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Microsoft Announces TV and Movies for Xbox Live 86

Posted by Zonk from the one-more-thing-to-tempt-me dept.
PreacherTom writes "In the latest of several recent upgrades to their online service, Microsoft has announced that their Xbox Live service will begin offering movies and television on demand starting on November 22nd. All subscribers (including those using the free service) will have access to movies from Paramount and Warner Bros. along with TV shows from CBS and MTV. Prices haven't been officially released as of yet, but MS has stated that they are attempting to be competitive with similar services from iTunes and cable companies." There is lots of commentary out there on this one, so Read More to reference the many other sites discussing this story. Besides commentary on the announcement itself, Eurogamer has Sony's snarky commentary on this move by Microsoft.
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Microsoft Announces TV and Movies for Xbox Live More

Microsoft Announces TV and Movies for Xbox Live

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  • My favorite part of Sony's commentary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ProppaT ( 557551 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @10:53AM (#16751241) Homepage
    Sony "would never segregate or shut out any of our consumers from our entertainment experience because they didn't buy the top of the line system."

    I think you just did Sony. I sure as heck can't afford your console and, seeing that I've bought multiple PSX and PS2 systems (mainly because your hardware is garbage and dies after a few years of use) which definitely qualifies me as one of your consumers, you've pretty much "shut out" or alienated me. I much prefer MS's approach. Although I prefer Nintendo's the most. Keep it simple, keep it a console, offer something intriguing and new.

    • Sony "would never segregate or shut out any of our consumers from our entertainment experience because they didn't buy the top of the line system."

      I think you just did Sony. I sure as heck can't afford your console and, seeing that I've bought multiple PSX and PS2 systems (mainly because your hardware is garbage and dies after a few years of use) which definitely qualifies me as one of your consumers, you've pretty much "shut out" or alienated me.

      Besides the insane price, consider that originally the

      • HDMI is an output, not having an HDMI output port doesn't stop you from doing anything except outputting through HDMI port. Not having a hard drive prevents you from downloading practically any downloadable content. So we're talking prevented from doing "playing movies" or prevented from "playing movies across the HDMI port". Those activities are hardly equivalent and the simple fact that you are trying to equate them, simply damages your credibility.

        • Those activities are hardly equivalent and the simple fact that you are trying to equate them, simply damages your credibility.

          Interestingly, the direct quote said that Sony would never rob the lower-end players of an "entertainment experience".

          The full experience requires the full output capability of the system.

          You are having an argument that I am not having. Damage my credibility? You're inventing bullshit reasons why I'm wrong by attacking arguments that aren't even being made.

          No wonder you

          • Actually, I'm right and you're misquoting. It's not "an entertainment experience" it's "our entertainement experience".

            In any case, you seem to misunderstand the point of my criticism, that an HDMI output is not an experience. HDMI is merely a determinant in the quality of the experience. You contention that the lack of HDMI output indicates they would, in fact exclude people is not accurate. No one would have been excluded from partipating in any part of the PS3 on the lower end model, even if they had

            • Actually, I'm right and you're misquoting. It's not "an entertainment experience" it's "our entertainement experience".

              In any case, you seem to misunderstand the point of my criticism, that an HDMI output is not an experience.

              No one would have been excluded from partipating in any part of the PS3 on the lower end model, even if they hadn't added the HDMI dongle. There are no games you wouldn't have been able to play and there are no movies you wouldn't have been able to watch.

              Well true, if misleading. Don'

        • Just a quick question about the HDMI port. Is there another way to get 1080p out of the PS3 without it? Because if the machine is supposed to run natively on 1080p, then what would have been the point of not including it when they say their machines are made specifically for it?
          • Yes according to Wikipedia thePS3 [wikipedia.org] has a Component Video [wikipedia.org] out and component video can handle 1080p, though probably not as well as a DVI or HDMI cable.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ProppaT ( 557551 )
            You'll get 1080p on games just fine. Your BluRay DVD's are a different story, though. Those are DRM'd through the HDMI cable.

