ReelTime offers Download-To-Own movies to XBox 360

By Adam Turner
Wednesday, 06 December 2006 05:42

Your IT - Entertainment

New release movies downloaded from Australia's ReelTime Media can now be watched on your television, in the comfort of your lounge room, via an XBox 360.

The service is aimed at those who would rather watch movies on their widescreen TV and surround sound in the lounge room rather than their computer hidden away in the study at the other end of the house. Customers with Microsoft XP Media Centre Edition and an XBox 360 connected to their television, can watch movies directly on the TV from the XBox 360. The Xbox 360 can be connected to the PC via cable or wireless.

"With over 100,000 Xbox 360s already sold in Australia and positioned near the family television set, ReelTime has
provided our customers with a further technology option to solve the TV-in-the-lounge-room versus PC-in-the-study challenge. WiFi-enabled XBox’s can now receive their movies from the PC, with little effort to set up," says ReelTime managing director John Karantzis.

The announcement follow's ReelTime recent introduction download-to-own movies available the same day as they hit the retail shelves. The downloaded movies are be available in three formats: a Windows Media format for PC viewing, a Plays4Sure Windows Media format for portable devices (but not the Zune or iPod) and compressed VOB files for burning to DVD. The latter can be burned three times to DVD within thirty days, while playback of the Windows Media files is limited to the MAC address of the devices they are downloaded to.

Combined, the files make a heft 4GB download - which would take almost a day on a 512 Kbps connection at full speed. Thankfully more than one hundred ISPs don't count data downloaded from ReelTime, including Netspace, People Telecom and Westnet. Noticeably absent are Telstra and Optus, which run 10 Mbps cable broadband networks that would make downloading movies far more practical. Major ADSL2+ provider iiNet is also missing.

ReelTime is one of a growing number of providers attempting to discover the perfect video download formula. Video Ezy has starting a three month "electronic rental download service" in Sydney, with the aim of rolling out the service nationwide in 2007. It's only a "download" service in that you can go to the store and "download" up to 40 movies onto a portable USB storage device such as an iPod, take them home and play them on their TV via a special Home Media Centre you have to buy from Video Ezy first. You don't pay for movies until you watch them, but payment requires broadband or dial-up internet access. If you don’t have internet access the HMC can be fitted with a modem that connects to the GSM mobile phone network.