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Xbox 360 offering HD movie downloads soon

The New York Times carries official word that November 22 is the day Microsoft will launch a HD movie download store for the xbox 360. I've heard rumors about this for the last month or so but I thought that the HD-DVD pack for the xbox 360 would derail any downloadable movie store. It's pretty impressive to hear they'll be offering them in high definition, as that's likely to push download times into the several hours instead of the 10-20 min it takes to get a low-res show from the iTunes store. The downside is that movie DRM will require that you watch the movie within 24 hours, but TV shows should last longer.

I'm surprised to see Microsoft beat Apple, Netflix, TiVo, Sony, and Amazon to the TV-integrated movie store. It'll be interesting to see how well it works out for Microsoft.

update: Engadget has screenshots of the Movie service in action.

by Matt Haughey November 6, 2006 in News

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