  • "All subscribers" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Fishy ( 17624 )
    I wonder if that really is all subscribers, or all *american* subscribers?
  • This service is going to fail miserably. No one likes MTV, and if you miss an episode you don't need to go shell out money to XBOX when there is free on-demand, free constant reruns/encores, and free, legal viewings online via "overdrive". Isn't the market segment for most XBOX 360 gamers between about 14-30? The only thing that CBS has is maybe NCIS, survivor, and the amazing race. Again, these are all available for free at cbs.com where you can watch the entire episode once aired. The only way that t
    • "The only thing that CBS has is maybe NCIS"

      Um how about Two and a Half Men, the #1 comedy sitcom on television after Raymond ended? Wish this was around before, had to pirate all the old episodes. Would rather own a legal copy.
      • Actually I don't watch CBS, ever, so I googled a list of primetime shows and two and a half men didn't come up. Is it even geared toward XBOX's target audience?
    • You may very well be right. But I'm excited nonetheless. I have, I don't know, maybe 6 shows that I watch, and thats about it. If, IF it works out in such a way that the majority of those shows are offered for download via the xboxlive service... I mean that could potentially save me a very large satellite bill. I've always been a proponent of al'la carte programming from cable/satellite and this seems like its on the right path. But who knows, its really about how big of a selection they offer, and wh

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vermifax ( 3687 )
      The largest market segment is 24 years and older.
    • There's also CSI. That's pretty popular as well.

  • Unfortunately... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) *
    It seems to be US only judging by Major Nelson's comments. This seems rather silly when iTunes already has the US covered for downloadable content, it's as if companies don't want our money in Europe and the rest of the world. I'd gladly pay to download movies or TV shows such as Lost however they simply don't seem to be available in a legitimate form here.

    I've heard some European countries are able to get some content, however not the same as is being made available to the US. We'll have to see how this pl
    • Itunes doesn't compete directly with this as the 360 DLs will be in high def and available to be seen on your television right away. I am not sure that the itune and other computer-based distribution overlaps this. Of course, on-demand from my digital cable provider sure does, although their service is very lacking in terms of having big archives of old stuff.

      • the 360 DLs will be in high def and available to be seen on your television right away

        Those two statements can't both be true if Microsoft is targeting home-based broadband. There's a lot of bandwidth being piped into the home these days, but not enough to pump 720p video in real-time.

        For comparison, Apple currently shows 480p. Which is slim enough to stream over most broadband connections while maintaining exceptional quality on most television sets. Using their current H.264 encoding scheme, Apple manages

        • Huh? The lowest price internet plan my cable company offers is 384k up and 6mb down. I usually average 700kb/s on downloads from anywhere decent.

          I've never had an issue streaming DIVX encoded (MPEG-4) HD over my cable connection.

          And I live in a town in Iowa, you're telling me that other cities don't have that??
          • My cable company (when I could get cable) offered me the same thing but I actually only got 4Mbps peak and when my street was busy, I didn't get that either. Also lots of places have DSL but no cable, although I live in a place without either. The only thing I can get is satellite, which peaks out at about 1.5Mbps and supposedly runs more like 1Mbps. So yes, other cities don't have that. Actually, towns in the bumfuck midwest have traditionally been popular places for first rollouts of communications techno

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by brouski ( 827510 )
            Huh? The lowest price internet plan my cable company offers is 384k up and 6mb down. I usually average 700kb/s on downloads from anywhere decent.

            kb/s != KB/s

            700 kb/s = ~88 KB/s

            I hate math. And html for that matter.

        • I believe by "right away" the GP was referring to "as soon as you download it" not streaming in real time.

          Part of the point is that most people don't have TV outs on there computers, even fewer have a computer in the vicinity of their TV. And fewer still have TV outs capable of HD content.

          Not everyone wants to sit at their computer to watch a TV show, I know after spending all day at work on a computer the last thing I want to do when I get home is spend more time on a computer. Sure you might have to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slim ( 1652 )
      This seems rather silly when iTunes already has the US covered for downloadable content, it's as if companies don't want our money in Europe and the rest of the world. I'd gladly pay to download movies or TV shows such as Lost however they simply don't seem to be available in a legitimate form here.

      The problem (as always) is licensing. Since you started it, let's use Lost as an example. Sky TV pays ABC serious money to be the exclusive UK broadcaster of Lost. If Europeans could download it, that license wou
  • Given that the Xbox 360 only has a 20 gig hard drive, I'm hoping these TV shows and movies will be priced as disposable rentals. Hell, use DRM to have them expire after 30 days, so long as you make them cheap enough on that basis. The few game demos that I have on my unit already eat well into that space.
    • it's got a 20GB drive, but only about 14GB are available at the time of purchase

      and if you've purchased a couple of xbox live arcade games and have a couple demos, you've almost used up your entire drive.

      hopefully, they'll have the option of using an external drive for media storage... I've got a USB drive attached to it with all the stileproject wmvs (I've got about 9GB worth on there) and all my MP3s (about 250GB), so it'd be nice to use that. I've still got about 30GB free and I could always pick up a 40

      • and if you've purchased a couple of xbox live arcade games and have a couple demos, you've almost used up your entire drive.

