by David
3. November 2009 22:40
The Xbox Zune Video Marketplace is another new service in the current Xbox Preview Program, allowing you to instantly stream movies in 1080p HD via your Xbox 360. Presumably it will eventually replace the existing Video Market Place on Xbox, which requires you to first download the movie to your HDD before watching. Being that a 2 hour movie at 1080p could weigh in around the 9gb mark this kinda sucks because a) it takes ages to download before you can watch it; and b) HDD space is not something the Xbox overflows with.
As with the existing Video Marketplace, the movies on offer are a somewhat odd-ball selection. You get a smattering of new releases and then few hundred older movies – some well known, some quite obscure. I’m not sure what deals Microsoft have in place for content rights, but you’d hope that if this service becomes a success the quantity and quality of new releases would increase.
Prices seem to vary in line with the movies age, with most offering one price for HD and a lower one for Standard Definition. Once paid up you have 14 days to start watching it, after which you can watch it as many times as you like for 24 hours.
The service uses Smooth Streaming which seamlessly downgrades from 1080p to lower bit rates if available bandwidth demands it to keep the movie running. I like the fact you get a sorta “signal strength” indicator in the Info Bar (main picture above) which you can check to see whether you’re getting full 1080p or whether the bit rate has been downgraded to maintain the stream.
Although I don’t think Microsoft have explicitly said they’re using Silverlight to deliver the video, we do know that Silverlight was pushed to the Xbox and the Zune Video Marketplace advertises itself as using “Smooth Streaming” – which is a SL3 feature, so it would make sense.
On Sunday afternoon I first watched Event Horizon in HD (380 points). The movie rebuffered a total of 5 times and dipped in and out of 1080p every now and again. Not ideal – but actually not that annoying. Later that evening I joined in Microsoft’s mass stress test by watching State of Play in HD (540 points). I had one complete halt of play that chucked me back the menu complaining of network interruption, but was able to resume the movie at the point it cut out straight away. There was no buffering as experienced in Event Horizon and I didn’t notice the stream drop below 1080p once. It was a truly impressive experience and one that puts the current performance of the Xbox Sky Player to shame.
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