need a much beefier cpu to play it back but thats exactly what a 360 is.
A quick search for torrents show that 300 encoded with x264 can be anything from 2.5gb to 4gb. x264 uses the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec is used there. The 360 movies will probably be in WVC1 or WMV3 AP or VC1 or whatever thy call it. Anyways, VC1 is the codec that lets HD-DVD fit a better quality vid on a 15gb disc then the Mpeg2 used on some 30gb blu-ray's
Anyway, VC1 used on HD-DVD's isnt at the highest compression ratio, because that would kill HD-DVD players. The compression can go more, but it uses a lot of processing power, and losses a lot of quality, but its still 720p... just a bit noisy. Course if they are using a H.264 codec they can go much smaller and get the same quality, but MS likes using its own things.
The whole 24 hours to watch it is a rip-off... especially with cheap mail-in rentals for a month being much the same price.
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Daemon 5 Dec 2007 12:08
3/4
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Anyone else agree that from the time you press PLAY you only have 24hrs within to watch it is not enough?
Definitely. Some of those movies are available for £3-£5 in my local HMV at the moment (although, admittedly, on standard DVD, not HD). And you can watch 'em as many times as you want. And then lend them to friends. Ah, the circle of life.
SuperSaiyan4 5 Dec 2007 13:37
4/4
The really really old movies are usually £3-£5 but many listed are still a lot more.
But yeah having it on disc usually has more benefits like not taking space up on your hard drive and being able to lend it out.
But yeah having it on disc usually has more benefits like not taking space up on your hard drive and being able to lend it out.