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Apple TV "Barely Watchable"
lpangelrob writes "Peter Svensson of the Associated Press reviews the Apple TV, and comes away less than impressed.While the Apple TV gets solid marks for "a very iPod-like interface, commendably clear and easy to use", the Apple TV experience falls apart on an HD television. The reviewer notes that "videos from Apple's online iTunes store look horrible on an HDTV set. The movies and TV shows have the same nominal resolution as DVDs, but look much blurrier, approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV.'"
Maybe the modders can fix it. God knows they've been fixing all the many OTHER things that are wrong with it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Anyone here remember what TV was like before cable and the internet? Wasn't most of that stuff barely watchable? (Notice how hosts like Donahue, popular at that time, utterly failed when there was real competition.)
So, couldn't you alternately say that Apple TV is as good as network TV?
(I know, I know, the "unwatchability" is due to picture quality, not content. Still, you have to compare the total experience, not each aspect individually.)
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
TV shows downloadable via bittorrent are about the same quality and suffer from the same problems on an HD TV. Apple's offering need to be higher quality.
I recently purchased an Apple TV for my parents who have a 46" 1080p LCD TV.
I'd have to say that the associated press conclusion is correct about iTunes video content--barely watchable. They said the picture was "fuzzy", but I think they were really referring to the annoying artifacts present in low quality mpeg streams.
That is not to say that the AppleTV is crap, however. When playing high def content (that you rip yourself from DVD or from HDTV), it's not half bad. The thing can output at 720p at 4000kbit/s (maybe with a software upgrade (VLC)), iTunes just doesn't sell that kind of content.
Still though, with these kind of resolutions on these ginormous TVs, you're going to see artifacts even on some overly-shrunk DVD movies.
I bought the AppleTV so I could jerry rig it into something useful. If I were buying it simply based on its stated features, it's so useless I'd have a hard time justifying the $300 price tag.
Latewire
This is not an apple TV problem per se, it's an ITMS problem. I don't have an ATV but I do buy videos. Indeed there are two problems I have with all the TV shows I have bought there.
1) Though it varies, the patchy compression artifacts on my computer is wretched. For the same size AVI file compressed off of a cable card the quality of the latter is much higher.
2) my 800Mhz imac can no longer play the itms videos without glitching. I've tried using quicktime insted of itunes but same result. I think this started when the doubled the number of pixels (but as noted above they did not actually improve the resolution).
The glitching is obviously due to either the codec or the DRM because I don't get this with the same size AVI file.
SUre my computer is 5 years old. But could they not at least admit they don't play on 800Mhz computers?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Isn't this a 1.0 product, and how do we expect that iTV is going to approach HDTV anytime soon?
This would be like putting an iPod next to my Japanese custom-tuned CD player form Marantz or even an old Meridien! How about the fifties Marantz Gold pre-amp? Throw in some cool Macintosh tube amps! But, what do I still use? iTunes with headphones on my MacBook. 14000 songs any time/any place...
TV used to be a static product (in more ways than one), now we get to enjoy life-cycles.
Is that the new term slashdotters are using for pr0n?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Does anyone have pictures of this "horrible" video playing on a TV so people can actually make a judgment. When I played with one, the videos from the iTunes store exceeded my expectations (I was not blown away, but it was completely watchable). I assumed it would be like watching analog broadcast television on an old set, or running my LCD monitor in 800x600, but instead it looked like standard-definition (i.e. digital) broadcast. Obviously, iTunes needs to start selling higher quality content, but it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.
If Apple had brought higher-quality videos to market first, there'd be complaints that they didn't have any device capable of pumping it to an HDTV. Since they released the device first, we get to hear about how they're not providing the content.
Moreover, this man's not really an authority on anything. He seems to be under the impression that big, loud, high power consumption equates to "capable of playing HD content better," when this of course is bullshit. He worries that the small, silent machine and its high efficiency will somehow make it incapable of playing HD--but he didn't apparently bother downloading any of the dozens of *HD* trailers available right from Apple's flipping website to test that bogus hypothesis.
The videos are compressed to the point that Apple can actually affordably send them to you over the Internet. They cram 45 minutes of BSG into a 450MB-500MB download. A BSG DVD has what... 3 to 4 episodes on it? You could fit the entirety of Season 1 of BSG from the iTMS onto two DVDs, when the full set of Season one comes with 5 DVDs.
Again, with shortcuts like that, what do you expect? When people are willing to pay the bandwidth costs to be able to just click a button, and have all of the trunk line infrastructure in place to allow them to receive 1.25-1.5GB of data per episode conveniently, things will change.
Firstly, I do not have nor have I seen Apple TV. What I have noticed and what I'm commenting on is the poor quality of videos purchased on iTunes. A good example: Before deploying to the middle-east I ripped all of my DVDs using Handbrake so that I didn't have to haul them with me. Included in those rips are a number of TV shows which have new episodes out since I left the States, so I have since purchased them on iTunes. I am really disappointed with the quality of the video. I rip my DVDs at fairly high quality and the resulting file size is pretty predictable. I was shocked at the file size of the iTunes videos given the (in my opinion) very poor quality. Sorry Apple, I'll buy my music from you, but your videos suck.
Not to turn this into a MSFT vs Apple thread. But I find that the XBox 360's media capabilities to be great. Good HD, network aware for music, pics, and movies. Online "rentals" and purchase. All-in-all a very complete and well done product.
The two rules for success are:
1) Never tell them everything you know.
"Anonymous Coward of the Associated Heterosexuals of America reviews the Slashdot Apple articles, and comes away less than impressed. While the Apple Articles gets solid marks for "a very fanboi-like outlook, commendably clear and easy to understand", the Apple Article experience falls apart when looking for any meaningful information. The reviewer notes that "posts from the Apple Articles look horrible on any computer screen or printed medium. The comments and replies have the same nominal language and grammar as other slashdot articles, but fawning, whorshipful attitude and careful ignoring of facts approaches the style of North Korean biographies of the Dear Leader.'"
Its just annoying to see when theres problems with a company product that isnt MS everyone jumps on the "its 1.0, it has bugs dont be harsh" yet they turn around and smack anything MS does right into the ground cause M$ SUX LOLZ.
Maybe think next time and judge everything accordingly. Theres no doubt that vista is drm riddled right now but stop kissing other corporate ass just because its sleek and shiny.
I have a 42 inch 1080p LCD, and the image quality is "bad" just watching regular DVD's. Granted the iTunes content is a tad worse, but it's in the same ballpark. The only stuff that looks really good is broadcast high def or a blue ray disk.
Who would of thought a compressed movie format would look bad on a high definition tv?
