ABC Television and MGM brings HD content to Xbox Marketplace

At CES today, Microsoft announced an expansion of its Xbox Live video offerings. ABC Television and MGM will both offer HD videos on the Marketplace. Coincidentally, these studios are exclusively aligned to Blu-ray. This agreement gives Xbox owners a chance to experience this content in HD as well.

ABC Television Network, ABC Family, ABC News, Disney Channel and Toon Disney are all part of this new offering. More than 500 hours of content, in both standard definition and high definition, will be offered including ABC Television shows Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives. Past and current shows will be offered, as will archived ABC News broadcasts.

MGM will offer a wide variety of movies, from the Rocky series to Dances with Wolves. Movies across all demographics will be available, including Terminator, Silence of the Lambs, Legally Blonde, Barbershop and Agent Cody Banks. Platoon, Rain Man and The Usual Suspects will also be available.

Price and an exact launch date of this newly announced content have yet to be revealed. HD DVD may have gotten a serious death blow this week, but it appears Microsoft's on-demand offerings should more than satiate the HD film appetite of the Xbox fan.

Reader Comments (34)

HD-DVD or BR-D - who cares? Get me 1080p download-to-own with the new audio formats (aka, TrueHD), and it won't even matter which disc wins the format war. Microsoft has almost all of the major players at this point.

This is more than likely rental content. You won't own any of it. If it turns out you can own these, MS is probably going to start selling bigger hard drives at the usual over priced prices because they can get full pretty easily between games and movies...
Disc Format is better if you think about it and take off your fanboy goggles.

This content is, and probably never will be, 1080p.

The bandwidth needed to download 20-40 gigs worth of movie would be substantial.

No, you do own it. Tv episodes you own over live. Movies you can only rent. This is the way it works for everything I think.

How about we get live working first before we hock overpriced DRM laced content, k?

live is running smooth for me

Your cookie is in the mail, bub.

Yeah, Live is running smoothly here as well and has been for the last few days.

*shrugs*

As for the news, I can't say it interests me. I was sorta hoping for a Microsoft announcement about incorporating BluRay drives into a new batch of 360s. That way, they can steal part of the PS3s thunder quicker. Sure beats just waiting around while BluRay booms and people buy PS3s for the same reason why some people find sense in buying an iPhone (all your proverbial/colloquial 'crap' in one device).

Love how well marketplace is turning out. Sounds like a great alternative to having to be forced to buy a HD player for now.

I don't really care about buying movies, never really have. Renting works for me and I'm definetly going to be trying out this service now that its in Canada. Just gotta run that ethernet cord now...

Live "HD" content = 720p.

Not the best bitrate even.

I would call it HD-lite.

I say only eagle-eyed people can see the difference between 1080p and 720p, unless it's been watched in enormous TV's.

But a standard 42" TV? I doubt many people would be able to see a difference between Blu-Ray and "HD-lite".

Yeah, but the video is compressed to hell. You don't need to be a trained eye to differentiate between the shitty DRM-laced crap MS peddles online and a BD at 1080p. It's not even a resolution issue, REALLY.

I've got damn near perfect vision and I've yet to see a single artifact or stray pixel in any "horribly compressed" HD show/movie that I've downloaded off of LIVE. I'm guessing that in a blind taste test, you probably wouldn't be able to either.

MGM is owned by Sony, btw :)

This is great news.
With MGM I finally enjoy some Tom & Jerry classic toons.
and maybe ABC will put up some of their primetime shows.

The irony im smelling here is so rich that I might need to leave the room for a bit.

uhhh was this the "big" 360 announcement? If so then I'm done even READING those so called rumorangs or whatever they are called.

turner owns the tom and jerry library, which was bought out by warner bros. sony only owns 20% of mgm

They own the entire catalog of MGM films

Disc format was fine during the time of vinyl records but the rate of format changes is getting tiresome. I like the idea of DL to a hard drive as that "should" be the last format change...Notice I said should.

"it appears Microsoft's on-demand offerings should more than satiate the HD film appetite of the Xbox fan."

It has for me. I buy my movies on dvd and when one comes out that I feel I just have to see in HD, I download it from the marketplace. Good job MS

HVD will soon be the dominant format after bluray

>:() i wil remember what you just did

I see what you did there.

Excellent! The choice between the 360 and PS3 is now clear! I can finally download Agent Cody Banks in HD. 360 wins.

Meh, blu-ray quality>>>>>>>>>>TV quality 720p

Jerk.

Lol, Lost? Oh god...I was lost with that show, no wonder they cut it over here :P Its boring as hell now.

In HD? Yay, now we can be lost in High Definition :)

And what about 'video on demand' outside the us? Does this mean the big 'CES announcement' is worthless for people in Europe and the rest of the world? We are still waiting for our first movie on video marketplace...

Prick You guys get IPTV first

Haha because the UK is considered as 'the rest of the world'? :) Nah, I'm from Belgium and all we got was this 1 free episode of south park in HD

Even in Canada, Microsoft offers very little downloadable videos. We get SouthPark episodes 6 months after they air in the U.S. and are posted all over the internet. We get a few over-rated CBC shows that fall well outside the XBox's target demographic. It's pathetic.

Great I've been wondering when they were going to add ABC. Now I can get caught up on the episodes of Greek I've missed. I hope they also have Fallen on the market place.

Well looks liek it's almost offical with Apple going HD

ABC HD download=Disney=Pixar=Apple

ABC Television and MGM brings HD content to Xbox Marketplace

Reader Comments (34)

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