CinemaNow on Wednesday released an upgrade to its Media Manager software enabling its movie downloads to play back over a networked Xbox 360 and its burn-to-DVD download service to operate with Windows Vista.

The CinemaNow movie download service offers Xbox 360 users an alternative to downloading through Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. A movie is first downloaded to an XP or Vista PC, which then detects the Xbox on the home network and then streams the downloaded content to the Xbox and the display connected to it. Getting movie downloads out of the PC and to the family TV is a major issue, and one for which CinemaNow offers unique solutions.

CinemaNow's burn-to-DVD service allows uers to not only download movies, but to burn copy-protected DVDs that will play back in any standard DVD player using a proprietary application that works only with Internet Explorer. Although CinemaNow has some compatibility with portable devices, it doesn't work with Apple's iPod or iPhone.