300 In HD For Only 100 MS Points!

BNC

Dont think its been posted already so....

For 24 hours starting midnight 28 December, anyone with a broadband connection and Xbox LIVE membership (Silver or Gold) can take advantage of this terrific limited offer. “300”, critically acclaimed as the “Citizen Kane” of cinematic graphic novels, can be yours to rent in HD for the bargain price of 100 MS Points. Why? Because the Xbox LIVE Marketplace Video Store is now open for business, and you really must experience it for yourself to know fantastic it is.

I'll be downloading to see what the HD looks like.

dazftw

Unless you have a good connection its going take ages.. What it is like 7GB?

TheDoc

worth the experience though

Riesen_Meal

I have it on HDDVD, no use to me.....

dazftw

It would be so much easier just to rent it lol

How much is 100 MS points though like 80 cent? Suppose its only worth it if you don't mind waiting!

BNC

Download overnight while you sleep...you wake up...hey presto, its done! It should only take a couple of hours to download.

ShaneU

100 points is €1.20

GrumPy

dazftw wrote: »

It would be so much easier just to rent it lol

Eh wait, how?

Get up, get dressed, jump in car, drive to local rental place, find parking, find 300 dvd, pay person at till rental charge, (how much is a rental? €6?) hands over disc, back to car, drive home, put disc in drive, watch 300 in SD. Within 2, 3 nights, repeat process to return disc.


Buy 300 for 100 points on xbox LIVE, goto sleep, wake up (no need to dress) watch 300 in HD without the need of actually getting out of bed.


I rest my case.

KTRIC

Its meant to be sh!te in HD anyway. I wouldn't bother.

GrumPy

KTRIC wrote: »

Its meant to be sh!te in HD anyway. I wouldn't bother.

True, sure the whole film is grainy orange style crap. Still great though.

dazftw

Irish GrumPy wrote: »

Eh wait, how?

Get up, get dressed, jump in car, drive to local rental place, find parking, find 300 dvd, pay person at till rental charge, (how much is a rental? €6?) hands over disc, back to car, drive home, put disc in drive, watch 300 in SD. Within 2, 3 nights, repeat process to return disc.


Buy 300 for 100 points on xbox LIVE, goto sleep, wake up (no need to dress) watch 300 in HD without the need of actually getting out of bed.


I rest my case.

Someones very lazy :P

blu-ray tbh anyway lol

shanethemofo

dazftw wrote: »

Someones very lazy :P

blu-ray tbh anyway lol

Your only sayin that because u got bannz0red noob :P

dazftw

shanethemofo wrote: »

Your only sayin that because u got bannz0red noob :P

from where?

GrumPy

dazftw wrote: »

blu-ray tbh anyway lol

elaborate

dazftw

Irish GrumPy wrote: »

elaborate

have you seen 300 on HD and Blu-ray?

Riesen_Meal

I have, theres no difference?

dazftw

Fieldog wrote: »

I have, theres no difference?

Ah there is blu-ray is alot sharper! At least its my opinion of it anyway! My friend had it in HD and was like WOW but he got a PS3 and got blu-ray version of it and thought it was better aswell.

BNC

dazftw wrote: »

Ah there is blu-ray is alot sharper!

Thats interesting because they both are 1080p/VC-1 encoded.

McDermotX

There's no doubt that if you want to try out the Video Marketplace, then at that price, its definitely worth a shot..
However, IMO, its offerings like this that are the enemy (so to speak) of the emerging HD formats.
There will be a time (when the broadband infrastructure is there to support it) when downloading will become a viable medium for home entertainment......I seriously doubt it'll be in the form of the 360 marketplace (or Sony's similar effort next year), more along the lines of VOD over dedicated home servers, which by then, will allow for high quality encodes..
Speaking as a home theater enthusiast, I can appreciate new media forms, but I think you'll find that most supporters overwhelming prefer physical media over the current E-media alternative..
What the current implementation offers is a low-bitrate, bandwidth starved alternative to the real HD offerings, which is (at least MS hope) directed towards the mass rental public.....and is also nowhere near as convenient as people believe. It also opens the future to a DRM controlled, rent only future, which although fine for most people, is, quite frankly, offensive to enthusiasts..
If 720p, sub-bitrate, artifact-riddled, DD5.1 encodes of films are good enough for most people then so be it, but I would stress that if you have the means to purchase or rent infintely superior HD DVD/BD 1080p,TrueHD/PCM versions of your fav films, then choose that route. Its one way to show the movie studios that quality and value are the most important factor..