TheLedger title: Apple Appalls Where Xbox ExcelsSo he puts the AppleTV down its "video quality"...But then say it's got a great-looking interface on a high-definition TV...And THEN complains about the real problem, which is the iTunes Store content itself, not the AppleTV. The movies and TV shows will look even worst on your computer LCD display, which are even better than a crappy HDTV that will most probably rescale your image before displaying it. But no, he has to make it sound like it's a problem with the AppleTV.What does he mean by "doesn't actually seem that well suited to it"? The hard drive is more than enough for H.264 content (requires less space than regular MPEG-4), low power consumption means nothing with dedicated solutions (if the MPEG-4 and H.264 decoding is done by the GPU, you don't need a Quad-Core 3GHz processor).
And what the hell does SD content looking bad has to do with HD content? That's like saying my 1280x1024 LCD will probably look shitty with a 1280x1024 wallpaper because it looks shitty when it has a 320x256 wallpaper on it. No correlation at all, this guy is an idiot.
So, the guy knows the real problem (varying video quality from the iTunes Store, but that's the content providers fault, not Apple) but still puts down the AppleTV for fake flaws.
In short, I call Microsoft shill on this guy.
I just went to an Apple Store in Novi, MI. I tried watching various clips, such as Cars, Prison Break, etc. The motion video was terrible. I went away thinking why would anyone pay $299 for that. But isn't this problem just because the videos are encoded in such low resolution for the iPods?.. and not really a problem with the Apple TV.????
Also, Regular TV is barely watchable too. I don't think we can put this all on Apple here.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I have a 35" TV from the mid-90's which accepts three-lead component cable. So I guess it would be the "less need", unless newer means TVs made in the past 20 years.
Speaking of HDTV, you more or less need one of those sets for the Apple TV. It's not designed to connect via the older single-lead RCA video cable. You need a TV that takes either the three-lead component cable (the jacks are usually colored red, green and blue) or the all-digital HDMI cable. Newer standard-definition sets may have component inputs, but most TVs out there don't.
"...approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV"
Well, they didn't name it Apple HDTV.
"Apple" is first and foremost a brand that suggests "cutting edge, stylish and user friendly" to most consumers. Apple earned this reputation with their iPod and to a lesser extent, with their proprietary computer OS on proprietary computer hardware. Apple reaps big profits from this reputation by charging premium prices to the consumers to mentally apply Apple's reputation to other Apple products. If the Apple TV damages Apple's reputation by being junk (even if it is "version 1.0"), it hurts other Apple products too. In other words, Apple can't really afford "1.0" stumbles if it wants to hang on to its current reputation.
Don't most people still have non-HD sets? I know they're supposed to go out and get new HD sets when broadcast goes digital, but a lot of people will be buying converters when that day comes. And if Apple gets enough content by D-Day, maybe they'll be happier subscribing to Apple content than buying an HDTV.
I'm probably way off base, but I have to think Jobs has something up his sleeve; he's a tactical thinker who introduces products when they have a reason to exist. He doesn't have a track record of creating products just because he can. So, I assume they must have a target market and strategy. Clearly videophiles are not the core of their target market, any more than audiophiles are the core market for the iPod.
Any speculation as to what the big plan is?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
iTunes video on my Win XP system is terrible. It's small and choppy. I've played lots of video on my PC, and iTunes is the absolute worst.
The movies and TV shows have the same nominal resolution as DVDs, but look much blurrier, approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV
Err... forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't DVD resolution (i.e. 720 x 480/576) the same resolution as digital broadcast TV, and as near as can be measured the same resolution you typically achieve with analogue broadcasts? I've seen estimates varying between 700 and 768 "pixels", depending on the quality of your equipment and the strength of the signal you're receiving.
I'm probably in the minority, but I bought an Apple TV for my own content. I'm in the process now of ripping and converting my HD-DVD's and DVD's to a higher quality H264/AAC Apple TV friendly format.
Yes, the current iTunes content looks like shit on my 52 inch Samsung DLP and I'd love it if Apple sold 720p movies and TV shows. But, I'm not holding my breath.
everyone buys the AppleTV for the podcasts, don't they? How do they stack up against the commercially made stuff?
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
Apple^H^H^H^H^H TV Barely Watchable.
Fixed that for you.
My Apple TV looks perfect at 720p, But I don't play iTms content.
I have a 61" 1080p native set. Even DVDs look like ass compared to broadcast HD and blu-ray movies. You really get a sense of it if you only watch HD content for a few weeks and then watch a DVD.
"It's as if Apple had launched an iPod that sounded like a cassette player."
/. headline says it's "barely watchable" and "approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV". Is this supposed to mean that the HD signal is lower quality than standard definition broadcast TV? This statement would seem suspect. Does it mean that standard definition is "barely watchable?" If that's the case, I must wonder what brand of crack the guy smokes when he's watching cable; my 42 inch standard definition TV is quite watchable, and in fact when I see HDs at the store I wonder what the fuss is all about. Is the emperor really unclothed? He seems that way to me.
I need read no farther - the reviewer is ignorant. Cassettes are, when played on quality equipment, better sounding than any lossily compressed digital file and in fact approach CD's clarity. I have CDs I sampled from cassettes that I've played on musicians' stage equipment and the musicians are amazed that it's sampled from cassette.
I understand his ignorance; like most, he never heard a factory-recorded cassette with Dolby-C played on a $1,000 cassette deck. But if he's going to make a value statement about a piece of gear he doesn't even know he's ignorant about, I need not read his review about a piece of gear that has just hit the market.
Now, the
In short, as is often seen at slashdot, I have to repeat "nothing to see here." I'll wait for a review from a less clueless reviewer; AP isn't very good at anythiong tech.
I'll also wait quite a while for an HDTV, as my 215 pound, 3 year old trinitron will likely last me quite a while more, although I expect I'll be buying a converter box sometime in the next couple of years.
-mcgrew (sm62704)
The stuff that's on my normal telly is also barely watchable.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
They don't have the luxury of shipping 4.7GB of data, per disk, to their customers. They have to cut corners wherever they can. Yes, I know it's not MPEG2. MPEG2 would look like shit if you crammed that much content into such a small space. If they could afford to deliver as much h.264 content as could be stored on a DVD, I suspect things would be different, but for right now they can't because it'd probably skew all of their prices to ship that much data over the net.
I have an AppleTV. I also have a hi-def video camera and a decent digital SLR. Content from those devices looks fantastic. As for content from the iTMS, yes it is lower quality. Apple has quadrupled the pixels of it's offering from the first introduction, and perhaps we'll see another bump in teh future. Bt that puts an enormous strain on the networks moving that data, and takes longer for customers to get the content. When talking about the AppleTV, I always circle back to the less-obvious; How does YOUR content look? keytohwy
I agree that content from the iTunes Video Store is crappy quality, but I did find some content in iTunes' podcast directory to show off the picture quality possible. Here's a good example. There's a 720p video podcast, and it looks just as good as the HDTV content I get via Comcast. Wave of the future and stuff...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
No one can afford an HD TV. That's what the anti-Sony folks said about the Playstation 3. Also, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will both fail because no one wants to watch HD video. DVD forever. You can't tell the difference. No one is going to re-buy video anyway.
