Xbox 360 Video Marketplace Thoughts

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I don’t have cable nor do I want it but there are things I want to watch. To fill this need, a mixture of iTunes, Netflix and bittorrent gets the job done. So when Microsoft announced TV and Movies would be coming to Xbox360, I couldn’t help be excited. Right now I need to hookup my laptop to my TV to watch iTunes shows and movies or my own stuff using Frontrow. While it works, its less than ideal.

Strike 1: 360 isn’t equipped to handle HD content.

The biggest thing that got me excited was Microsoft would be offering HD content unlike iTunes or even bittorrent for that matter. My only HD fix right now is through HD DVDs on Netflix. With all HD content, the first problem is storage space. The Xbox360 has a 20gig HDD and only 13G is useable. That equals 2 HD Movies or 6 HD TV shows at the most. That would be ok if you could pull the content off and stream it using the 360’s new found Video Streaming but alas you can’t. I would settle for be able to connect a external USB HDD and having MS format it with screwy encrypted DRM’d filesystem just to be able to use it as extra storage.

Strike 2: Lacking Content

I was all about the CW and adult swim shows as iTunes does not carry them. The only shows I watch that I cannot get from iTunes are Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, Veronica Mars and Smallville. Well, 3 of those are available from day 1 on the Video Marketplace. ALL RIGHT! Not so fast. While they are available, only the First Season’s on each of them are and there aren’t even in HD. Utterly useless. And thats not all, most shows and Movies are not in HD. Only a handful of each.

Actually content is weak with todays launch and hopefully it will continue to grow. With with the exception of V for Vendetta, not one movie is current and roughly 1/3 of all the TV shows are cartoons.

Strike 3: Pricing

Pricing isn’t horrible but $6 for a 24hr HD movie rental is little steep. For a penny less, you can get a 30d ay rental from Netflix. TV shows are on par with iTunes but as with iTunes, you pay the same price for a 15 mins episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force as you do for a 60 min CSI episode. I’m not upset about the pricing but I would have loved to see $1 TV show rentals and Movie purchase’s. I’m more likely to re-watch a movie than a TV show.

And for the record, MS Points suck. 480 points = $6?! huh? Ho much is 262 points? I don’t know either but I do know $6 is $6.

Closing thoughts

I bought an episode of CSI Season 7 and V for Vendetta today. Right now its been 6 hours since I purchased them and CSI is only 19% complete and V for Vendetta hasn’t even started. Obviously this is because everyone is hammering the servers but even when TV Shows and Movies launched on iTunes, I never had this problem. V for Vendetta HD DVD shipped from Netflix today. It will be interesting to see which one i get right.

Another problem I you can’t stream while you download. I’m going to have to wait until the full movie downloads before I can watch V for Vendetta. Even iTunes lets you stream.

I do like the fact you can download the SD version of HD content for free. Score one for Microsoft.