McDermotX

BNC wrote: »

Thats interesting because they both are 1080p/VC-1 encoded.

Correct,
Video encode is identical, HD DVD offers a TrueHD track, BD offers a TrueHD and PCM uncompressed option (virtually indistinguishable)..
Only appreciable difference is the IME and HDi functionality of the HD DVD version over the BD, allowing for a PiP feature during the film..
That alone makes it the more desirable version if you have both......failing that, the main feature of both is identical..
The US HD DVD release is also a DVD combo release (which can be a good or bad thing depending on how lucky you've been with combo releases thus far!!)

Any differences anyone has noticed between the video quality, is down to the users components in the chain, not the encode..

mickoneill30

dazftw wrote: »

Ah there is blu-ray is alot sharper! At least its my opinion of it anyway! My friend had it in HD and was like WOW but he got a PS3 and got blu-ray version of it and thought it was better aswell.

Lets suppose for a second that people on an Xbox forum don't have Blu-Ray players. Is it a good deal then or easier to go down to the video shop?

mcgovern

I'll be trying it out anyway.

The_B_Man

McDermotX wrote: »

Correct,
Video encode is identical, HD DVD offers a TrueHD track, BD offers a TrueHD and PCM uncompressed option (virtually indistinguishable)..
Only appreciable difference is the IME and HDi functionality of the HD DVD version over the BD, allowing for a PiP feature during the film..
That alone makes it the more desirable version if you have both......failing that, the main feature of both is identical..

BluRay also has PiP, no? v1.1 does anyway.

McDermotX

The_B_Man wrote: »

BluRay also has PiP, no? v1.1 does anyway.

The 300 BD disc doesn't though..
BD players with Profile 1.1 have functionality alright.....inlcudes PS3 since 2.10 update..
No BD discs have 1.1 features as of yet......the likes of War and Sunshine US releases will be the first, followed by the likes of 3:10 to Yuma..
Warner use the whole lack of advanced 1.1 functionalilty as a reason for delaying a number of key BD titles such as Batman Begins, Matrix etc which are already available on HD DVD

Guy:Incognito

Irish GrumPy wrote: »

Eh wait, how?

Get up, get dressed, jump in car, drive to local rental place, find parking, find 300 dvd, pay person at till rental charge, (how much is a rental? €6?) hands over disc, back to car, drive home, put disc in drive, watch 300 in SD. Within 2, 3 nights, repeat process to return disc.


Buy 300 for 100 points on xbox LIVE, goto sleep, wake up (no need to dress) watch 300 in HD without the need of actually getting out of bed.


I rest my case.

You forgot the wait 8 days bit for the 2nd part.

Ciaran500

Stekelly wrote: »

You forgot the wait 8 days bit for the 2nd part.

About 8 hrs, max

Antamojo

McDermotX wrote: »

There's no doubt that if you want to try out the Video Marketplace, then at that price, its definitely worth a shot..
However, IMO, its offerings like this that are the enemy (so to speak) of the emerging HD formats.
There will be a time (when the broadband infrastructure is there to support it) when downloading will become a viable medium for home entertainment......I seriously doubt it'll be in the form of the 360 marketplace (or Sony's similar effort next year), more along the lines of VOD over dedicated home servers, which by then, will allow for high quality encodes..
Speaking as a home theater enthusiast, I can appreciate new media forms, but I think you'll find that most supporters overwhelming prefer physical media over the current E-media alternative..
What the current implementation offers is a low-bitrate, bandwidth starved alternative to the real HD offerings, which is (at least MS hope) directed towards the mass rental public.....and is also nowhere near as convenient as people believe. It also opens the future to a DRM controlled, rent only future, which although fine for most people, is, quite frankly, offensive to enthusiasts..
If 720p, sub-bitrate, artifact-riddled, DD5.1 encodes of films are good enough for most people then so be it, but I would stress that if you have the means to purchase or rent infintely superior HD DVD/BD 1080p,TrueHD/PCM versions of your fav films, then choose that route. Its one way to show the movie studios that quality and value are the most important factor..