That's what they said.
Peter Svensson needs a basic education in video standards. Its so obvious, hes a journalist, and not somebody, lets say, who understands video systems well enough to offer more than a passing laymans take on what hes reviewing. He steps clear past his bounds of competency saying that the quality is so poor is approches the standard definition broadcasts.... Wow. I hope nobody simply drank that kool-aid... Why? DVD's have no better resolution than standard broadcast. DVD's were invented because they were the first consumer recording technology that effectively preserved the resolution of the NTSC signal its made from. DVD's have a resolution of 480 lines. NTSC has 525 lines with 484 lines or so actually used for the picture you see. And after MPEG-2 gets done with that analog signal, there is LESS information. You think high-speed scenes benefit from 480P standard? Well, they do, but Ive lost of my count seeing artifacts in fast-wipe or quick-action scenes due to the MPEG-2 compression, 480I, 480P or High-Def. ie - The standard-def broadcast signal, when received with a strong enough signal, should be preferable, anyday, to its digital SD 480I (which most people still watch) MPEG-2 counterpart. Richard
The problem isn't the device, but the low quality of the videos purchased on iTMS. If you were to go through the hassle of ripping from DVD, you wouldn't have this problem. Which really gets down to the issue of why this device is so underwelming - it desperately needs more/better sources of content. There are many ways they could achieve this:
* Add a TV tuner and make it a PVR.
* Improve the format options for people with existing collections.
* Vastly extend amount of content at the iTunes store, increase compression quality
* Extend the iTunes video store to include pay-per-view.
* Allow purchases derictly from the device.
While a lot of people have been calling for the first, I think Apple is smart by staying out of that game. First off, the vast majority of people that want PVR's get them from their cable companies, and everyone else buys a Tivo, which is a very well polished product. Secondly, CableCard support has been a mess, making it a pain for third party PVR's, and limiting the service that they can provide to their customers. Between these two issues I really don't see what Apple could do to make themselves stand-out the way they have in other markets where the competition couldn't provide a good interface to save themselves. Lastly, cable television as we know it is on it's way out. It is going to take a while, but the future is internet distribution, and now is the time for them to get on that bandwagon if they want to be a major player. So jumping into an overcrowded market that will quickly be entering into decline isn't a very good idea.
The fact that you have buy songs on a computer is a major pain, and something they could have fixed today, but in the end whether you allow purchases to be made from the couch or not, you will still need to link it to a computer that has more hard-drive space than the Apple TV. This is one of the reasons that I think that set-top boxes work better for pay-per-view / rental than for purchased media, but apparently that is not something that Apple wants to get into. Whatever they decide, Apple really needs to get the ball with their online video distribution, because their current offering are pathetic.
Video podcasts are equal citizens on the AppleTV menu system, right next to movies and tv shows from the big guys. And unlike movies and shows from iTunes, the little guy HD podcast from iTunes will look amazingly better. Interesting turn of events, no?
Surely this means apple appealed to the wrong market.
The Apple TV appeals to a market of people with expensive new HDTVs and the latest digital equipment, however, it is compatible only with the older non-HD televisions. They've tried to sell the product to the wrong people.
Obviously he didn't put on his Steve Jobs signature edition blindfold, like a real Apple user.
If he wants to "look at things objectively" maybe he should be running Vista like the rest of the lusers!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Getting the picture yet? Yuk yuk. The bottom line is that you get radically better performance out of H.264 than MPEG-2 at similar bitrates. So a ~45 minute TV episode weighing in at 400MB for a total combined audio/video bitrate of around 1250 kbps gets nearly identical quality to a 2500 kbps MPEG-2 bitstream. Of course on DVD you get goodies like the 5.1 surround audio track, so it's still a better deal, but Apple's done a lot to close the gap.
The REAL problem with iTMS video has absolutely nothing to do with bitrate. No, it's the shitty masters that the TV producers are provisioning Apple with. The people who do Monk, for instance, don't even bother supplying the 16:9 master -- instead they give Apple a crappy 4:3 version. The BSG people have more than once given Apple 480i broadcast masters instead of the HD masters or at least a 480p source, and you get deinterlace artifacting on some episodes as a result. Garbage in, garbage out.
Start an email campaign to the TV execs demanding that they give Apple the same stuff they give to the HD networks and you'll see an improvement in quality. Until then, you'll get the same old crap.
Do you really think that this makes Apple evil? Not that I really believe in the concept, but I would think there are a lot of other more qualified contenders for that particular label.
Besides, do you actually think you're going to help anything by trolling like this? Perhaps save someone the trauma of buying from Apple?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It's the famous Apple Reality Distortion Field! Nothing escapes the wicked distortions of the RDF, even their own cheesy video product. I can only assume some intimate Friend of His Steveness came out with this turd, and he pushed it through the corporate cloaca.
Apple has long strived to merge the concept of the device and the service into one. It's what made the iPod/iTunes combo such a devastatingly effective one. Is this a case where that same mantra is biting them in the posterior? In this case the lacking of higher definition content on service (iTunes) is magnified by the product.
Don't knock the hardware for it. It's a nice little hardware platform, place the blame on the shoulders of an iTunes service which just doesn't have enough HD content.
It's like my wife blaming Windows Media Center for choppy video performance watching a video when it was really a flaky wireless router dropping packets.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Actuallly I do, but it was the only statement I could think of that was more sanctimonious than an Apple Fanboy.
In all seriousness, people need to look at the best tool for the job and not be so tied up in brands.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
i've never used ITMS, but i'd be surprised if they could offer decent quality videos without taking quite a while to download. in my experience, regarless of the codec, if the file is less than about 1.5 GB for 1-2 hours of video, then some part of the quality has taken a serious hit (it's more often the audio than the video).
there's nothing they can really do about that. if you want to be able to download a movie that's going to look decent on an HDTV, you better be patient or have a lot of bandwidth.
Yes, and that's the icing on the cake; 640x480 ought to look similar to a DVD. Same vertical resolution anyway, just less horizontal pixels. They also seem to be compressing the living crap out of them in order to make them small enough for iPod Video sales.
What I think needs to happen, is Apple needs to find a way of letting people download video for a particular device. Unlike with audio, where most people will listen to the same track on their iPod and through their home stereo (which makes me think that a lot of people must be near-deaf, but I digress), people aren't going to do the same thing with video. They want high-def content for their HDTV, which means a different file from the quick-downloading version for their iPod.
Assuming Apple has the source material available, it should be trivial to produce HD versions of the programming that's on the iTMS. What's more difficult is how they're going to let users choose between versions, and how it'll be priced. If you download a TV episode for your iPod, will that be the same price as a HD version for your iTV? And if you get the iTV version, will you automatically get the low-res version as well (because it would be trivial to transcode down if not)? Or will there just be one price that entitles you to all resolutions (fat chance)? Those questions are more complicated than the technical ones -- Apple has more than enough expertise to produce good-looking HD material...look at their own Movie Trailer site if you want examples. Some of those clips are practically reference material for people setting up HD displays, because they're pretty close to broadcast quality.
The technical capability is all there, I just think they haven't quite worked out the business and user-training angle yet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Reduce, reuse, cycle
The TV I bought fifteen years ago or so (Proscan, slightly higher end RCA) had true component cables - R/G/B coloring, and I also know they were component since I used them with a number of things including DVD players I bought much later.
Component inputs are as old as the hills. At that time it was not even that high end a TV, I think I paid about $600-$800 for the set.
Also near the end of its lifespan there was a Laserdisc player with component out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Someone tag this article "flamebait."
That's all it is. Nothing insightful, nothing interesting, not even funny. It's just meant to piss off apple fanbois.
What I think needs to happen, is Apple needs to find a way of letting people download video for a particular device. Unlike with audio, where most people will listen to the same track on their iPod and through their home stereo (which makes me think that a lot of people must be near-deaf, but I digress), people aren't going to do the same thing with video. They want high-def content for their HDTV, which means a different file from the quick-downloading version for their iPod.
Might find a scary slippery slope on that one, it's too close to what the MPAA wants (separate license for each device). If done right, the HD lightly compressed version would cost more than the iPod version, but would come in a format that contained the iPod version as well.
Seems fair if good HD quality copies of movies cost near $20 since you're getting better-than-DVD quality, whereas the crappy looking iPod versions were around $7-$10.
For the several years I've been using an el gato http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV HTDV gizmo to record over-the-air HD content to disk, and then (lacking any means of directly driving the Hitachi HDTV from the server) burning the programs to DVD for playback on the better screen via the set-top DVD player. Packing HD content onto a standard DVD is a learning experience in itself, as it's all to easy to put more bandwidth into the DVD than the player will handle, with subsequent artifacts and other nonsense.
So when the AppleTV was announced, I leaped at it, and have been getting accustomed to the device over the past few weeks. My goal has been (and is) to use the server in the next room as a media server, streaming content to the Apple TV for playback on the Hitachi plasma HDTV. In this, my intent has been to put DVDs and recorded broadcast content on the server, taking advantage of the rapid decline in cost of hard drives.
I've had most success using Handbrake to rip DVDs to bits-on-a-disk in MP4 form, then using VisualHub to fine-tune the conversion to AppleTV format, transcoding to H.264 and 1280x720, 24 fps for DVDs. For broadcast content, I go directly from eyeTV to an AppleTV-compatible format (960x540, 29.97 fps, single-pass H.264). The AppleTV-formatted content is then added to iTunes and streamed to the AppleTV via 802.11n wifi. I find that streaming gives me better results than syncing, especially if the content has longer playback times. In all cases, I maintain the max playback bandwidth at close to 5 Mbps, the published limits of the AppleTV.
The reason I go for the 960x540 format for broadcast content is that it's gonna end up that way anyhow, due to the content provider's (that would be the studio, not Apple) inclusion of the ICT http://broadcastengineering.com/mag/broadcasting_c pr_redefined/(Image Constraint Tag) in the video stream, so that higher-resolution video thusly tagged gets knocked back to 960x540. If you just let QuickTime do the conversion via their AppleTV menu choice in QuickTime Pro, you also get the bandwidth throttled back to 4 Mbps.
The end result is that the viewing experience is very close to set-top DVD playback, but less than over-the-air HDTV. All in all, a "good enough" experience, especially for only $320 (including the HDMI-to-HDMI cabling).
In my initial testing of the device, I predicted that there would be a chasm between two groups of users -- those who love the AppleTV, and see it as a significant advance in bringing computer-controlled TVs into the living room, vs those who see it as an abject failure. The difference between these two camps is largely one born out of expectations. The people who hate it wanted effortless 1080p quality video, a built-in DVD player and HD receiver, and were shocked to discover that it actually was a little less than Steve Jobs pitched it to be, instead of a lot more. Maybe a second- or third-generation model will come closer to their dreams, but if so, it will be because the studios have loosened up in what they will permit such a device to do, and because the internet providers have boosted the available bandwidth to permit downloading of multi-gigabyte files in a reasonable time (hint: an hour of HD MPEG2 video takes around 5 GB to store on the hard drive).
Today's limitations on what can be done with connecting the internet to HDTV are constrained mostly by the available bandwidth and the studios' restrictions on how much fidelity they allow in downloaded content. When the Xbox HD content-via-the-web becomes available, I expect that it will be similarly hobbled.
So long as you don't have over-the-top expectations, y
What does he mean by "doesn't actually seem that well suited to it"? The hard drive is more than enough for H.264 content (requires less space than regular MPEG-4), low power consumption means nothing with dedicated solutions (if the MPEG-4 and H.264 decoding is done by the GPU, you don't need a Quad-Core 3GHz processor).
Read the actual specs on Apple TV. It only has 1 Ghz CPU. You simply can not decode full frame HD video with that kind of power, even when the GPU does the decoding and motion compensation in hardware. Ask anyone who runs MythTV about this. There are just too many pixels shuffling around.
The Apple TV is a device made to play SD video, optionally upscaled to 720p. That is it. It CAN NOT PLAY HD CONTENT, it is NOT DESIGNED TO.
The fact that apple markets it this way is very misleading IMO. It should be marketed as a media player only. The word "HD" should never be in any of it's marketing material. Sure, it "upsamples" to HD resolution, but most consumers have no idea what that means.
It's from Apple and stil bad quality, oh no, except Microsoft nobody else can make bad products...or atleast thats what is the norm in Slashdot
Considering I've got almost everything mentioned in the article. (I don't have Blu-ray, and I chose HD DVD because it has less restrictive DRM-- that and I see Sony as the Microsoft of consumer electronics)
I think I'm able to make a decent comparison:
HD DVD & Blu-ray use the same codecs (in many cases, there was only one encode, which was then copied to both discs), and bitrates well above human perception-- they look and sound identical.
Xbox Live Marketplace is only 720p, vs the 1080p of HD DVD & Blu-ray. (The difference between 720p and 1080p do exist, but you've got to sit pretty close to the screen to see them.) Movies are VC-1 encoded, and are about 6-8 GB in size, and are 'rentals.' You have to watch it within 14 days of 'renting' the movie, and you can only watch it for 24 hours after the first time you play it. The cost is somewhat hidden, as it is rented in terms of 'microsoft points', which you have to buy first. Why there's an additional level of indirection for xbox live purchases, I don't know.
DVD is the standard most are familiar with. It's better than broadcast TV.
