AfterDawn: News

Microsoft and Paramount team up for digital downloads

Microsoft and Paramount have announced a new partnership in which the movie studio will offer films via the Live Video Store beginning on February 19th.

The first Title to hit the service will be the blockbuster "Transformers" and new and existing titles will continue to trickle in. New titles from Warner Bros. will also be hitting the service including Beowulf, and The Assassination of Jesse James.



"We're very excited to announce this new relationship," Paramount's Alex Carlos added. "We have lots of great content that fits this demographic. We're excited about digital distribution, especially being on a platform as elegant as Xbox 360."

And Robin Burrowes, Xbox Live UK marketing manager, continued, "This announcement gives our Video Store customers in the UK an even greater choice of entertainment, with a great level of HD movie quality, as always."

The store launched in the UK in December and allows users to purchase digital downloads of Standard Definition or High Definition movies. You have two weeks to watch the content or 24 hours to finish it after you've begun watching.

Each title will cost 250 Microsoft Points for SD and 380 Microsoft Points for HD.

The full list of titles are as follows:

Transformers (SD and HD)
Goodbye Bafana (SD and HD)
Intersection (SD only)
Primal Fear (SD only)
Clear and Present Danger (SD only)
Naked Gun 2 & 1/2: The Smell of Fear (SD only)
Naked Gun 33 & 1/3 (SD only)
Top Secret! (SD only)
Bug (SD only)
Hardball (SD only)
The Phantom (SD only)
Orange County (SD only)
1408 (SD and HD)
Disturbia (SD and HD)
Hot Rod (SD and HD)
A Mighty Heart (SD and HD)
Heartbreak Kid (SD and HD)
Stardust (SD and HD)
In to the Wild (SD and HD)


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Feb 2008 18:35

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• 16 comments

• vinny13

  Man these movie services are multiplying like rabbits!

  18.2.2008 18:38 #1

• scorpNZ

  They sure are,it should be interesting to see how blue-ray disk movies fair in the next couple of comming years with this downloadble competition,then again i spose sony will provide content too ?

  18.2.2008 18:45 #2

• scorpNZ

  dam it dble post D'oh

  18.2.2008 18:45 #3

• lecsiy

  Well we all know how this is the future of movies. I think if MS lowered prices (points) they could really be onto a winner.

  18.2.2008 19:00 #4

• ZeusAV

  Yes Sony announced back at CES that they would put their movies on this service as well. Sony and Microsoft are videogame console rivals but every corporation loves money.
  
  This is the part that gets me:
  You have two weeks to watch the content or 24 hours to finish it after you've begun watching.
  
  
  Sorry but I'd rather buy an actual physical media that I can take anywhere and watch anytime that I feel like it. This works for some people I guess.

  18.2.2008 19:01 #5

• Pop_Smith

  This is why Microsoft backed HD DVD, or at least why they haven't shoved tons of money towards it. I am not sure of the resolution of the HD movies but if you convert MS points to dollars its about 80 points per $1, or $1.25 per 100 points (according to Wikipedia's MS points entry). So that means Transformers in HD is only $4.75 compared to $19.95 for it on HD DVD.
  
  However it is more like a rental service, in price, so all we need now all that is needed (Slysoft?) is a way to remove the time limitations and we get real cheap HD content. :P
  
  I think they should have a way to purchase (permanently) the movies for ~$10-15, depending on the movie, if they did that I would purchase at least a few movies.
  
  Peace

  18.2.2008 19:03 #6

• windsong

  Great. Just means more HD movies posted to USenet and emule :)

  18.2.2008 20:42 #7

• JorDogg

  This may work in USA but in NZ and im sure some other places the broadband is sooo slow and expensive it just wouldnt be worth it, seems to take hours to download 700mb let alone 3-4GB of HD content! How big is the average HD movie?

  18.2.2008 21:26 #8

• PetahG

  I think the hd movie is probabaly more than 4 gig and i think it could anywhere from 10-20 gigs

  18.2.2008 21:31 #9

• hendrix04

  most movies currently on live is 720 and not 1080... this means there is still room for a disk with full content.

  18.2.2008 22:34 #10

• atomicxl

  I wish there was ownership, or at least have it where you can re-download a movie for free if you've already paid for it. Maybe a monthly fee of $17.99 and you can download and unlimited movies a month and store up to 3 on your HDD at any given time or you could pay more and get more at one time.
  
  Or MS could just buyout Netflix and call it a day. I think that'd be the really smart move. Let netflix stay as is and then change Live marketplace to Netflix Marketplace and let people with netflix accounts add on digital downloads to their account.

  18.2.2008 23:03 #11

• jove

  Originally posted by lecsiy: Well we all know how this is the future of movies. I think if MS lowered prices (points) they could really be onto a winner.yeah, just like cars. the city of the future will be self-contained and vertical, plus goverments are moving towards pushing mass transit to stop peoples reliance and love for cars. it will happen, you'll see. thats why toyota and gm should just exit the business right now and join alstom and bombardier in working with subways and such because that IS the future and the car will inevitably... die. that would be smart wouldnt it?

  19.2.2008 01:17 #12

• chaos_zzz

  sorry dbl

  19.2.2008 12:57 #13

• chaos_zzz

  Hd content is around 4gb per movie, all that data cannot be hold on mosts computer so that an investment of at least 150 to 200 on storage.
  
  750gb = 185 movies on HD
  
  that may sound big enought but it is not. at least not for me
  
  Another problem is the sharing fact,how can u lend a movie to a friend?
  encoding takes time it's not a 5 min task
  
  Not everybody has 50mb internet, Here in peru a 2mb line costs 100$
  
  
  This is onyl good for piracy cuz ppl will still get the movie even thought it takes day and they have to wait for 3 hours to burn it.
  
  cuz they are not expending any more money, internet is already paid, the burner is in the computer and a blank disc costs cents everywhere.
  
  These movies services are not gonna have a good time until ppl become more conscious

  19.2.2008 13:09 #14

• lawndog

  ok question, I have xbox live so i will be able to get the movies downloaded for a pretty good price if you ask me. but if I download the HD content will it still show on a regular TV.
  Also, I have a DVD Writer connectd directly to my tv, so I would be able to watch and burn at the same time.
  Lets say I had a HD tv setup with the DVD writter, what would the finished product look like, anybody tried???
  Just an idea
  LD

  20.2.2008 16:33 #15

• borhan9

  For me this is nothing new at all. I feel this is a saftey measure from the 2 companies due to the fact they are lossing on the next generation disc format with hd dvd.

  9.4.2008 17:25 #16