Zune HD Streaming Review

[Uniquely]

First off let me say that noone in their right mind would suggest that streaming is at a point where it could be a viable blu-ray replacement. That being said.... streaming is an excellent supplement to blu-ray; and just another source, among many, to provide us with a variety of entertainment options. I've tried just about every streaming service since they started creeping on to the internet several years ago, from Cinema Now, to Amazon on Demand, to Netflix; and several minor players in between.

The two HD streaming services I have used in the past, Amazon and Netlix, often could only be called HD in resolution only. The compression artifacts often create video quality that is not really worthy of the term HD at all. Also, every streaming service I'd used to date was only capable of stereo audio. I have always just accepted this as a bandwidth limitation of streaming services, and I've just used my receiver to matrix the audio.

Recently, I was able to preview Zune HD streaming from the Zune Marketplace. It offers full 1080P video and dolby digital 5.1 audio. I have to say that it is by FAR and away the best streaming experience that I have had to date. Compression artifacts are practically non existent compared to other streaming services that I have used; they only become overtly noticable during heavy motion scenes. I'd go so far as to say that the picture quality exceeds that of what I receive on my DirecTV HD channels. The audio isn't lossless like on blu-ray; but as always, 5.1 Dolby Digital is a huge step up from stereo audio. Playback was very smooth with zero stops for rebuffering or adjusting of video quality.

Zune HD streaming is available from the Zune HD media player (with a dock of course) and coming to the XBox 360 in November with the next dash update. If you have either of these devices, I highly recomend that you give it a try.

For reference.... I have a 6Mb DSL connection, with a wired connection from my streaming device to my router.

*** edit.... one other thing that sets Zune apart from the other services I have tried is that IF your connection will not allow you to stream the highest quality, there is also the option to download the movie instead if you are patient enough.