X Box360 movie downloads HD or SD

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Hi Can anyone help. My son's X Box 360 is connected to a HD ready Samsung Le23r71wx via the supplied 360's component cable we would like to download some movies but are unsure if this setup makes full use of HD content as the HD movies are considerably more expensive than the SD equivalent downloads. Whilst gaming is awesome we can't help feeling we are missing out with the introduction of an HDMI capable 360 any advice would be gratefully received

 

[Anonymous]

Dont download the movies, u only get to keep em for 14 days as its rental. How long have you had the xbox, and where did u get it from?? You could go bck to the shop and say you had 3 red lights and r willing to pay a lil more for the elite.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="mrnf77"]Hi
Can anyone help.
My son's X Box 360 is connected to a HD ready Samsung Le23r71wx via the supplied 360's component cable we would like to download some movies but are unsure if this setup makes full use of HD content as the HD movies are considerably more expensive than the SD equivalent downloads. Whilst gaming is awesome we can't help feeling we are missing out with the introduction of an HDMI capable 360 any advice would be gratefully received[/quote]
how much is the hd content compared to sd then?

 

[Anonymous]

depends on the film, 300 in hd costs 500 odd ms points, n 2100 ms points cost 18 quid in game, so work it out, sd films r around 200 ms points. dnt 4get u only get to keep it for a limited time.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Ginder"]depends on the film, 300 in hd costs 500 odd ms points, n 2100 ms points cost 18 quid in game, so work it out, sd films r around 200 ms points. dnt 4get u only get to keep it for a limited time.[/quote]
O.k that means your paying £2.50 for sd and £3.20 for hd that seems like a fair deal to me Ginder.
I know that once you start to watch it,it erases with in 24hours but can you watch them as much as like in those 24hrs?

 

[Anonymous]

If you're paying that sort of money for the films, why not just join up with an online film rental place, like lovefilms.com or somewhere, surely that would work out cheaper and you'd have the films for longer, assuming of course you have the HD drive (if that's what you need for the Xbox, i don't know a great deal about it) ?!

 

[Anonymous]

I dont thiink its worth it to be honest, especially when u can pick up 300 as part of HMVs 3 for 20 offer. Even though the dvds are not HD atleast you get to keep the film and watch it in own time.

 

[Anonymous]

I've just had a look. LoveFilms.com does a download service too, not sure which are HD-DVD's, but they have a catalog of 800 films. Surely you can just stream the downloads to your XBox ?

Also, their HD-DVD service, with over 150 titles, starts from as little as £3.99/month, for 2 DVD rentals per month.

Hmm....beginning to sound quite tempting!

 

[Anonymous]

Right, let's clear this up a bit, shall we?

First - join Lovefilm and yes, you can download some titles, but these are not HD and I'm pretty sure you can't stream them to a 360. The format support for streaming using the Xbox is very limited and Lovefilm downloads are restricted to Media Player 11. However, if you're looking for a mail-order disc-rental service, Lovefilm is very good indeed, and their catalogue of HD titles is getting bigger all the time. However, to watch HD DVDs on the system you've got, you'll have to go out and buy the HD DVD add-on for the 360, which is something we wouldn't recommend as the performance of this player is pretty poor.

Second - there is no reason at all why you shouldn't download the HD rentals from Xbox Live. The Samsung TV is HD-ready, and the component cable is perfectly capable of carrying HD signals. Just make sure that the switch on the cable is set to HDTV, and that you've changed the settings on the system blade of the Xbox dashboard so that it knows to output at 720p. Then you're away. You will definitely notice a difference between the picture quality of the SD and HD movies you download.

Third - yes, it is disappointing that at this point you can only rent movies from Xbox Live, but to the best of our knowledge there are still plans to expand the service so that TV shows and films can be bought in the future.

Hope that helps, and let us know how you get on.