And Apple TV is anywhere from TV Broadcast quality (obviously in cases where the source was broadcast quality), up to DVD quality. Movies are about 1.5-2 GB in size. And you buy the movie outright, and can watch it whenever you want, forever.
So, to nobody's suprise, the Apple TV doesn't to full HD content -- and frankly, I'm fine with that. Most people forget that full HD would mean much larger downloads, and more hard disc space.
Part of the 'joy' of the iTunes store is that you're able to download something in less time than it takes to go to the store and buy it. And at the moment, it takes a lot less time to drive to the store and buy a HD DVD than it does to download on consumer broadband.
So in a few years, when there's higher speeds for consumer broadband, I can see full HD downloads, and an upgraded Apple TV. Apple is probably trying to build a new market, not compete in a pre-existing one.
The Xbox suffers because it can take *forever* to download movies, because you can't keep the movies ('rental' only), and because Xbox Live Marketplace movies can't be transferred to a PC for storage. Apple TV works with both Mac and Windows (and is probably hackable for Linux use), where the 360 is strictly Windows-only. If you only use Windows, it's no big deal, but if you use something else, you're SOL.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
* Add a TV tuner and make it a PVR.
oh god no. you need to add a ATSC aand QUAM tuner to it as well as a cablecard slot and that alone will triple the price of the damn thing. if you want a tivo then buy a Tivo. if you want a internet TV device then buy this.
I have dabbled in "convergence" boxes for years and all you get is something that sucks all the way around. mythtv is great except you cant record most HD content on it. HD tivo is great but you cant take your HD content with you. Windows Media Center sucks completely as you get Draconian DRM with mediocre on a machine that can get viruses and works on it.
This produce does what it is supposed to and does it well, the content blows because honestly the US internet infrastructure is way under powered for what it needs to do.
itunes content sucked to high hell when they started out. I am not surpised that the video content stinks because itunes cant afford 20 OC48 lines into every major LATA to serve the HD content let alone the fact that every cablemodem and DSL connection is so anemic that the customer will get pissed with download times.
I think the product rocks, it plays all the mythtv content I can chuck at it automagically (thanks to a modded myth2ipod module) and does other things well, my biggest complaint is that it will not get the RSS feeds it's self but requires a pc running itunes to do it, which is major BS. the thing can handle RSS on it's own, apple chose to keep you dependant on itunes for all content.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Television - "Barely Watchable"
mac_8100_g3
Unfortunately, my brother's 360 sounds like a jet plane taking off. That doesn't matter while playing Gears of War, but it very much matters while watching a movie which invariably has a few quiet spots.
There is a technical solution to this problem.
Using wavelets to encode the data you can create a multi-resolutional streaming format. Meaning, you set the level of detail, and it strips off the unused data in real tim
Actually the REAL PROBLEM is Apple TV can't play full-frame HD, regardless of format. It does not have the power to decode and display it. Nowhere on the specs page or anywhere else does Apple say that Apple TV can, or will ever, be able to play HD video. This is because it can't, it only has a general-purpose 1 GHz CPU, which is not enough to play HD video even when you have hardware support for decoding and motion compensation.
Apple TV can upscale to 720p, that's it. It will never ever be able to play 1080p content, or even 1080i content. I would be very surprised if you could coax actual 720p HD video out of the thing.
The PS3 is not quiet. It is not as loud as a 360 by far (which is a small feat, as the 360 sounds like a jet plane while taking off), but it's still too loud for watching movies comfortably.
Also, as you said, the PS3 store doesn't actually sell movies (at least mine doesn't - I'm in Europe, though), so the comparison is somewhat weird. Yes, the PS3 will play DVD rips just fine, but so will the AppleTV. So I'm not quite getting your point: The iTMS sucks, but the PS3 is good, because you can't buy sucky content, because you can't buy anything at all? If that is the point, then the best option would be to buy an AppleTV and not use the iTMS as it does not make as much noise as a PS3.
With Apple, people say, "It's only 1.0, don't be harsh." With MS, people say, "It's only 3.0, don't be harsh." :-)
Never having bought video from the iTunes store I can't take a guess to its quality but my relatively same res. XviD files look great on it. In fact, I'm much more impressed with the box that I thought I would be. Granted, if I were still looking at the box as Apple gave it to me, I'd be disappointed to.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I'm not saying that the product is 1.0 as much as the service is 1.0. Do we really have the infrastructure to transfer all of the 1080 files that people want? I bought a 720 camera, and every time I shot something (small video snapshots and such) it amounted to a CD-Rom of material. Most users are really going to find this stuff cumbersome. Also, what is the cost of an iTV with a 750 gig hard drive? How does it get backed up? And, how much does it cost for Apple to redeliver the content.
The iTV is a bundle of hardware and services. Most of the reviews have been pretty positive in this repsect. This review compares it against HDTV. I don't really feel that it is relevant to the current service levels available. iTunes is a good service/product because it balances fidelity and availability. I complained about 128 AAC as being a real problem, but lo and behold, I compressed all of my music at this rate, have it available on my laptop, and have a decent, but not expensive back-up routine.
Even though I have a Terra byte raid array, my data was pushing the limits of safety. So that's several thousand in equipment to operate effectively. Who's going to pay that for TV?
500 MB for 45 minutes with h.264 shouldn't be too much of a problem if you take the time to encode your file properly. Unfortunately, Apple's encoder isn't known for quality and I'm sure they lowered the profile so it can play on more devices. Of course, a higher bitrate and resolution would be better.
What a stupid review. he watches a "standard definition" video than complains that it looks "almost as bad as standard definition" and then blaim the Apple hardware. The trouble, if it is trouble, is wit the source. It's like looking at and old VHS tape and complaining that it looks like an old VHS tape.
The root cause of this is that the Apple iTunes store sells only standard definition video. Watch something else.
No, the real root cause of this is a writer looking for a topical, sensational headline. I'm sure he is not so stupid. He's just trying to earn a buck and editors suck up topical, sensational headlines. No the editors are not stupid either. They know it's crap but they know that this kind of crap sells. The root cause is the stupid readers who are suckered in by the headline
This is because you are watching SD CONTENT ON AN HD SCREEN!! Oh and there's ABSOLUTELY no difference between Blu-Ray and normal DVD, not enough for the normal consumer, right? Downloading is the future and Blu-Ray is garbage. Too bad 4 movies can take up a WHOLE HARD DRIVE and take 2-3 days to download. Once people realize how crappy DVDs look on their supposed HD televisions and realize that BDs look better they will switch.
The "fair thing" to me would be to have a standard base "content price" since you're licensing the same show and IP regardless which resolution you watch it at, and then add a bandwidth surcharge based on the resolution and thus file size you download. Coming back later and downloading a different resolution of the same show should then only cost you the bandwidth surcharge of that resolution. Kind of like allofmp3 was doing it, except with an actual "artist remuneration" base cost built-in. I think this would be the fair thing to do because the industry has always harped on how consumers are just licensing content, not actually purchasing an "ownable" product. Therefore consumers should NEVER have to re-license the same content again and again just to have it available in a different format.
