the installation doesn't bother me much. it only takes about 10 seconds

Simple: The 360 downloads and installs things at the same time. The download takes longer than the 'download' time on PS3 but from my experience when you add the PS3's installation times the 360 takes it by a mile.

Even tho I obviously said demo I should have stated the avg ~1GB or so takes about 10 mins.  It does vary tho from 5 to 15 mins depending on size.  My bad x_x.  Also the download on the 360 seems to go much faster if I don't have it in the active downloads list.  I cancelled them all and restarted the Skate II demo by itself.  I've done 50% now in about 8 minutes which will end up being about 16 minutes for a 1.5GB demo so not bad.  Why does it get slower when downloading in background tho?

I believe my connection is slow or PSN is just slow period. I'm downloading the Dark Sector demo and it is at 33%//I think it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for a full download and this demo is only 555MB..

^^Because the 360 is able to devote many more resources to it when it's not in the background. If it's in the background, that means the 360 needs to be able to perform other functions, such as playing a game or watching a movie, while it's downloading.

Not sure what you are talking about.  If you are downloading anything on Live, it is going to be in your active download list.  If you mean, you were playing something else why you were downloading it, then yes, that could possibly effect it.  Most of the time though.  M$ will cut the download if you are doing something else that is using bandwidth.

Nah I wasn't doing anything else.  I was just sitting on my active download list.  You guys can close this topic tho.  I was mainly looking for a fix like I was doing something wrong.  Seems I can speed them up enough when I download 1 demo at a time.

Oddly enough for me PS3 demos take about 30-45 minutes and XBOX ones take like 10. I think it may have to do with your individual distance from the file server.