Last night at dinner our family gathered around the TV, rented and watched a movie via the Xbox 360 for the first time. In retrospect it wasn’t a very different experience from renting a video at Hollywood Video and taking it home. In fact, the time it would have taken to drive to the video store, rent, and return we could just pay up the $1.92 (240 Microsoft Points) on Xbox Live and be on our way to watching. Online movie purchase and viewing when everything works is getting more convenient.

None of the movies we were interested in last night were available in HD format, so we had to go with standard format. I would like to see a movie in HD and compare.

We didn’t experience a long download time. Within minutes we could start watching the movie while it downloaded in the background. I think the whole 1.5 GB movie took a little over an hour to complete but most of this time happened while we were watching the movie, as you don’t have to wait for the full movie to download. Certainly not any of the all day downloading horror stories I read when the service first launched. Seems like Microsoft has added capacity, demand has subsided, or some combination of both.

There were some minor annoyances like notifications of gamertag friends appearing online during the movie. Would have been nice to be able to be logged out when watching the movie which if we had waited for the full download we could turn off. Is there any way to turn off those friends online messages that I’m unaware of? Those messages also get in the way of some games like Lumines where you are trying to figure out where to put pieces and the friend message pops up in the middle of the screen.

Overall the sound of the movie was great and picture quality was good. The film itself, Timeline, wasn’t as bad as the critics said (11% on Rotten Tomatoes). One of the main reasons we rarely select movies based on how the critics feel. It kept our whole family’s interest (mom, dad, three teen boys), although it’s not something any of us would want to see again. I like Michael Crichton’s stories and this one, a time travel piece, was merely OK. Better than Sphere, but definitely no Jurassic Park.

Will our family rent another movie from Xbox Live Marketplace? Absolutely. Maybe tonight for dinner.

• Blu-Ray alert: my first customer experience with Mission Impossible set
• Why Google should be concerned about Microsoft Points and Achievements
• Live and Let Lumines download
• $16.99 for unlimited streaming from Netflix library of 6,000+ movies
• Xbox international matchmaking in play
• All aboard Snakes on a Train