I mentioned this during the EMI DRMless track story, but in all likelihood, noone bothered reading it. :) As far as user training goes, Apple is doing it right this moment. How do you get better quality music without DRM? You are presented with 2 choices with different prices, or you can set the preference in iTunes. What do you do if you already have the crappy version? You upgrade by paying the difference.
The infrastructure is there and customers are now getting used to that. As soon as the business end works out, all contracts dotted and signed, Apple can roll out a similar feature for TV shows and movies. I bet it's all waiting for the movie studios and TV producers to say yes right now.
They should work out the codex/ quicktime player so that one downloads the highest quality video and the device/itunes can downmix the file say from a 720p file to iPod keeping the same codex and file signature and as close to real time as possible... bonus points if you could work out the video framing so it was seamless. The final thing, of course is that it has to be playable from physical media (flash, CD, DVD) if nothing more than to make archiving easier. iTunes already "sort of" supports moving stuff around like this, but Apple could make it more "offical" for video, maybe even allow [A]TV to play from a USB DVD drive?
I've just caught up to date with LOST thanks to my Apple TV. Four episodes I watched were encoded for iPod originally, and another two were at a slightly higher resolution. All of the episodes looked excellent on my standard Def TV - at least as good as broadcast digital TV here in the UK.
Maybe Apple have shot themselves in the foot here claiming that you should only use the Apple TV with a HD set, when they don't actually sell any HD content, but on an SD TV the Apple TV looks great.
Incidentally, I've also watched content from the iPod via the Apple AV connection kit, and the Apple TV looks much, much better.
"and plenty of hi-def stuff looks worse than it could too, because it has to be scaled to fit the resolution of the screen."
Not if you bought the right TV that can do 1080 (i/p is irrelevant in this context) without scaling. Didn't do that? Well, poor choice on your part.
Here is what canadian shaw basic analog cable looks like on a TV with a good resolution scalar. I called shaw, and they did not know the resolution off hand.. it is like 330x262 interlaced to 330x525 or something. There is no motion artifacts, clayface, pixelation, strobing going on. As a matter of fact, using a geforce2mx and 640x480 and in Zoom mode, YouTube looks very good on this TV. On a twice as inexpensive acer 32" HD LCD everything very unwatchable, even DVD's. Sony might be evil and there are lots of TVs with good scalers, but this is two years old already, and it was money well spent. Sony 32" ..XBR1 LCD with wega engine=scaling processor.
http://members.shaw.ca/pizpot/sd/ It looks better in person when moving of course.
I use Connect360 from Nullriver. It allows me to stream iTunes to my Xbox easily, and gives me all my playlists like you would expect. It also looks at my iPhoto library and pulls out the Albums for display by the Xbox, and any WMV files you have in your Movies folder are also streamed. Apparently, it will stream internet radio, all you have to do is create a playlist with those stations. The only thing lacking would be video transcoding, so you could play a wider variety of video types. But hey, Mediacenter doesn't even off you that, so I don't consider that a big loss.
0
http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect36
huh if it is dvd quality then what is wrong with it looksing like SDTV that is what DVDs are.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I've never experienced a problem with DRM on my shuttle with MCE 2005, which is connected to my Directv HD receiver. I've also not had a problem recording HD content. Though the HD is downsized to 720x480, it still looks much better than SD. Media center will even burn the shows you record to a standard DVD for you. DRM? What DRM?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I bought a show from iTunes to test against my ripped DVDs and shows that I have acquired elsewhere. No difference on any of my HD TVs. Certainly nothing that warrants the writer's heavy criticism. I did this on my MacPro, iMac, and mac mini's. I don't own an Apple TV, but I doubt the Apple TV's playback quality is less than my computers.
All of this "I hate Apple therefore all Apple products suck" mentality is ridiculous. Apple makes products that work for people who care about things that "just work". Sometimes, the features that people want on Slashdot or Engadget are not in the product. Guess what, you aren't Apple's target audience. You aren't Doctor Who, either.
You are spot on.
yes but the file would be too large to be exceptable for use on ipod's
.. that would be reduced and piss off the customer base..
remember Apple advertizes so many hours of video
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Although DRM is annoying in principle, in practice I don't much care about DRM on video unless it gets in my way. I might listen to the same song repeatedly for years, on multiple devices. There is not much on video that I want to watch more than once, and almost nothing that I'd want to watch more than 2 or 3 times. The only real issue is convenience and quality. I am annoyed that I have to buy a box to watch an iTunes video on my TV, when I have a perfectly good DVD burner on my computer. At least with a standard definition TiVo, it is possible to burn videos to DVD. And the XBox 360 videos aren't portable, but the box does a bit more than enable me to do something that I would have been able to do anyway if not for DRM, and the videos are HD.
So if Apple wants to sell me one of these gadgets, I'm going to want something more than SD.
Standard def for an NTSC encoded DVD is 720 x 480, which is a lot more than what Apple's selling now. Also the bitrate is 4000 bps encoding, which is a LOT more than the iTunes store sells. I went into an Apple store and noticed the problem immediately. Ironically, some of the podcasts show up very nicely. And go, modders! I want BitTorrent and Internet access on it.
I have to say that I was perticularly unimpressed by the quality of the AppleTV stuff (mostly music videos) being displayed at my local Apple store this past weekend. I don't know why it would look so bad, though: I routinely play WMV and MPG videos on my computer blown up three or four times (160x100 or 320x200 -> 1024x768) and it looks just fine. Only hellaciously compressed web-vids end up looking as bad as the stuff I saw at the Apple store.
Of course, I'm not displaying my videos on a 42" plasma TV, just a dinky 15" LCD, so maybe the quality is actually the same but I can't see the blockiness on the smaller display. My experience on small, high-resolution displays lead me to expect that 640x480 would result in a much better looking video than I saw at the Apple store.
Whatever the case, maybe Apple can fix this by tweaking their codecs to produce more pleasing output on large displays (or, if you only care about what things look like in the store, Apple can pick demo videos that don't showcase the resolution problems). If not, then they'll have to find a way to distribute higher resolution videos (which could be a problem due to existing agreements with the content owners and to bandwidth limitations with their customers).
just a ghost in the machine.
You're a little off, here. People can most certainly see the difference between 24 frames per second and, say, a 60 frame per second film (i.e., something actually filmed at 60 FPS). (Showscan: How it works talks about an actual application of 60 FPS filming.) You really should do a little more research than whatever site said "18 fps is all you need!" because that's really, really wrong. Start with http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_s ee.htm but for real fun, go get AVISynth, VirtualDub, and the MVTools plugin and convert a 24 FPS film to 48 FPS. There'll be some frames that break apart because any such conversion can't be perfect, but even going to 48 FPS for, say, the water running part of "100 Mile Dash" in "The Incredibles" looks much, much smoother, like you're right there watching it... er, if you were a cartoon character anyhow. :) (The jungle scenes become almost abstract as MVTools tries to figure out the interstitial frames, but the parts not in the jungle look gorgeous).
