Tabulator: Xbox Live Video Marketplace vs. Apple TV
Up until yesterday, the living room set-top box was simply a "hobby" for Apple; its fumbled Apple TV product did little to unseat the HD video rental download champ, the largely uncontested Xbox Live Video Marketplace. With a fresh splash of software for new boxes and a free upgrade for current users, Apple TV Take 2 is giving it another shot.
Of course, for an audience of gamers (that's us!), Apple's product has a particularly severe handicap but, on a strictly video entertainment scale, it manages to best the Xbox Live Video Marketplace in just about every category. Now we realize this is, in many ways, an apples to oranges comparison (sorry), but Microsoft isn't just competing for gamer dollars anymore and competition is growing (in fact, the at-home-rental set-top box industry will see another entrant later this year with Netflix).
To get to the bottom of which service provides the most bang for your e-buck, we ran some data through our handy-dandy (and patent pending!) Tabulator and it spit out the table found after the break. Be sure to let us know in the comments if there's anything we're it's missing.
 |  | |
Price | $349.99 | $229.99 |
Hard Drive | 20GB (120GB for $449.99) | 40GB (160GB for $329.99) |
New Release Rental HD | $6 | $4.99 |
New Release Rental SD | $4 | $3.99 |
Classic/Library Rental HD | $4.50 | $3.99 |
Classic/Library Rental SD | $3 | $2.99 |
Movie Purchase SD | NA | $9.99 - $14.99 |
TV Show Purchase HD | $3 | NA |
TV Show Purchase SD | $2 | $2 |
Paramount Pictures | Yes | Yes |
Warner Bros. | Yes | Yes |
Lion's Gate | Yes | Yes |
Walt Disney Pictures | Yes | Yes |
MGM | Yes | Yes |
Touchstone | Yes (Updated) | Yes |
Miramax | Yes (Updated) | Yes |
Fox | No | Yes |
Universal | No | Yes |
Sony Pictures | No | Yes |
DRM Rental Rules | 14 days from purchase / 24 hours from start | 30 days from purchase / 24 hours from start |
Rental Codec | WMV + DD 5.1 | MPEG-4 + DD 5.1 |
File Sizes (HD/SD) | ~ 6GB / 1.5GB | ~ 4GB / 1.2GB |
Platform Support | Xbox 360 | Apple TV, Windows, Mac OS, iPod, iPhone |
Max HD Resolution | 720p | 720p |
Rental Catalog | 312 films currently ("number fluctuates")* | 1K films by March |
Rental Delay | "Majority" are 30 days from DVD release, "some" day and date | 30 days from DVD release |
DiVX / Xvid Streaming | Yes (MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP & SP) | Nope |
DVD Playback | Yup (but it can be noisy!) | Negatory |
Video Games | TONS | Eh, not so much |
Like it? Check out our other Tabulator-enhanced tables:
