Xbox Live Marketplace adding HD Looney Tunes episodes
By Richard Lawler 
posted Oct 23rd 2007 1:05AM
posted Oct 23rd 2007 1:05AM
We'll admit it, we had an idea Microsoft's just-announced Xbox 360 Arcade was coming. What we didn't expect was that it would be accompanied by a flood of family-friendly content headed to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. Along with standard-def content from Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. will make 50 high definition episodes of Looney Tunes available for download. Of course, owners of the new Arcade unit won't be able to download the shows without a HDD, but why sweat the details (like pricing, which wasn't mentioned)? The new content hits "starting today", but doesn't appear to be up just yet, so keep an eye out for Acme-brand items landing on your HDTV.
Vewy vewy intewesting
Awesome. Cartoons in HD for the win!
this is so awesome...
*must... have... hairy monster...*
How can you make a 50 year old cartoon into HD? Seriously, I'm not trolling, I want to know.
They were shot on film, not video. Plenty of resolution.
Sing it now, "Three-sixty keep on rollin'..." This is too much; a whole new generation of console owners gets exposed to the greatness that is Half-Life 2 in glorious HD, and now these classic cartoons for the kiddies and the kids at heart.
The one where Bugs visits the Peter Lorre character in the spooky castle with Gossamer (the monster Yubastard mentioned) might be too much for the little ones in HD, lol. I remember being scared for poor Bugs when he's on the run from that thing! Some of these new animatora need to revisit Chuck Jones to see how it's done.
The best part is that this means that HD disc renditions of Looney Tunes must be in the short-term pipeline, relatively speaking. Now that I've seen just how good film restoration can get (True Life Adventures), I'm excited. They sure can't keep film artifacts in, and they doubly sure can't use whatever that software is that actually erases characters' outlines from frame to frame. (The author of which has no doubt already been sunk in a lake.)
will be interesting to see how good this content looks in hd...
It's not so simple as to say that it's filmed. Film can have more resolution than SD, but the age of Looney Tunes suggests that it might not be all that great of film. If they use some smart film restoration techniques, then it can look very good, but there's no mention of what and whether they did anything.
What's the cost?
When will this be out in the U.K.
In the words of Roy...."i think we are going to need a bigger HDD..."
What really needed to be mentioned was that "What's Opera, Doc?" is available for free in SD and HD versions.
Here's a list I maintain of all the HD content available on Xbox Live Marketplace:
http://kplusb.org/xboxlivehd/
The list includes all the Looney Tunes shorts currently available.
Wow Old Warner toons in HD great Idea but...
If you just download them to your xbox then what.
you can't save them off.. If your xbox blows up
and you know it will. What happens to your movie downloads.
Thanks but no thanks. I'll wait for the DVD.