        Thanks to a nice perk where I work (see my profile), I have most of the XBLA games on my hard-drive, as well as two demos still sitting on my 360 (Table Tennis and Lost Planet). Plus I have a ton of various game saves (Oblivion and the like).

        I'm only halfway through my drive, at 11 of 20GB used.

        That said, I completely agree that we need to have more space. TV shows in HD will fill up t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by iocat ( 572367 )
      The "rental" movies will expire -- 30 days after you d/l them, and/or 24 hours after you start watching them, whichever comes first. From what I can tell, the content you buy will not expire, and if it's like other MS Live content, if you buy it, and then delete it, you can later redownload it for free. This is how XBLA games work. If you buy Time Pilot, and delete it, you can re-download it later for no charge.

      This isn't as ideal as having a good size HDD to start with, but it seems reasonably fair, and b

  • I didn't see this mentioned yet, but Microsoft claims that this will be full-HD content. I think I'll probably DL a movie or two, just to see how it will look on my LCD before buying the HD-DVD add-on for the 360. It has the ability to sell as a test...but I don't see it becoming too popular beyond that. If you can't take it off of the Hard Drive, then you'll have to constantly be deleting files to make room. Microsoft has said that you don't have to pay for a file twice, so if you pay once you can DL it ag
    • Microsoft claims that this will be full-HD content.

      The two consumer high-definition video disc formats are 1-layer Blu-ray Disc (25 GB) and 2-layer HD DVD (30 GB). The Xbox 360 hard drive is only 20 GB. How much video will fit on that?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ben there... ( 946946 )
        Assuming 12 Mbps VC-1 WMV, which would be about 3 GB per 1/2 hour episode, about 6 episodes or 2 movies. That would be decent HD. But MS will likely offer something near-to-streaming, about 500 kbps - 1 Mbps, making that at least 72 half hour episodes or 24 movies.

        FTFA:

        There are clearly some caveats that will slow the uptake of the service. First, downloading videos, particularly high-definition ones, is a time-consuming proposition. The speeds depend on the data transfer rate of the user's broadband connec

        • Sorry calculated from the wrong number. At 1.5 Mbps for HD it would be about 16 movies.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Chokolad ( 35911 )
          > Sounds like movies will be similar to Cable VOD. TV episodes is like iTMS or Unbox, except only enough room for a few seasons of shows. Not being able to ever burn those shows makes them pretty much a waste of money, much worse than buying them from other services. They should be free, considering you're eventually going to need to delete them.

          You can always redownload the show you already bought. You do not have to pay for it. It is the same deal as with Arcade games.
  • MS is going to let us pay for the ability to watch Television shows and movies on our televisions.

    .........

    Another Brilliant Innovation brought to us by Microsoft.

    • MS is going to let us pay for the ability to watch Television shows and movies on our televisions.

      .........

      Another Brilliant Innovation brought to us by Microsoft.

      I hear it's patent pending.
    • MS is going to let us pay for the ability to watch Television shows and movies on our televisions.

      Phrased in that way you're exactly right. Phrased as "The Cable Bill / Netflix Killer" it has a much brighter future. I'm not saying thats going to happen, we have to see what kind of content selection and price they're going to offer. But as I said somewhere else, if they're able to provide me with the majority of the TV shows I watch and a decent movie selection (all in HD hopefully) then sure I'll shel
      • Phrased as "The Cable Bill / Netflix Killer" it has a much brighter future. I'm not saying thats going to happen, we have to see what kind of content selection and price they're going to offer. But as I said somewhere else, if they're able to provide me with the majority of the TV shows I watch and a decent movie selection (all in HD hopefully) then sure I'll shell out for that instead and save my $100/month Dish and Netflix accounts.

        Phrase it however you want. They will charge you not per Show or Season

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Thraxen ( 455388 )
          Heh... at 3.3 shows per day maybe you just watch too much TV.

