Microsoft today rolls out the Xbox Live dashboard update that brings – at long last – Movies On Demand to the Xbox 360 console in Australia. Have you checked it out yet?
Some of you will have had access to the dashboard preview for the past few weeks. And as with all beta tests, we understand if things are a little hit and miss. Personally, I was unable to stream in HD due to my useless connection, but HD downloads worked fine, as did SD streaming.
One concern out of the beta is the limited selection of movies available, with only around 100 titles – many quite old – to choose from. Speaking to Screen Play this morning, Xbox Live product manager Andrew Jenkins promises we’ll see a steady flow of new weekly releases.
“By the end of November you will see things like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hangover, State of Play, and by the end of the year you’ll see Transformers 2, Star Trek, all these huge blockbuster titles are coming to our service… I’m excited that Harry Potter and The Hangover, those are things that we are getting day-and-date with DVD.”
But now that the service has launched to the general public, how does it perform? If you’ve tested it today, let us know your experience.
UPDATE: Looks like I jumped the gun a little. It’ll hit at 9pm AEDT tonight.
Cheez
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:33 PMUmm ok? its up now but it didnt ask me to update,everything was just on the dashboard already. Im confused
Rusty
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:33 PMThose of you waiting for an update, there isn’t one.
Remember those couple of updates you got a while back? That was your facebook etc. It’s now just been enabled. So fire up your 360, scroll through your dash board and the features should now be there. Small downloads are still required for facebook and I’m assuming twitter too.
Damien
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:34 PMMy Turn 9:33 nothing new :-P
FatShady
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:37 PM9.35, got it with a restart of the console… now lets see what we actually got!
Damien
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:37 PMCheck that we have action!!!
Cheez
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:52 PMyep its up and running and guess what. HD STREAMING WORKS FOR ME.im very happy
Ben Harring-Harris
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:24 AMStreaming works great! the free Avatar clip streamed in HD instantly, and is by the way very cool =]
360Gamer
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 4:12 AMLas Vegas, NV, USA: I had the beta update on my Halo Edition 360 for the past few weeks and the biggest disappointment I had was with downloaded videos. It wasn’t organized at all. After downloading videos with Zune on 360, I couldn’t find one tab that had the latest downloads. And after I did find and watch the videos then delete them, they were still listed in the same tab as where I found them to play so I tried to delete again but I only had the option to download again. I prefer to just download movies & videos, go right to where they are, watch ‘em & delete ‘em. First they got rid of the blades and brought in avatars, now I have to get used to this. I was glad to see that when I got my Modern Warfare 2 console it didn’t have the update so I stopped using my Halo Edition. Unfortunately I haven’t played in a few days so I guess I’ll go see now, I replied to a survey on it and let them know, hopefully others had the same problem and they addressed the issue.
Ben Robinson
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:54 AMI have it. From what I’ve seen, movies can be ‘rented’ for 300 Microshaft points.
Anyone have an idea as to how much bandwidth a movie would take out of my download quota for the month?
DKnight1000
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 1:06 AMNot much of a Movie selection, with the exception of a few movies from the 70′s there’s not much I haven’t seen.
I’m in Brisbane and with TPG and it seems I can stream… I don’t think I get free streaming but.
Thekeg
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 2:58 AMYeah, but have you looked at the bandwith for a HD movie? 11GB (OK, if your connection is slow it will be less, so let’s call it 6GB). On my iiNet 25/45 plan – that means a streaming (i.e. peak time) movie is 1/4 of my cap ($69). Without going mental with the math, add the $7 rental and you can see teh whole movie download idea is SCREWED right now. OK.. my confession, I get the odd movie off BT.. and I checked my site, and a popular movie currently has a DVD rip at 640×352 (xVid) and 709Mb v.s. same off Blu-Ray at 1280×720 (H.264) and the DVD is snatched 864 times v.s. 6 times. So let the “evil” pirates give you a hint here… WE.CANT.AFFORD.6GB.MOVIES! Not Until we get cheap bandwidth! I love the idea! I’d love to stream my flicks! I’d love to pay a fair price ($2 Tuesday anyone?) … but I’m not paying $24.25 for a streaming movie (for those who weren’t watching $69 x 0.25 + $7).
Thekeg
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 3:02 AMGotta admit, that Avatar preview streamed very nicely. It’s a tasty look at the future!
Binaryfart
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 9:58 AMThe current content seems pretty sparse but at least the mechanism is there! :)
I was kinda looking forward NetFlix and LastFM, but of course they’re nowhere to be seen…
I know LastFM is not actually out yet for US accounts either, but at least they have the placeholder adverts. It really does look like OZ is gonna get forgotten again :(
Cheez
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11:13 AMI have a feeling that oz might be seeing last.fm or something similar maybe early next year.The US has had streaming movies with nexflix way before we did.Oz didnt get netflix because it isnt avalible to all regons,Im hoping that the same thing has happened with last.fm.Its only a matter of time before we get free streaming music.
btw, can anybody plz tell me how the quality of the SD streaming is? i have the theroy that HD should be blueray quality and the SD should be DVD,If this is true wouldnt it be better and cheaper just to stream in SD,so its not HD who cares it still beats goin to the video store.
Pablo
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11:46 AMDoes it take a long time to get the HD stuff to transfer?
Cheez
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:14 PMNo it streams perfectly, starts out lookin youtube quality at the start then it scales up to 1080p it looks brillant. the only problem ihs the massive size of the movies, will prob leave ppl in debt to their isp’s. They need to find a way to compress the movies to at least half the size, without losing picture quality.