E3 2009: Xbox Live on-demand HD Movies confirmed for Australia

360 News | It turns out we do exist, after all.

In our recently published interview with Microsoft’s Andrew Jenkins, one interesting tid-bit was confirmation that Video on Demand would be released in Australia later this year.

"For Australia and NZ, we finally have the Video on Demand service, which will be released this year." said Andrew Jenkins. "It will use the Zune interface and there will be display in full 1080p. There’s almost no need for Blu Ray! The streaming process will adapt to the highest possible speed of your broadband. You will have the option to download the movie or video, rather than stream and you will be able to share it with a number of your friends. The pricing hasn’t been finalised but will be comparable to other regions."

A more specific date was not given, but it's good to know that Australia's finally a part of the on-demand video services which consoles have been offering in North America. Given Australia's exorbitant broadband prices, this was by no means guaranteed.

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15 Comments

Gamesta

2 years ago

haha love the subtitle.

G3ck0

2 years ago

This will fail in Australia, most people don't have the quota to download full 1080P movies.

Itachi

2 years ago

God i wish we would follow the rest of the world and **** off download quotas. Jesus we are so backwards arghhh!

meier

2 years ago

Agreed. This won't work for us Aussies, unless -someone- does something about our internet. I struggle with what I have now (which isn't a lot). I'll stick to buying blu-rays.

GreyWolfJai

2 years ago

I think it is the way of the future. The distant future...

Forget the download quotas of Australia (which is already of major concern to me. 100G isn't enough and I don't download 720p!) The biggest issue here is bandwidth. Who has 1080p standard of 40Mbps download? I don't and most people worldwide don't have it either. Great to see MS thinking big but HD streams or downloads are a 5 years off or so.

Jellyfish

2 years ago

The internet requirements were 8 Mbps which we do have here. There won't be too much of a noticable difference between that and a HD movie on an optical disc unless you're looking for it.

Nietzsche

2 years ago

8 mbps to download instantly but still nobody has the bandwidth. lol at the comment about "almost no need for Blu Ray"

trixSTAR

2 years ago

I will stick with DVD and blu-ray, I don't even use iTunes to download movies. I am all for Digital distribution but the online prices are more expensive than physical rentals.

If they are going to extend to movie purchases, I wouldn't like to be paying their HDD prices and add to that the need to backup your content.

Quota's and download speeds in OZ are limiting for HD content as well.

Baad Woolf

2 years ago

PALGN wrote

The streaming process will adapt to the highest possible speed of your broadband.

Thats awesome! i h8 buffering so much

el_rezzo

2 years ago

Considering the highest speed we can get where I live in Geelong is 1.5mbps this really doesn't help me at all. Download quotas will be the other big factor stopping people using the service. Obviously the biggest reason people won't use it is that you are paying to stream a movie you won't have a copy of (and if they do eventually allow copies where are you going to store a bunch of 1080p movies?). Plus the prices will be garbage compared to picking up a DVD for less than $20 or blu ray for around $40. Nice idea for more developed countries and for future generations (of consoles) though.

Cerebral

2 years ago

Nietzsche wrote

8 mbps to download instantly but still nobody has the bandwidth. lol at the comment about "almost no need for Blu Ray"

8+Mbps is standard for cable, and most ADSL2+ users get anywhere between 6-24Mbps. It's feasible, but as previously stated, the download caps enforced by ISPs kills any practical use for the everyday consumer who isn't on a 3-digit download plan.

thebigm

2 years ago

For those iiNet, it should end up being free quota.

Good to see that'll we be getting a service for once, although the costs and actual end bitrate will be a big factor in it's use for me.

Agent 042

2 years ago

wonder how long iiNet will continue to have unmetered xbl content after this comes in though.

ezekiel 08

2 years ago

"For those iiNet, it should end up being free quota."

Seeing as iiNet's prices are so high in comparison, it's not worth moving from Internode...

I'm on ADSL2+ and because of my old crappy Telstra line, I only get 9-10 Mbps (used to get 16+ at old house) but using Usenet I get my full speed for movies, so why use the Xbox 360 service? I only get 40gb a month so that equals to about 4 1080p movies (about 8gb each or more on the 360 I'm sure) and then I have next to no bandwidth for anything else! Lame.

And for the record, it's not the Aussie ISP that set the bandwidth cap, it's the overseas companies that own the physical cables to/from Australia. Kevin Rudd need to buy those cables before we get un-capped internet (like the US).

barrett

2 years ago

Blu-Ray killer......not

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