360 to get On Demand Video

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Erasmus354

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Microsoft has announced plans for the 360 to be able to download and stream On Demand standard and 720P High Def movies to your 360. Obviously they aren't going to be giving it away for free (so for some "mateys" out there this wont be attractive) but MS has said pricing will be in line with iTunes and other similar services.

Here is a list of what they expect to be available by years end (less than 2 months)

Adult Swim
Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
CBS
CSI, Survivor, Star Trek
Comedy Central
South Park, Chappelle's Show
MTV
The Real World, Pimp My Ride
Nickelodeon
Avatar: The Last Airbender, SpongeBob SquarePants
Nicktoons Network
Skyland, The Nicktoons Network Animation Festival
Paramount Pictures
Nacho Libre, Jackass: The Movie
Spike TV
Carpocalypse, Raising the Roofs
Nascar.com
Race Rewind
UFC
The Ultimate Fighter, UFC: All Access
VH1
Breaking Bonaduce, Hogan Knows Best
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
The Matrix, Superman Returns, Batman Forever



I doubt they will let these be downloaded to an external HDD, but it sure would be nice rather than forcing us to buy an inevitably overpriced larger HDD. I also dont think a larger HDD will be announced until a dashboard update which will allow backing up crucial data to a USB drive (please oh please give us that easy option for backing up our profiles and saves and games)
 
DailyTech Write-up

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4845


# Content will be purchased using Microsoft Points.
# TV shows will go for 240 MS points while movie downloads will ring up at 320 MS points each.
# TV shows and movies can only be downloaded to the Xbox 360's hard drive and not to an external USB hard drive or thumb drive.
# Movies can only be rented, TV shows are purchased.
# Downloaded movies can be watched as much as you like for up to 24 hours.
# No content is streamed -- it's download only.
# All content is encoded in VC1 (WMV HD) at 6.8Mbps video and 5.1 surround sound
Click to expand...



Engadget Article

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/microsofts-xbox-live-video-hdtv-and-hd-movie-downloads-for-you/
 
Remember last week how Microsoft started making content available first to Xbox Live Gold members as a way of justifying the price people are paying for the service? Forget that. Microsoft wants to offer Xbox Live Gold subscribers benefits? Now is the chance. They could offer Xbox Live Gold subcribers either free or discounted movie rentals through the On-Demand service. For example, they could allow all XBL Gold members to rent two (2) FREE HD movies per month. If they wanted to rent more, they would have to pay, but they would still be getting more for their money and Microsoft would still be able to make money from XBL Gold members who rent more than two movies a month as well as off of television show downloads.
 
How much is 320 MS Points in real dollars?????
So what happens to the downloaded content in 24 hours if its stored on your HD.
I can imagine the 20 GB HD being swallowed in two movies, leaving nothing to store game saves on.
My 360 is going to need a much bigger HD! :eek:
 
I agree that the 360 needs a bigger drive, and I think we'll see it real soon. In my ideal world they'll throw the 20gb on the core and a 60gb on the premium (whilst obviously making the 60g available for purchase). I know people will disagree with this but I think it makes a lot of sense and removes another Sony advantage.

Apparently the movies are automatically taken off the hard drive after a week. Prices seem good to me (in the UK) as I'm already paying more than that for on demand movies from my cable provider.
 
Movie rentals are two weeks according to screen caps from the event.
 
MS points are a 4 to 5 ratio to the US dollar. 80 points = $1

Movies = rentals
Shows = Purchased

Still i think MS is over charging. MS need to compete with:

Blockbluster online. 3 movies out at a time, unlimited rentals, hugh selection, free movie trade-ins at store or by mail, and coupons. $17.99 a month. 2 movies at a time $14.99

Netflicks. 3 free out at a time, hugh selection, unlimited movies by mail. $17.99 a month. 2 movies at a time $14.99.

Vongo. Unlimited movie downloads for $9.99 a month
 
meh

I don't think re-runs of tv shows are good content.

Especially having to pay for said content.

If I wanna watch tv, I'll just turn the 360 off (erm....after I get another 360 :p)
 
I thought this was pretty cool news. I might download some of my favorite episodes, of certain shows, once I get my 360. I just hope Microsoft plans on releasing a larger hard drive soon. On engadget.com they have an image of a dashboard showing 70 gigs of free space, on an Xbox, some Xbox event. Hopefully we seen an 80+ gig harddrive soon, and they drop the price of the 20.

BTW, I also saw this news (regarding movie and TV show downloads) on CNN this morning.
 
rfwinters77 said:
meh

I don't think re-runs of tv shows are good content.

Especially having to pay for said content.

If I wanna watch tv, I'll just turn the 360 off (erm....after I get another 360 :p)
Click to expand...

I agree mainly because I have a DVR and can keep the shows as long as I want or as space allows. The movie Idea sounds like a pretty cool deal. If the video quality is superior to that of traditional on demand content from cable provider ( I am sure it will be ) then it is an even sweeter deal.
 
The movies will be 720P VC1 encoded video. I think they need to extend the timeout on the movie to 3 days though, in order to compete with Blockbuster or other movie rental services.
 
