Zune, Xbox and HD Videos

I couldn't cover anything regarding the Zune Video Marketplace in the last post due to it not being free. Microsoft asked to stress test their servers last weekend and that involved renting out a movie. I decided to use this opportunity to test out the feature. What do I think?

There is this uncertainty about the future of Xbox 360 as a media centre due to the lack of Blu-ray drive. After watching "State of Play" last night I am convinced that Xbox does not need a Blu-ray drive. It can survive and thrive without it. In fact I prefer the console without a noisy and expensive Blu-ray drive.

Now, how it went? I paid 340 Microsoft Points (about 3 pounds) to rent out the movie. It gave me two options: Download or Stream. The option to stream video will provide you the best experience (up to 1080p) depending on your connection speed. I opted for the download option to experience the best quality. It started downloading (9.3GB) of content and I switched to TV to watch X Factor. I checked the console during breaks and I reckon by the time it downloaded 18% of the movie it gave me the option to play. So you don’t have to wait for the whole film to download before you can start watching it. I assume the software is smart enough to work out how much it needs to download before letting you play to avoid buffering.

After I finished watching X Factor I switched to the console. More than half of the content was downloaded and I started watching it. The rest of the movie was downloaded as I watched it. I didn't experience any buffering or any other issue. The content was in Full HD quality (1920x1080) with Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio. The only downside to this experience was the lack of uncompressed HD audio (Dolby TrueHD). I guess we will have to live with this since Xbox 360 is not capable of sending HD audio over HDMI yet. I don't think that as a major issue as there is very little market for HD audio and very few people have the compatible hardware.

Watching a movie on 1080p was a totally different experience. This is the first time I have used my equipment to watch a Full HD movie as I don't have a Blu-ray drive. After last night I am totally sold on the idea of downloading and watching movies and to sum up,

I like:

1. Full HD videos, ready to be downloaded whenever you like.
2. Xbox remain quiet since there is no DVD spinning inside your console.
3. Ability to rent once and play on Xbox, PC and Zune. (US only)

I don’t like:

1. Limited video library.
2. Expensive. I want to see a subscription based unlimited rental.
3. Lack of HD audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.