That the regular devices out there update the DISPLAY at 60 hz, that's nothing to do with how many frames of different video are being displayed. 60 Hz display of 24 or 30 FPS film or video, is just flashing the image in front of you twice as fast. Even theaters actually show 24 FPS films at 48 or 72 hz to reduce flicker, but the frame rate is still 24.
I think it also has to do with how most teenagers/2Xs just listen to bass anyways. Seriously, all the young people I know are buying subs like you wouldn't believe and ignoring mids and tweeters. I know you loose some bass with mp3s, but they're good enough to make the plastic parts of your dashboard rattle and your head hurt when you have 3 15 inch subs in the trunk of your cavalier.
This is probably one of the few apple products that is beta and they have the balls to charge for it.
Well, ipods are a 'satellite' device. They're a endpoint for content, not a hub. So how about this: have a large file, with multiple streams (why not have multiple audio tracks like DVDs, too?). When syncing with the ipod, only eync the 320xwhatever video with the downsampled audio track. That way you get the small file size and a video track custom for a low powered, SD device, without sacrificing multiple languages, stereo/surround audio, HD and extra content.
I hear ya. I'm amazed these days, that people see no problem dropping cash to get the latest HD tv equipment, but, will scoff at buying a sound system that will reproduce sound quality on a comensurate level...
I've always loved a good sound system...and have built it over the many years to where it is today, and it is pretty darned good. I rip my music to FLAC to listen through it...and would downgrade to mp3 for a portable version where the listening environment is substantially less optimal.
I dunno...I grew up loving good sound reproduction, and am thrilled that high end video is here, but, I wonder why so many don't care about good sound anymore and have such low expectations and are happy with such crappy equipment.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Are the later episodes still chopped to 4:3, though? I don't mind a few compression artifacts now and then, but paying 100% of the price for 75% of the picture is not my idea of a bargain.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Really? you record HBO-HD and the other HD chalnels off of cable that are scrambled? WOW.
Everyone I know cant tune in the scambled channels, and the firewire on their cablebox also has a scrambled signal on the scrambled channels.
Yes I can record the 2 HD channels that are in the clear, but what use it that? I want to record all channels I am paying for. the HD tivo records ALL hd channels and scrambled channels off of cable, something that is 100% impossible with mythtv. and will stay that way until someone crack the cablecard/pci adapter combo or the usb cablecard adapter that is out there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
$50.00 you dont even know what you are talking about.
MCE2005 is the old obsolete release. MCE Vista is the ONLY release that will do HD and is cablecard ready.
I guarentee you do not have a cablecard in your MCE box. because you CAN NOT transfer off the recordings, and that unless you are a integrator with the new stuff in hand for testing , you cant buy it yet.
Vista MCE + cable card = DRM all over every recording. I suggest you read up on it and get ready for what microsoft is about to shove down your throat. It's the only way they can get Cablecard on their products, by DRM locking every aspect of the box and the recorded content.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I bought one of those cards...trying to get it working on a Gentoo box, but, for the life of me..I can't find a definitive website to tell me what all to compile into the kernel...what to make as modules, and drivers to get the damned thing working.
Do you have some info or URL's to point me to sites to help me get this thing going?
I'm trying to put it in a box with a PVR 250 card...does this cause problems?
TIA
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
AllofMP3 can't help the fact that the RIAA refuses to take the money that is due to them from ROMS.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
The recommended viewing distance for a 50" screen is between 6 and 10 feet (give or take a foot on either end depending on conditions).
You're sitting too far away.
Successfully, I might add. We stripped off two bytes and got a slightly lower quality version of the original with the complete meaning intact.
then there is no need to make a multi format single package but rather a main file somediffrence files and put them in a package and let itunes download and sort them out..
but then again.. that would be too easy and they wouldn't make more money off of people than if they just sell the diffrent quality versions..
they know exactly what the need to do to fix the issue and make everyone really happy - what they are doing is weighing what they can do to charge people more money and still not have them mad...
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I just got mine this weekend and hooked it up to a 480i TV with component cables. Both of our standard def TVs have component cable input and I don't think it's as uncommon as people make it out to be. Just look at your owners manual or the back of your TV. If there are red, green and blue RCA jacks you have component.
My kids watched Pirates of the Caribbean on it and I could not tell the difference between it and a DVD. I never noticed any compression artifacts and as the author stated, setup was a breeze. It does what it does very well. Yeah, it'd be nice if it had DVR/Tivo capabilities and a DVD/High Def DVD player on it as well but then it would be well a mess. The one easy enhancement that is just a software/DRM enhancement would be to allow movie rentals.
What it does now is decouple your family room from the room your computer is in. I can play my iTunes collection on my stereo with real speakers and I can watch movies and TV shows. I can also work on my computer while the Apple TV is being used.
It's great for buying movies by impulse, don't have to go to the rental store or wait for NetFlix.
Yes, I'd like higher def content (720p) but for me personally when I get an HDTV. I'm sure Apple is getting its ducks in a row to distribute high def content. But that would also undercut DVD sales. I'd like more studios to climb aboard.
But for now I'm very happy with it.
So let me get this straight...
The guy concludes that AppleTV must not be "well suited" for HD (he defines that as maybe, possibly, there are inadequate hardware resources because the device consumes very little power).
Then, in an absolute stunner, he makes it abundantly clear he has never seen HD content played through AppleTV!
Speaking as a former film critic, I'm amazed this passes for journalism.
Furthermore, given the extremely generic analyses of the AppleTV and XBOX (which give no strong indication that the writer actually got his hands on and comprehensively dissected either device's features, as his comments seem to be restricted to observations you could discover on Google) the review seems to have been written either by an incompetent writer or for a dumb audience.
Of course one question begs the other... What kind of writer, do you suppose, attracts a dumb audience?
My Directv HD receiver is hooked to my MCD 2005 box via SVideo. It's not obsolete (I got my vista upgrade coupon with MCE 2005 disc, but chose not to use it) by any stretch of the imagination as it will be supported at least until 2010, at which point I will want a newer box anyway.
The HD video I am able to watch and record through MCE 2005 is downsized to 720x480 (which was noted in my post that you failed to read), but on my smallish 37" HD TV, which only supports 720p anyway, it still looks pretty damn "HD" to me.
HD capture cards are extremely expensive at this point so it's not even worth it to try for true HD capture anyway.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Wavelets are a great technology for still images, but they're not as effecient as DCT + motion compensation techniques like all the mainstream video codecs work. It's really hard to get wavelets to efficiently take advantage of the similarities between adjoining frames.