They should find a happy medium, rather then allow it to remain on your hard drive for 14 days, but once you put it playing you have 24 hours to finish it. How about make it so its good for like 7 days, and during that time you can start and finish it whenever you want, in those 7 days... better yet, allow you to watch it more then once as well.
 
I'm real interested in this but a few changes I would love.

1. Bigger HD is a must. I'd really like if though if I could either store the eps on a media center pc(would love normal xp but media center would do) or at least me able to attach an external usb drive that could be formated to xfs or whatever the xbox file system is called.

2. Needs to be 48 hours at least on the movie rental. They are going against on demand pvr with the 24 hour shit but they need to take it to the next step.

3. It would be real cool for a unlimited download service per month for movies. Or even like 10 or 15 movies a month for x amount(should be priced to compair against like netflix). If it was 20 bucks a month I'd prob do it out of being lazy.
 
Jerome36 said:
They should find a happy medium, rather then allow it to remain on your hard drive for 14 days, but once you put it playing you have 24 hours to finish it. How about make it so its good for like 7 days, and during that time you can start and finish it whenever you want, in those 7 days... better yet, allow you to watch it more then once as well.
Click to expand...

You can watch it more than once. The way it works is once you download a movie (and you can start watching while it's downloading) you have 14 days until the license expires. Once you start watching it the license expiration is set to 24 hours. You can watch it as many times as you want during that 24 hours. After the 14 days or 24 hours, the license expires, but the content is not auto-deleted, so if you want to watch it again, you can rent it again to extend your license without having to redownload it. Once you no longer want it you can delete it yourself.
 
JethroXP said:
You can watch it more than once. The way it works is once you download a movie (and you can start watching while it's downloading) you have 14 days until the license expires. Once you start watching it the license expiration is set to 24 hours. You can watch it as many times as you want during that 24 hours. After the 14 days or 24 hours, the license expires, but the content is not auto-deleted, so if you want to watch it again, you can rent it again to extend your license without having to redownload it. Once you no longer want it you can delete it yourself.
Click to expand...

Right, but that doesn't solve the problem that he's complaining about, which is a 24-hour limit. Most people don't want to watch the same thing twice in 24 hours, but with 48 hours, you can watch it one night and have your friends come over and watch it the next.
 
masteraleph said:
Right, but that doesn't solve the problem that he's complaining about, which is a 24-hour limit. Most people don't want to watch the same thing twice in 24 hours, but with 48 hours, you can watch it one night and have your friends come over and watch it the next.
Click to expand...

Exactly, the 24 hour license is far too short. Think about it, a movie rental from Blockbuster costs the same price (about 4$) except you get to keep the movie for a week at least. Shoot, even before Blockbuster changed their policy on rentals the shortest rental was the 2-3 day rentals for new releases. That was governed by the need to keep the movies in stock too, something a download doesn't have a problem with.

I really dont see any compelling reason to limit the rentals to 24 hours once you have watched it. The price needs to be made much cheaper, or the timeout needs to be set to AT LEAST 72 hours to make it have any semblance of a decent value. I really dont see how giving that extra 48 hours can hurt the content owners. Its not like somebody is going to pay more money to see it again a day later, but the longer lease might entice more people to rent it in the first place.
 
Erasmus354 said:
I really dont see any compelling reason to limit the rentals to 24 hours once you have watched it. The price needs to be made much cheaper, or the timeout needs to be set to AT LEAST 72 hours to make it have any semblance of a decent value.
Click to expand...
I don't know... I don't think this is really aimed at competing with rental stores, more the on-demand services offered by cable / satellite companies. Don't get me wrong I would like to see a longer timeout, I'd also like to see some sort of monthly quota / discount thing going on but I can't see it. At least not initially.

But again I'll say this is perfect for me because I don't use rental stores or people like netflix because I don't plan my movie watching in advance - I'll literally decide about 10 mins before I want to start watching (and it's at least 45 mins there and back to my nearest store).
 
Psychotext said:
But again I'll say this is perfect for me because I don't use rental stores or people like netflix because I don't plan my movie watching in advance - I'll literally decide about 10 mins before I want to start watching (and it's at least 45 mins there and back to my nearest store).
Click to expand...

Thats what I'm thinking. Also how cool would it be if they did preloads of new movies? IE say you wanted to watch clerks 2. DVD comes out Nov 28th. How cool would it be to have it predownload like the day before so you could rent it the day it comes out? That would be real nice.

I'm looking forward to this if I can get a big drive to go with it.
 
Erasmus354 said:
Exactly, the 24 hour license is far too short. Think about it, a movie rental from Blockbuster costs the same price (about 4$) except you get to keep the movie for a week at least. Shoot, even before Blockbuster changed their policy on rentals the shortest rental was the 2-3 day rentals for new releases. That was governed by the need to keep the movies in stock too, something a download doesn't have a problem with.

I really dont see any compelling reason to limit the rentals to 24 hours once you have watched it. The price needs to be made much cheaper, or the timeout needs to be set to AT LEAST 72 hours to make it have any semblance of a decent value. I really dont see how giving that extra 48 hours can hurt the content owners. Its not like somebody is going to pay more money to see it again a day later, but the longer lease might entice more people to rent it in the first place.
Click to expand...

But a DVD rental at blockbuster is not in HD
 
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