Whedonesque : Comments on 15083 : Firefly now available on Xbox Live Marketplace.

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January 02 2008

Firefly now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. It seems Fox decided to throw Firefly in along with Family Guy. Refresh a few times in the marketplace and you might even see the Firefly banner!

Ishboo | Firefly&Serenity | 04:36 CET | 23 comments total | tags: 360 live marketplace, xbox, firefly

oh how awesome.

Allen Doyle | January 02, 04:42 CET

Shiny!

Septimus | January 02, 05:35 CET

So, how many times can I own this series and in how many formats?

Haunt | January 02, 05:38 CET

Oh- I will be downloading this tonight!
You can also download episodes of Chuck as well.

Spacegirl32 | January 02, 05:41 CET

So, what're the writer residuals on these?

theonetruebix | January 02, 05:44 CET

Are these SD or HD?

kevingann | January 02, 05:57 CET

kevingann, I think it's SD (it wasn't filmed in HD). bix, I think it's the same as other downloadable sites, i.e. likely none.

Edit: unless I'm wrong.

[ edited by gossi on 2008-01-02 03:11 ]

gossi | January 02, 06:09 CET

Bix, my guess is the disputed DVD rate for electronic download. I could be wrong.

TamaraC | January 02, 06:10 CET

Gossi, it was filmed... that kind of makes it viable for HD. And HD episodes were shown on Universal HD. So, there are HD versions. I would think the file size would make downloading an HD version prohibitive.

IMForeman | January 02, 06:29 CET

I'm assuming that the writers get nothing for these? They are downloads, after all. Anyone know for sure?

Lioness | January 02, 06:50 CET

That would be a big fat 0, bix. TamaraC, the writers are not getting anything for downloads. The studios are claiming they get residuals but no one outside of those with creator or producer status is not seeing any money. Actually the WGA has taken the AMPTP to court over this matter, since downloading was not part of the orignal content contract. The AMPTP is trying to slip it in through the backdoor so they can force the WGA to take it off the table, or negosiate from a weaker position, since the removed the DVD residuals from the table already.

RavenU | January 02, 07:24 CET

Xbox Live is the worst way to buy episodes of a TV show. Get the DVDs instead, then you can watch them on your Xbox without wasting valuable harddrive space. Or you can watch them anywhere else because everyone has a DVD player.

Brian Ewing | January 02, 07:30 CET

RavenU, that is what I meant by "disputed". Sorry for the shorthand.

TamaraC | January 02, 07:42 CET

Though I will buy these (I'm pretty sure my purpose in life is to support and/or buy anything related to Firefly and Serenity). I will not do so until the writers strike is settled.

ixalth | January 02, 10:07 CET

Gossi, the reason I asked is that HD masters do exist since, as IMForeman said, Firefly was filmed and HD masters were created and broadcast on Universal HD. And with the Xbox Live Marketplace having HD Looney Tunes, I figured maybe it could happen, though I imagine the size of the episodes in HD would be a bit prohibitve.

kevingann | January 02, 10:23 CET

I wonder if they'll push the Halo 3 angle to XBox 360 users. That might boost the Marketplace sales of Firefly even more.

Simon | January 02, 11:47 CET

I just checked Live and it is not available to download in HD, nor is there any mention of the actors in Halo 3. If the previews on Live were any indication, it appears to be even worse quality than the DVDs. I wish they could make HD Firefly available through there, as I was fortunate enough to watch them all on Universal HD and the series has never looked so good. My personal hope is that one day they'll release some super-Firefly HD-DVD or Blu-Ray set that contains the entire series in HD, and just for fun throw in the movie and comics also. Then I'd take off my clothes and rub it all over my body.

archon | January 02, 17:02 CET

Well, as disturbed as I am by that image of Archon, I'm even more disturbed by the idea that they aren't HD on Xbox Live. I mean, why the heck not? They have lots of other HD downloads (including full-length feature films), so it's not the size that's a problem.

So, is my understanding correct that writers realistically aren't getting anything even for paid (i.e. non-"promotional") downloads, because the old contract said nothing about it either way, but the studios are trying to say that such downloads (but not the "promotional" ones) are covered by the DVD residual rate, but then aren't paying it anyway?

Septimus | January 02, 17:23 CET

Universal HD were broadcasting upscaled versions of Firefly - they've just stretched it from the SD version. It's not actually filmed for HD, nor were the VFX rendered in HD. It still looks prettier, though.

[ edited by gossi on 2008-01-02 14:26 ]

gossi | January 02, 17:26 CET

They've been on Xbox live for a while (but you can't download it if you live in Bermuda *damn* ), oh and my sense of time can be called into question, anything longer than about 3 days gets lumped into "a while"

And on the HD note Battlestar Galactica series one is out on HD DVD but isn't actually HD (unless I have to arse around with the settings)

fmwt | January 02, 18:38 CET

gossi, i'm pretty sure that it was established at the time it was first broadcast, that the HD versions of firefly were retransferred from 35mm, with only the FX shots being upscaled.

The versions I saw, although a little on the soft side of HD, definitely had scenes and shots that could only have been proper HD, and not upscaled.

bivith | January 02, 20:42 CET

Gossi, if it was filmed it can be remastered to HD. Film is inherently High Definition, especially when shot on 35MM. The effects might not have been done in HD res and would be upscaled, but the live action sequences, if shot on film, are usefull for HD. Where actual film is concerned, there is no "not filmed in HD."

And I saw those HD episodes... and they weren't upscaled. I know upscaling, and that weren't it.

IMForeman | January 02, 23:07 CET

That... is a good point. Somebody told me they upscaled the DVD version, but it makes more sense for them to take the film. If Fox chucked some money to Zoic, I'm sure they could rerender the VFX in HD, also. Although that's probably a bit over board.

gossi | January 02, 23:11 CET

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