Disney Online Movie Rentals Via Xbox Live (1 Viewer)

[Jason Roer]

Hey all,

So here's an interesting tidbit - check the link below:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html

What's this all about? Disney in bed with MS? Does this mean that everyone who thought MS was going to develop the VC1 codec with HD-DVD only to later support their online model exclusively was right? (or Bill Gates dressed in a cloak as the Emperor says, "Everything is happening as I have forseen it.") Or is this just simply a good business model for Disney to explore right now - letting some of the HD-DVD world get a taste of Disney flicks in HD for very little cost to them. Will MS be able to convince Disney to begin releasing their catalogue on HD-DVD (since the films will already be encoded in VC1 for the downloads)? How does all of this effect Disney's relationship to Sony and what does this mean, if anything, to Bluray and their now non-exclusivity for Disney titles in HD (at least for viewing purposes - still BD exclusive to own).

Love to hear some thoughts on this.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[Romar Armas]

All of the following are now available in the Marketplace:

Alice In Wonderland
Armageddon
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Bad Company
Bringing Down The House
Cold Creek Manor
Coyote Ugly
Déjà Vu
Ghosts of the Abyss
Gone Fishin'
Grosse Pointe Blank
Hercules
Meet the Deedles
Metro
Mighty Joe Young
Moonlight Mile
Brother, Where Art Thou?
Pooh's Heffalump Movie
Prefontaine
Primeval
Sky High
Tarzan
The 13th Warrior
The Aristocats
The Brothers Grimm
The Emperor's New Groove
The Fox and the Hound 2
The Great Raid
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Queen
The Waterboy
Unbreakable
Valiant
Venus

Too bad these are not available in Canada yet. Hopefully they will enable it here soon.

 

[Marc Colella]

I guess Disney is trying to kill Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

 

[ppltd]

...and move to a download model. Are we sure that Bill Gates is not running Disney? I can't wait to see all of the conspiracy theories this will generate.

 

[Jason Roer]

I alluded to Gates being the Emperor. If you remember, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Sideous were one and the same. Bill Gates. Robert Iger. Hmm. Perhaps... Nah. Well...

Or maybe it's more of a Superman thing where Gates rips off his glasses, tosses aside his pencil protector, and suddenly he's ready for a shareholders meeting at Disney.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[Jeff Adkins]

720p with lossy audio pay-per-view?? No thanks. I'll stick with the 2 optical formats and play them at my leisure.

This is nothing more than pay-per-view only you have to wait for it to download.

 

[CRyan]

Ehh. Will never amount to anything more than a niche iPod video market.

Now, when someone can figure out how to provide content easily to MANY devices for download from ONE repository, then I think VOD will become something.

 

[Shane Martin]

Means nothing but I'm sure the fanboys will think Disney releases on HD DVD are imminent.

 

[Douglas Monce]

I'm not sure why this is surprising. All of these companies (Sony, Toshiba, Microsoft, Disney, Fox, Universal, etc) do business with each other in some form or another. I don't think it means that Disney will suddenly start releasing on HD DVD.

Doug

 

[ppltd]

You are right. It has taken BD fanboy to even bring the possible point up that Disney will begin releasing in HD DVD format. To everyone else, it is a sure sign that Disney has been turned to the darkside (MS) and now believes that downloading is the only future.

 

[Jari K]

This probably means many different things, but I personally believe that one big reason for VC-1 is indeed the future online downloading. It´s not just HD DVD.

It´s another matter that will HD DVD just "go away" because of this online downloading, but MS didn´t develop the coded just for the HD DVD..

I just hope that companies don´t get too carried away with this downloading-business. It´s not what the real fans want. I hope that their main focus is with the Blu-ray and HD DVD-releases..

 

[ppltd]

Their main focus is on how to make the most money. It is fact, there are far more devices capable of downloading these movies for rental (and for sale) than there are (or will be for many years) HD or BD players to play the disks. these studios will always go where the money is.

As far as Disney utilizing XBox live as a delivery method, 12 Million XBox users is a pretty enticing user base especially when you take into consideration the very fast growth rate of downloadable content the MS has been experiencing.

 

[Romar Armas]

It's funny how people easily dismiss the Xbox 360 Marketplace. Here's some interesting tidbits just released.

* Xbox 360 continues to lead with the largest library of on-demand high-definition movies and television in the U.S. on-demand market. Twenty-eight movie studios and TV networks continue to provide a growing catalogue of premium high- and standard-definition entertainment content that to date totals 2,350 hours.
* Xbox LIVE Marketplace is now the leading provider of on-demand high-definition content in the U.S., providing more than twice the number of hours as leading cable operators.
* Xbox LIVE Marketplace is home to a growing catalogue of more than 9,000 pieces of individual gaming and entertainment content, downloadable at the click of a button.
* Nearly 50% of Xbox LIVE members in the U.S. log into Xbox LIVE Marketplace every time they turn on their console.
* There have been 220 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Source

Disney and other companies can easily make money by releasing content on Xbox Live. Not everyone has 1080p nor a high end audio system. I'm willing to bet that most people right now have 720p native LCD TVs and Plasmas. It's nice to be an elitist and all and demand nothing but the best in audio and video but whatever way you look at it, sales of HD DVD and BR formats are quite dismal and disappointing overall.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Microsoft, Disney Put Movies for Rent on Xbox Live

 

[CRyan]

I am certainly not dismissing the XBOX Marketplace, but obviously it can NEVER be ANYTHING else but a niche product. I can safely say that NOT ONE person is going to go out and get an XBOX solely for downloading movies to rent.

I dont think anyone though will say this is not a good EXTRA revenue opportunity for a studio.

 

[Chris S]

Okay enough with all this business speak lets get to what really matters... the films!

So how do the animated features look in HD? In particular I'm really interested in hearing about Alice In Wonderland and Tarzan. Are they truly leaps and bounds above the SD releases? Thoughts, impressions?

 

[Ryan-G]

No reason why they wouldn't. Considering how often the average kid watches the latest Disney Movie and some of the older ones, Disney stands to make a mint if people would actually bite on the Rental Fee pricing/ownership.

I doubt if they will though. You'd have to be nuts to pay 5$ everytime your kid wanted to watch Finding Nemo over and over.

 

[Todd_N]

I certainly wont use my 360 for anything other than gaming. The hardware isn't reliable enough in my opinion. I don't want to keep my 360 on for hours to download a movie -- I would be too concerned about getting the Red Rings of Death. I can't see how this will work anyways when there are services like Netflix and BB online. The pricing is much more attractive.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Which is what they've always wanted to do...... they finally have the technology to do it.

 

[Douglas Monce]

My understanding is that the xbox marketplace is going to be made available to PC users in the next year or so.

Doug