What the f*ck did you just say?!

j/k

I think it will be a few years till Ireland gets a good broadband infrastructure haha

dazftw

Damn I just got taking out of it by all the smart HD people... I dunno I just thought it looked better he had it on a HD player and a ps3 I don't whether that would make a difference but I just thought blu-ray looked nicer of the two :rolleyes:

When it comes down to it though to download a 5GB film is going take ages just a trip to the video shop would be so much quicker/easier

Ciaran500

McDermotX wrote: »

It also opens the future to a DRM controlled, rent only future, which although fine for most people, is, quite frankly, offensive to enthusiasts..

I can't see how this opens the future to rent only future, they could of done that with rental shops its obviously not what people want.

McDermotX wrote: »

If 720p, sub-bitrate, artifact-riddled, DD5.1 encodes of films are good enough for most people then so be it, but I would stress that if you have the means to purchase or rent infintely superior HD DVD/BD 1080p,TrueHD/PCM versions of your fav films, then choose that route. Its one way to show the movie studios that quality and value are the most important factor..

These may be lower bit rate than BR/HDDVD they are far from artifact riddled. Also if you scaled the file size of a 720p marketplace download up to what a 1080p would need it would be about 11gb. IIRC Batman Begins is about 12gb in size and held up as one of the great quality HD-DVD releases.

Besides the majority of people use a 720p HDTV and 5.1 set from Argos why should they avoid this? They aren't going to notice the difference at all.

McDermotX

Ciaran500 wrote: »

I can't see how this opens the future to rent only future, they could of done that with rental shops its obviously not what people want.


These may be lower bit rate than BR/HDDVD they are far from artifact riddled. Also if you scaled the file size of a 720p marketplace download up to what a 1080p would need it would be about 11gb. IIRC Batman Begins is about 12gb in size and held up as one of the great quality HD-DVD releases.

Besides the majority of people use a 720p HDTV and 5.1 set from Argos why should they avoid this? They aren't going to notice the difference at all.

Think about it though,
to the movie studios, at least when it comes to downloadable media it doesn't matter what people what..
In the future, the movie studio will have control over how their media is handled. How many times you can download it, what outlay people will have to pay etc etc etc..
With this level of control, they are far more concerned over the number of times they can get the public to fork out for their intellectual property....not physical media. Rather than having people own their own copies, it is far more valuable to them to have a constant stream of revenue in a new digitally delivered entertainment industry..
This could easily lead to a DRM-led, licensed future when it comes to media access (more so than it already is !)......this is far down the line, post optical, but it is certainly the most obvious way the industry will head..

Quality is relative of course, the fact is the current standard of downloadable media is nowhere near the level offered by current HD media (BD or HD DVD).....and we are already above the tolerable level of currently available distribution and convenience (and for the next few years)..
It is in MS' (and others) interest to push the boundaries of course, and their interests lie in continuing the progress of VC1, which has led to the debate of MS' ulterior motives in the HD format war. Everyone has their own opinion of course, but you don't need someone like Micheal Bay stating the obvious, if marginally uninformed view that MS ultimate aim of dumbed down and downloadable is going to become a reality and in their best interests..
As it stands, the best and most convenient method of pure HD media delivery at the moment is the two competing optical formats (of course, we should have only one, but that debate is long gone and off-topic)..

Services such as the Video Marketplace are in their infancy, and by the time a proper method of quick, reliable delivery via downloading is available, 720p sets will be an extremely budget option if at all. Sticking your head inside a store or newspaper for two minutes this Christmas only demonstrate how far prices around decent 1080p sets have fallen and their infiltration is only going to become more and more widespread over the next 12 months to such a degree that it will become financially unviable to continue 720p panel production..

I'm not suggesting that people avoid the video marketplace at all (especially with the price their asking for 300 with that deal if just to check it out), just that they should appreciate that there is already a far higher quality alternative out there right now which, as strange as it sounds given the format war, is more in the publics interest. Downloadable media's time will come, but it certainly won't be in this current format or quality, or with the current broadband infrastructure limitations..

BNC

^^^^^

So you won't be downloading then..;)