Cinematical

Hardly a sore loser, this has been Gates/Microsoft's stance on the issue for some time now. It is precisely why they opted, again and again, not to integrate an HD DVD drive into the 360.

Think of all the money they are simultaneously saving and making. They merely provide a bonus service to hardware they were already manufacturing and then charge studios to sell their films/TV shows over their service and then charge consumers the ability to even access them and then further charge them if they want to actually rent them. They have effectively become the middle man themselves and yet have become so crucial to the process that their position is, at this point, unassailable.

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Well not to be disagreeable Peter, but Microsoft has been a big pain in the butt about downloads as of late. They create PlaysforSure technology, which is adopted by many download sites and MP3 player manufacturers, then it's promptly discontinued by Microsoft. Not to mention their waffling on the dog we all love to kick, DRM. Which Steve Jobs accurately described as, and I'm paraphrasing, a waste of time. But on Bill's point about downloads, I agree. I said as much in a separate post, where we'll see it in the form of set-top boxes on your TV. And it'll be some form of junk with competing technologies against Apple and so forth, until all the big heads decide to get together and unify one standard so they can all get rich at the same rate.

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As an addendum:

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-paramount-ready-to-defect-from-hd-dvd-to-blu-ray-report/

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Michael Bay was right!!!

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"Michael Bay was right!!!"
I think in part he probably was. Certainly Microsoft is more interested in digital distribution than HD-DVD. If Blu-Ray wins (as seems likely now) it will only be a stop gap for digital distribution, which seems increasingly to be the choice.

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I wonder if anyone bothered to rip a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc to their computer? With some poorly done codecs, you're lucky to have a file less than 8 GB.

Now, assuming everyone has 100 Mbit download speeds, that's not too bad, only a few minutes of downloading... but download speeds like that across the US are years away. No way HD downloadable content is going to be popular for at least five years at that rate.... and people still want HD.

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Yeah maybe downloads will be the norm' in like 10 - 15 years time. But the entry 360 skew doesn't have a hard drive and all 360s use 10/100s MB nics so downloading a high def movie probably takes a little bit and forget live streaming of multiple channels. Maybe if they didn't cloak the 360 in DRM hell as well. But most people like to own a disc don't they? I do.

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How do you region code digital downloads? Are all the studios going to let the people download movies online before they have even been released in their country? This is just one of a dozen problems with this technology.

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Philip, I'm not defending Microsoft for all of their habits regarding downloading, but when it comes to the digital delivery service in question (X-Box Live), they're killing it.

Mr Hobo, Both HD DVD and BRDs have been ripped (though the new BRD+ has not been entirely circumvented, yet) for a while. A film less than 2 hours can be clocked in at around 5 gigs. Given proper distribution methods, this is a very manageable file size (though even 3 years ago, not many would agree with that). Now if Microsoft were to decentralize their servers via an encrypted, tracked bit-torrent protocol, they could even further cut back server and bandwidth costs for getting the content out there.

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woot, a future where we own nothing and license everything! Can't wait!

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Peter,
I am quite aware that both have been ripped since spring of last year. That was just an open question to anyone here. And two things: you'd be hard pressed to find any good movie under two hours, and even then, 5 GB is small for a movie in full HD. My copy of Casino Royale is 12.3 GB, and still has somewhat poor quality video in most action sequences because of the encoding. Fortunately I still have my Blu-Ray copy that I can watch on my PS3.

I have to agree with you about how they're killing it with Live, though. I especially love Gates' comment, "The other trend we're seeing is that direct download over broadband - I think the greatest example of that is XBox Live..." It will be amusing when he actually chokes on the crap coming out of his mouth someday.

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