          Anyway, the comparison with TV isn't entirely valid. Sometimes people miss shows and don't want to wait for a re-run to watch it. Reruns may take months to appear and if a new episode of the same show airs next week you may need to watch the epiaode you missed before that. Sure, you can download the show off the internet, but that's not legal in many places and thus can't really be used as a valid argument. Then there's the option to watch the
        • I guess I was just commenting on your original "Another brilliant innovation" comment. Maybe you won't use it, and bully for you. At 3.33+ hours a day I'm guessing you're doing a lot of flipping which you're not gonna get from any pay-per-download service. My tv watching is more of the 5-6 shows per week variety. Using your math thats $24 a month for me. So, FOR ME, thats actually fairly innovative and saves me money.

          I don't know where all the discussion of music sites and mp3 players came from, I
          • Maybe you won't use it, and bully for you. At 3.33+ hours a day I'm guessing you're doing a lot of flipping which you're not gonna get from any pay-per-download service. My tv watching is more of the 5-6 shows per week variety. Using your math thats $24 a month for me. So, FOR ME, thats actually fairly innovative and saves me money.

            3.33 Purchases a Day != 3.33 Hours a day. With Music Videos and "half hour" comedy that can come to less than an hour assuming you aren't forced to watch 8minutes of commerc

  • Sony (Score:1, Troll)

    by metamatic ( 202216 )
    I love the idea of Sony being snarky about this. I mean, Sony would never dump loads of movies and TV shows on store shelves in an attempt to shift a game console nobody wanted, right?

    Hey, anyone know when "Lost" is coming out on UMD?
  • The shows are for use on the console only. Also, depending on what you get, some have 14 day expiration times. Given that a single episode of Robot Chicken cost 240 points for 480p ($3) and 320 points for 720p ($4).

    They might as well be asking for bars of solid gold if they don't allow me to take the video wherever I want to go. Movie tickets around here are still less than 10 bucks and for that I get 2-3 hours of the whole experience. Pausing ain't worth THAT much to me.
  • I can finally watch TV shows on my TV! Thank you, Microsoft!
  • Ah, Zonk, just had throw a jab in a Sony into your commentary didn't ya?

    Look it's logical fallacy 8: Prejudicial Language!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CaseM ( 746707 )
      I think Sony did a fine job of jabbing itself with or without Zonk. Sony's response was absolutely retarded.

  • Well (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @03:07PM (#16755087) Homepage Journal
    I'm all in favour of Microsoft's new plan, it will be good to see some more media content on the Xbox Live Marketplace rather than just game trailers or promotional clips, however what makes me worried is the size of these things. Take for example you are the average user of an Xbox and you download a few demos first (Need For Speed Carbon alone is 1.1gb) and then you decide to rent 2 movies or so. I'd say you will very quickly find yourself running out of harddisk space on premium consoles, or cores that have been upgraded. Especially the way they are letting people buy and keep TV shows, it seems as if they will need to start upping the hard drive sizes pretty quickly if they start offering this amount of content, not to mention the speed of the network which already almost grinds to a halt during weekends due to the huge amount of traffic. It will be interesting to see how it works out and how much competition there will be between the Xbox 360, the iTV and anything Sony can produce in the entertainment section with the PS3.
    • An optional larger hard drive has been an inevitably for the 360. I suspect that there are two reasons they're holding out on offering bigger hard drives:

      1) Every time they sell a 20GB drive for $100, a sold-for-a-loss core system gets its wings (and profitability).
      2) They're probably either still working on, or preparing for release, a secure method to transfer data - at least game saves, since downloaded content can be re-downloaded (for demos and videos, I can see gamers simply leaving them on the
    • I believe this is a brilliant marketing strategy by Microsoft. By offering legitamate services for "rentals", your gaming machine has become a pay-per-view box. Granted that downloading full HD quality content for movies may be time/bandwidth consuming, I can see a potential market for it. I am surprised nobody mentioned this before, but the original xbox was capable of this via xbox media center app (not the MS version) in a sense (i.e. download, transfer, watch or download and stream). While part of m
  • From the article: Microsoft hasn't announced pricing. But the software giant says movies will be competitive with pay-per-view programming offered by cable companies, typically $4 to $6 apiece. And TV shows will cost roughly the same amount to download as they are on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes service, which is $2 (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/21/06, "Apple's iTunes Movie Muddle"). But iTunes content is 640x480, where as I hope my xbox360 will be happy showing me the shows in 720p on my HDTV.

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