Do you download movies on PS3 or Xbox 360?

[admin_exported]

Do you, in HD?

What are your thoughts?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Richard.

I downloaded my first movie in HD(720P) to my 360 yesterday actually. The movie was one missed call and it was total pnats. Haha

It confused me as it stated on xbox live that the res was 720p. When I played it through my sony TV. It was showing as 1080p

The picture quality was quite average I though. Nowhere close to watching a blu-ray on my PS3. Everything looked overly bright, and the colours looked weird, especially the blues and greens. Detail was not as sharp and the overall presentation was poor.

 

[Andy Grange]

I tried the Matrix on 360 in HD, and to be honest thought it wasn't as good quality wise as through my upscaling Sony dvd recorder (RDR GX350).

 

[professorhat]

Not tried it and doubt I ever will. I'm a physical media man and enjoy getting a new Blu-Ray to watch every week through Lovefilm. The rest of the time, I just watch one from my existing DVD or Blu-Ray collection.

 

[Anonymous]

id give it a whirls but it would days on my broadband! thats where i think the whole download system falls over

 

[Anonymous]

To be honest i wouldnt even bother trying, as much as it costs to rent a film from xbox live you can easily purchase the film on dvd or rent it for less from somewhere like love film maybe. Downloading movies will take off, but not for the prices they charge.

As for the picture quality i dont see why it should be worse than bluray, because at the end of the day all you are downloading is information, probably the same information that is on the discs. If it is worse then maybe a poor transfer was used for the xbox live version?

 

[Andy Grange]

I don't think they're actually full HD to be honest. From memory I think an average HD movie weighs in at around 5Gb on the 360. I'm not sure how that compares to a blu-ray movie stripped of all extras, but I imagine it's quite a bit less.

 

[landzw]

I've downloaded a couple of films on the xbox in HD and SD , i didn't think the HD film Death Race wasn't to bad but you have to remember it is at 720p and gets upscaled to 1080p , I thought the SD film was the worst with motion judder and the low sounds were to low and action was to loud ,

I now don't download films of Xbox live , i download them from another site from america and each standard film costs about £1.25 and either 720p or 1080p are about £3.50 and i store them onto a HDD and use the xbox to watch HD films and my DVD player ( no fan sound ) through usb to play the DIVX films

 

[landzw]

Depends on what film you download , Say like Transformers 2 1080P 11,198.52MB Resolution is 1920X800

720p is 6,715.38MB Resolution is 1280x534

Divx is 2,101.47MB Resolution is 644x272

all films are different but i haven't come across a full 1080p or 720p yet from downloading but saying that i don't believe all films on blu ray are all full HD either

But lets think about it downloaded price V's blu Ray £3.50 V's £16.99 Hmmmmm i know which one i'm happy spending my cash on

 

[Torres09]

Wont be available here until March/April ( That's the PS3) sometime, however reading the above posts looks like im not missing much.......

 

[dangalf]

i've never really tried downloading movies on my xbox360 mainly due to the price of HD films on the platform and the inconvenience of downloading the film itself (think it would be quicker for me to *** to blockbuster and rent from them to be honest).

am also thinking of joining blockbuster or lovefilm on a monthly subscription deal so any other type of rental probably wont get a look-in after that

 

[indyjase]

Well rather than using an Xbox or PS3 I just have multiple PCs around the house networked and stream all media content from one central PC (Mine!!!LOL!!!) and if you look around the web you can get full 1080p downloads, many with 1.5 dts core which is not bad. I have bunches stored on harddrive and in comparison to actual blurays is very, very close. If your PC is connected to your tv or PJ you can use a free piece of software called boxee, which is like kaliedascope (cant spell!) software, in that it lets you use a really cool interface to access all media, and with movies, gives info as well as a trailer. It does really look good and if you have boxee running on several pcs in the house it becomes very slick to stream movies and media throughout. You dont have to use boxee, but as its free and takes the hassle out of searching for specific files and both the misses and the kids can use it with just a mouse click. Streaming good quality HD content can be done, the hard part is getting the HD content.....

 

[landzw]

True it is hard getting HD but lets face it Blu Ray has taken a good year to even start getting a good catalogue of films , Things will get better not only that there are plenty of people willing to share there Blu Ray films to friends over the net now for nothing the net is becoming a great way of downloading HD films . But connection speed can be a problem it takes me a lot of hours to download a full HD film so 720p is the best i go for .

Apple Tv is great way to download films but you are buying into a slick product which is expensive to buy and rent / buy films ,

The only problem with using the Pc's to stream films as a friend of mine does is the learning it takes to get to the point you want , its just not a case of plug and play like a blu ray to a Tv there a little more to it , but i have to admit every time i've been around my mates and he keeps showing me what he can do it doe make me want one

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with indyjase. I also download 1080p Bluray to a Full HD media (Acer Revo R3600) and the quality is great all from the comfort of my home. Only download files 8GB and upwards for best quality. Sound at DTS is also very good, but I think I do miss out on HD sound Codec. Downloading can be done over a night with a decent broadband speed. Also rather than stream I use portable 2.5" laptop drives and transfer films from my main PC to my media pc avoiding drop outs on slow streaming/ heavy traffic over lines.

