Sony Begins Selling HD Movies On Its PSN

itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)."

Re:Titles to "own"

[Splab]

Pure and complete utter bullshit.

I have a 40" TV and you have to be close to blind not to see the difference between 1080p and an upscaled DVD from couch distance.

That being said, no chance I'm paying for a BR when I can get DVD for 1/3 the price.

H.264 vs. MPEG-2

[tepples]

DVD uses MPEG-2 video compression. This comparison [s2000.ws] shows that for standard-definition material, H.264 looks as good at 1 Mbps as MPEG-2 looks at 2 Mbps. This should compensate for the HD picture (1280x720) being over twice as big as DVD (704x480).