Magnus Nevstad

Posts tagged with "movies"

HDTV and HD movie downloads for your 360

Tuesday, 7. November 2006, 12:55:38

Via Engadget: On November 22nd, which is the Xbox360's one year anniversary, will be announcing their new Xbox Live Video service - allowing all users to download high definition programs on their 360 ans well as HD movies.

The service is called Xbox Live Video, and the fall update enables customers to spend their Microsoft points on standard and HD television from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Turner, and UFC, as well as HD movies from Warner Bros., Paramount, and so on.

My sneaking suspicion is that this service will only be available in the USA, but it is still quite a big and bold move.

Microsoft has not yet disclosed pricing for downloads, but it will be in Microsoft points.

Movies will be "rental" only, TV for "purchase" only.

At launch there will be over 800 hours of SDTV, and 200 hours of HDTV.

Neither TV nor movies are streamed; they are only downloaded, although you can stream short preview clips from the Live interface.

You can only download content to your Xbox 360 drive -- not to an external drive.

Your "purchased" TV programs can be downloaded an infinite amount of times to an infinite amount of consoles; you may also play them back on friends' 360s with your removable drive.

Deleted TV shows can be re-downloaded later; HDTV shows can be re-downloaded in either HDTV or SD.

Movies can be watched an unlimited number of times the first 24 hours. Plays after that period will cost the same as the initial download, although the movie data isn't necessarily deleted. You can keep the movie data on your drive up to 14 days without re-downloading it.

Downloads are in VC-1 (aka WMVHD) at 720p, 6.8Mbps video with 5.1 surround.

An average HD movie download should be between 4-5GB, and a two hour SD movie would be 1.6GB.

An average 1 hour (44 min) HDTV download should be about 2.2GB, and an average 1/2 hour (22 min) HDTV download should be about 1GB. A 1 hour SDTV download should be about 600MB, and a 1/2 hour SDTV download should be about 300MB.

This service will not be available for MSN TV users, Vongo subscribers, or any other Microsoft partners. It is Xbox Live only.

You cannot download programs through the Xbox Live web interface -- they can only be transported to your 360's removable drive.

There aren't any drive announcements being made, so if your puny 20GB Xbox drive is near or at capacity, you're out of luck, kid.

Check the Engadget link to see the interresting list of launch titles too.

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Domi in the Movies

Friday, 4. August 2006, 10:43:30

domi, movies, finland, tampere ...

A while back, a good friend and colleague Ivan Kuznetsov got me in contact with Alexander Savin, a filmmaker and friend of his. Alex, working for the finish company Karisma Films was scriptwriter and operator for the movie "Leijonan sydän", and after hearing Domi wanted to know if he could use some of our music for the movie. I thought this was a great idea, so naturally Domi agreed!

The movie is now done, and Ivan wrote some about this movie which was filmed in his home town of Tampere:

"Leijonan sydän" tells about a teenager Leo (played by Markus Kosonen, who is also a producer of this movie). Leo is really passionate about hockey and wants to dedicate his life to it. But eventually he finds himself playing at the expense of school, relationships with his girlfriend Jonna (played by Irina Ritvanen) and health.

It is a movie about growing up, learning to make important decisions yourslef, friendship and love. Good humor, dynamic and realistic sports filming, philosophical dialogs, make this movie worth watching.

[..]

After "Leijonan Sydän" was played in Plevna and Niagara movie theaters in Tampere, rights for TV presentation were sold to YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company) for the next ten years, so you have a pretty good chance to see it on TV.

Can't wait to get my copy, I do hope there are English subtitles as I am rather low on local Finish friends at the moment. The Domi songs used in the movie were the classic The Shepherd and an old ballad called Away From Home. You can see a trailer of the movie here.