I use to download to my PS3 but found is very cumbersome. If new download service being offered is up to scratch may revert to enjoy the full Blu Ray. Only download due to the inconvenience of rental and my V+ is rubbish for HD content especially as it only comes in 720p format.

 

[mgillespie05]

i have about 10 720p movies all 5.1 on my ps3 500g upgrade and some of them can be amazing .well worth the look before you buy the bd .

 

[JamesOK]

Dont have a PS3 but I have downloaded one HD film on my XBOX.

Thoughts:

• Great to have the selection of films at your fingertips
• With our current broadband (mine is barely 1 meg) it takes far to long to download
• £5 ish for a single rental is too steep on XBOX
• The idea that the film expires whether you have watched it or not has put me off (never got to watch the film I downloaded as it expired, so you pay the money for it then you dont even get to watch it)
• Can no comment on PQ for reason above!

I reckon this will be a real winner when broadband speeds get quicker, and I expect Microsoft need to sort out the expiry thing before it will really take off. Compare getting one film on the xbox for around a fiver with the Tesco DVD rental I have (2 a month for £3.99, keep as long as you like) and its really not a hard choice.

 

[Anonymous]

What are the best places to download 1080p content from?

 

[GazzyP]

In terms of picure qulaity - dont get hung up on resoltions - all HD is not the same. Look at the bit rates they are usuing. When playing back Blu-ray you are pumping up to 30mbps of data through to your TV - thats massive compared to maybe 8 or 9 on a downloaded film or something off air like BBC HD. Some so called HD films downloads can look no better that upscaled DVD for this reason. For me the best way to get HD films is Blu-ray from LoveFilm - its the beat value and quality is guarenteed.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

I have seen HD downloaded content on both PS3 and 360 and was quite frankly not very impressed with either the picture or sound quality and as mentioned before in this thread the cost of these downloads is not any cheaper than renting a BD.

As GazzyP mentioned, even tho the files downlaoded may have a HD resolution the bit rates they are encoded at are far from HD solid state media such as BD with most struggleing to get over 10mbps on the PQ (even good old DVD can reach a maximum of 10mbps) and that is before you then consider the compression used on the sound.

So for me why exactly anyone would choose to download a inferior version of the movie over a BD for roughly the same cost is beyond me!

 

[landzw]

£3.50 for a 1080p blu ray film isn't the same price as a blue ray , If you want to download HD / Divx films to your Xbox for £1.25 or £3.50 for HD films you will need to buy a USB memory device and then pm me and i will give you a selection of legal links

Those who have apple TV there are ways of buying the same film cheaper then converting it to apple TV

D.J.KRIME yes the downloads are inferior , some are not by much but this also comes down to the equipment you use as you al ready know , its only a matter of time and you can kiss blu ray discs good bye and then there will only be a hand full of die hard fans like LP users that will carry on using the Disc equivalent of any film

 

[landzw]

£3.50 for a 1080p blu ray film isn't the same price as a blue ray , If you want to download HD / Divx films to your Xbox for £1.25 or £3.50 for HD films you will need to buy a USB memory device and then pm me and i will give you a selection of legal links

Those who have apple TV there are ways of buying the same film cheaper then converting it to apple TV

D.J.KRIME yes the downloads are inferior , some are not by much but this also comes down to the equipment you use as you al ready know , its only a matter of time and you can kiss blu ray discs good bye and then there will only be a hand full of die hard fans like LP users that will carry on using the Disc equivalent of any film

 

[professorhat]

It's going to be a number of years before the number of people downloading HD films gets to such a number that a physical format isn't required. Working in IT, I'm pretty tech saavy, but there's no way I'd legally download a film I want to watch rather than reaching for a Blu-Ray from my collection - the amount of time it takes is silly at current broadband rates and that isn't going to change any time soon in the UK.

 

[Anonymous]

Downloaded Event Horizon in HD on the Xbox a while back. Took ages to download, quality was poor and only had it for 24 hours to watch. Would much rather pay twice as much and permanently have the disc to watch whenever I want. There are now plenty of BOGOF BD's to buy from month to month, so it's fairly easy to build up a decent library of BD's for between £5 to £10 each. So it's physical media for me.

 

[landzw]

I agree the xbox 360's video quality is poor , but other media device's are now appearing that can almost match blue ray players which you also need a good source to download from

More sources on the net are appearing on the net which provide good quality downloads , saying that i've also come across some real bad one's

It takes me 1 night to download a film in 720p using 1.5 download speed 2 nights for 1080p , you can get dedicated software that speeds up downloading

Just think i can have avatar in full HD downloaded legally weeks before it's released on Blue ray in the UK for only £3.50

Mind you i never thought i would convert to mp3/ipods as i use to think it was it was the lesser compared to my cd player and why would anyone want to listen to that kind of quality , but things have changed things have improved and 99% of the time we use an ipod connected to my B&O system rather than changing cd's all the time

 

[Anonymous]

I watch mostly on xbox 360, but am checking into some blue ray players.

Where do you download movies that you get them so fast?

Darinka