Our good friend Dave over at Zatsnotfunny.com has a good writeup about his impression of the Xbox Live Marketplace and more importantly their HD content. He doesn't cover the details of the picture quality, but does offer some great insight about the interface and the feasibility of HD downloads. Like many of us he doesn't like the points system and wonders where the big titles like
Superman Returns are. The biggest question is will Microsoft control this space or someone else like Apple? Certainly something can be said for being the first and for having such a large install base, but any device that is that loud can't be that enjoyable to watch movies on. Like Dave and many others it has taken a few attempts to successfully download the 6GB files. We also find it hard to believe that a 6GB version could look as good as the 30GB version on HD DVD and at the rate of some of the download speeds it would be faster to rent it from Netflix or go down to Blockbuster, not to mention if you have HD VOD in your area. On top of that the first two don't require you to watch the movie in it's entirety in 24 hours. There is no doubt that in the long run distributed media is dead and we will live in an on demand world, but this is futher proof that we are still a few year off until the downloaded HD Movie experience can equal HD DVD or Blu-ray.
posted Dec 11th 2006 5:15PM
"any device that is that loud can't be that enjoyable to watch movies on."
At normal listening levels, I can barely hear my 360 unless there is noticeable silence in the film.
"We also find it hard to believe that a 6GB version could look as good as the 30GB version on HD DVD"
All Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM) content is encoded at 720p using the VC-1 codec. HD DVD is encoded at 1080p using the VC-1 codec.
My concerns with XBLM movies are a) the rental period should be at least 72 hours and not 24 and b) they need to be putting new content up regularly every week.
I think they are following the Pay-Per-View schedule of releasing new movies though which is usually a month after the DVD release.
>> any device that is that loud can't be that enjoyable to watch movies on.
I use my Xbox 360 as my primary device fo rwatching ALL TV and ALL movies. I never notice it... the fans don't really kick in until you are playing a game.
>> We also find it hard to believe that a 6GB version could look as good as the 30GB version on HD DVD
>> >> All Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM) content is encoded at 720p using the VC-1 codec. HD DVD is encoded at 1080p using the VC-1 codec.
Exactly, and Batman Begins (for example) is only 12mbps 1080p. So, 6mbps should look damn decent at 720p as long as they do a decent job of encoding.
"At normal listening levels, I can barely hear my 360 unless there is noticeable silence in the film."
Mine is not quite at all, sure I can't hear it during the action scenes or when music is playing, but during a scene with lots of dialog all I can hear is the fan. It's not just me, many people complain about the noise, who knows maybe we just got lemons.
I don't get all the 360 is loud. I must be deaf because when I play games or watch HD-DVD's on it I don't hear it at all.
I don't hear my 360 - I have it nicely tucked away in a (well ventilated - no side or rear panels and made completely of glass) stereo cabinet.
I also recently got the HD-DVD add on - that drive is very nice and quiet indeed!
I used the service to download a non-HD movie, and I have to say, I was impressed. The quality of the movie was good on my >50" HD screen, and the download was quick, just a couple of minutes. I agree that the rental watch period should be greater than 24 hours, and they should be putting new movies up more often.
That being said, I think I have a pretty good connection, and it'd take me a little less than 20 minutes to download a 6gig movie at full speed. That's still a pretty significant wait. I'm not that into paying to download TV shows (I pay for cable TV and have a DVR for that sorta thing), but as the library of movies increases, I see myself using it more and more often.
Xbox 360 is not too loud when playing movies, but it's not dead silence like most standalone DVD players either. So if you have been using a standalone DVD player for the past half decade, you will notice the 360's sound.
Games, on the other hand, is way to too loud for my taste. I have to turn the volume way up to compensate for the noise. And it's not event the system's fan that's making the noise, it the freaking DVD drive.
Would it be technically possible for MS to put an option in the dashboard so we can decide how fast the DVD drive spins? During late night gameplay, when I can't have the volume way up, I rather have drive spins slower with less noise, but with more load time.
Are you guys sitting right next to the thing or what? I never hear it, but I sit probably 10-15 feet away from it. I guess if you were in a small room or something it may be a problem, but I have never even noticed it.
Yes...Microsoft is clearly very early to the party...but many of these same complaints were lobbed agains Xbox Live when it first arrived. MS is innovating in this space and folks need to give them some room and time to get things just right. I personally have opted for Netflix to get my HD-DVD movies. But I certainly would jump on a marketplace download if it were a movie that was backed up on my Netflix cue. I also am very interested in Dave Chappell show and some other stuff...but would rather have an option to purchase the entire season rather than buy episodes one by one.
DocRoland;
Wow 20mins to download 6GB! You must have a 45MBps connection.
Doc Roland, the Xbox360 will let you start watching a movie/tv show while it is still downloading. They give you a notification that the movie is available to watch after 20 minutes.
As for the user interface I do not think there are that much of a problem finding what you need. They have multiple ways to find items in the system. I look for Microsoft to start adding more content after the holiday rush is over and they get back to a more normal bandwidth usage.
Re download speeds.
Well, you dont need to download the whole movie to start watching it.
You just need to download 15-20% of it and you can start watching while it downloads the rest in the backround.
I rented Poseidon HD the other night, took about 4 hours. The quality look really good, I saw no evidence of compression artifacts. Although it did not seem to pop as much as HD-DVD movies. Other than the high price I think the server is great and will only get better as it matures.
"Like Dave and many others it has taken a few attempts to successfully download the 6GB files. We also find it hard to believe that a 6GB version could look as good as the 30GB version on HD DVD and at the rate of some of the download speeds it would be faster to rent it from Netflix or go down to Blockbuster, not to mention if you have HD VOD in your area."
OK, here is the thing. When this service was firstly introduced, it was a bumpy ride. But now the downloading was quite seamless and fast. All the HD content on Xbox live marketplace was in WMV-HD format and it looks as good as a 30 GB HD-DVD. It's not that hard to believe. HD really does not need huge storage disk. Microsoft cannot force everyone to use wmv-HD as teh HD movie format but wmv-hd is indeed a good format. About Netflix or blockbuster argument, hey, do you need either an HD-DVD player or Blu-ray player to watch those disks? I thought the whole point of Xbox live offering HD content is to get around buying expensive next-gen DVD players, right, Ben?