HD Video Delivery Service Coming to Playstation 3

PLAYSTATION Network's video delivery service will become available later this evening.

Press release and service release within 24 hours? Is that a first or what?

Looks like Sony was up to speed on everything that has happened lately on this front and pulled this rabbit out of the hat, lickety split!

Shane, you are the wiz kid on this stuff. What are your thoughts compared to other services?

I am slowly writing an update to my article: A Comparison of Video Download Services. I was waiting on this Sony announcement before beginning that addendum. But here is what I can determine from the press release and how this service might compare with others:

- As far as content, it looks as though Sony has the same studios and content as other providers, so I would expect to difference there. Let's hope that Sony doesn't leverage the fact that it owns a studio and start making content exclusive to PS3.

- It sounds like they've got a good start on UI features, but the proof is always in the pudding when it comes to usability. We'll have to see how it looks and acts when deployed. They are also implementing "background/progressive downloading", which will allow playing of the movie before fully downloaded ... like most other platforms.

- "Rental" pricing is also on par with other rental services ranging from $2.99 to $5.99. But it looks like their "purchase" pricing at $9.99 - $14.99 will not include HD movies. My guess would be that HD content will only be available to rent, not buy.

- Where they have a chance to pull ahead is that the content can be moved to PSP, and taken portable. Although I believe Apple TV allows that as well with the iPod ... which is a much bigger market.

- One thing they do not mention is audio/video format. No mention of resolution, frame rate, bit rate or audio codecs used. In my opinion, if they come to bat with anything less than DD+ and 1080p, they will likely fall flat.

A more detailed analysis will be provided once I have my hands on the product/content ;-).

- Shane

You can download free videos now from the playstation store - game and movie trailers. They typically offer at least 2 versions - 480p and 720p with some offering 1080i or 1080p IIRC. Not sure about audio format, but playback should be exactly the same which is the same as a BD disc (as far as I can tell). And you can start playing while it downloads. So the only thing new here is the rental and purchase piece and the content itself - the structure has been in place for awhile now and I wouldn't expect problems with that piece.

Does anyone know about the HD quality of Sony PS3 download servise (i.e. 1080P and uncompressed audio). I would like an option to Blu-Ray but have not found it.

Well, I tried out the "new" system yesterday and although the quality is excellent (even SD titles look very good on the PS3) but download speeds are absolutely GLACIAL...taking about 40 minutes to download a 714mb file... I can only imagine how long a 7gigabyte HD title would take. Although you can start viewing nearly immediately, there are so many "buffering"-notice situations that you really cannot watch the movie until it is completely downloaded. Not so with AMAZON...watch in about 1 minute.

John Devine

Ya... I was wondering about that from downloading other stuff. Sony is going to have to take it up quite a few notches to compete on this point...