My video compression blog
$7 - $10 for something that looks like it came out of my PVR150 and then got compressed is absurd. A large portion of the available DVD's already sell for that price or less. Apple doesn't have to deal with the physical limitations that Target, Blockbuster & Walmart have to live with. There's no excuse for their product being more expensive at a given quality level.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I dunno about that... I don't think their motives are resell you the same thing over and over. I do think they have a plan and are being very careful to see what the market is doing with what they have. I think the change in iTunes Music to remove DRM was bundled with the $0.30 price change and increased bitrate was just to make it more distinct from what they're offering right now. To me, they're plan seems to only give you simple, straightforward (and sometimes limited) options.
The iPod with Video was never really considered a Video iPod. By most of Apples release standards, it's due for an update. I think something will change with that soon. I've heard better things from other players (Zune, PSP) in regards to watching video compared to the iPod. My guess is the next iPod update will coincide with or be the next step or a part of Apple's infrastructure change for better video.
Apple MOV files already support multiple audio streams (for languages/commentary), text tracks (chapters and subtitles), multiple video streams (camera angles/bitrates), and a lot more. All in 1 MOV file. They're not utilizing what they currently have to even meet what a normal DVD offers--let alone taking advantage of having their own format and infrastructure to deliver it. Although, they are at the mercy of people's ISPs, and the adoption rate of (their's and other's) technology.
I see good things happening soon.
Successfully, I might add. We stripped
I would like to be a successful stripper as well. We don't need too much quality if Apple dedicated itself to finding such talent.
What was that about compression with no loss in qual
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
The infrastructure is there and customers are now getting used to that. As soon as the business end works out, all contracts dotted and signed, Apple can roll out a similar feature for TV shows and movies. I bet it's all waiting for the movie studios and TV producers to say yes right now.
Yup. Basically, the surcharge pays for the greater bandwidth -- but you'd be getting the DRM-free version (I hope), just like they are doing with music. When I buy a DVD right now -- it is for all intents and purposes, DRM-free, because it is not much hassle to work around. If the average person cannot do it -- it creates a black market. So successful DRM is WORSE for profits than annoying DRM. If you make things reasonably priced, and convenient -- then people aren't going to bother building a black market.
I think the major hurdle with the Apple TV has been dealing with the DRM. Apple is waiting for the studios to catch up -- rather than wasting technology on work-arounds. The Studios will probably get this approach, rather than the brain-dead Record Labels, who want to get paid increasing revenue for less work.
Meanwhile -- I get 24/7 300 channels with relatively DRM free video and music off the satellite dish. Why do I not rip it all and send it around the net? Because it is a fountain -- there is something new around the corner so why bother storing everything you get? You are paying as much as you are willing to for the service and convenience. Oh well, old story...
Apple still seems to "get it" and they are wisely buidling up the infrastructure to take advantage of it.
Meanwhile, TiVo and Amazon are teaming up to sell people movies to play as well. They seem like more competition for Apple than Microsoft or other initiatives. The advantage Apple has is that they aren't paying for extras or relationships they don't need -- they are essentially Amazon AND TiVo without the dead weight. The AppleTV is a headless computer, and could be set to do almost anything -- it is only limited by its processing power.
Apple is starting simple -- with a bedrock device that does what it is supposed to do. That's what worked with the iPod and by being a "platform" for other solution providers -- it created a new market. So someone else might give you TiVo functionality on the AppleTV -- and Apple doesn't have to take the liability.
There just remains the device to take the Cable/Sattelite onto the computer (or into iTunes). Elgato already makes it -- but this is hardly as "consumer" ready as TiVo. But I'm guessing any month now, that "last mile" of track will be laid by Apple.
It has to happen quick though -- there are a lot of contenders for this space. The HD -- market isn't as signifigant yet. But it will be. But imagine a DRM-less HD file on the Apple TV and compare that to a BlueRay HD Video. And the AppleTV costs less to manufacture and buy than the BlueRay.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
It's better than standard def content. It's on par with DVD.
So what is that supposed to mean???
This device is probably going to fail. Not because it was a bad idea, it's certainly not, but because of the incredible liability surrounding individuals ripping audio and video content and the lack of (or miniscule amount of) 720p HD quality content to purchase and download it's going to fall flat on its face! People who buy HD video products don't want to see files encoded at 320 by whatever pixels with kilobit per second data rates played back on their 720p, 1080i or 1080p display devices. It's going to amplify any artifacts (hence the blurring effect described that is used in the codec to scale the image that large). It's just going to be awful. I've seen DVDs ripped to H.264 with 400x288 resolution at 1 megabit per second that were decent looking on 720p displays, but barely over the quality that a good VHS copy would look like new on a four head 600 line VHS deck.
Blu-ray, which Apple should have put in a machine by now, but must be waiting for the price to drop one more time, is GORGEOUS in 1080p! Of course, 25GB of space gives you lots of room to work with. iTunes stuff is what? couple hundred megabytes per feature length film? GAAAAA!
And for a thousand $ less, you can forgoe all that pain and get an AppleTV.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
$150 says you don't even know what 720p is .... that 720x480 is 480p (widescreen).
That's a strange assumption to make. What in my posts indicates that I don't understand the various standards?
It certainly wasn't this one was it?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
By the way, it's worth knowing that Handbrake was finally recently recently upgraded in conjunction with a merge with Mediafork.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
More like $600 less - maybe $500 by now, as I bought my shuttle system several months ago.
Since a full blown MythTV/MCE PVR does 10x more than an Apple TV, should it costing more come as a huge surprise?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
The part that said you convert your video to 720x480 to watch it on your 720p capable screen.
Ok. I meant that the drop from 720p to 720x480 (which is the output of the Hauppauge TV tuner card I have) was not that huge. I suppose that if I was accustomed to 1080i/p I might notice, but after watching TV on a 20 year old 30" tube TV for the last 7 years, I guess it doesn't take much to impress me. When watching a HD channels, I've switched between direct input from my HD receiver and the downscaled output from my MCE PC and I struggle to see the difference.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Of course. But the original signal is HD, which makes all the difference in regards to the end result, which the quality of the picture on the screen.
An HD signal downsized to 720x480 looks much better compared to a SD channel.
Perhaps I should make up a new acronym for pedants who get mad when I use the term HD improperly. Perhaps "HDDSD" (High Defenition Downsized to Standard Definition)
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
"Its just annoying to see when theres problems with a company product that isnt MS everyone jumps on the "its 1.0, it has bugs dont be harsh" yet they turn around and smack anything MS does right into the ground cause M$ SUX LOLZ."
You've got that 180 degrees reversed from the truth, I'm afraid. Microsoft constantly gets a free pass for buggy 1.0 releases; in fact, a buggy 1.0 release gets Microsoft POSITIVE press. ('Microsoft has entered the market, begins its climb to a usable release; competitors quail') Hell, I've even seen reviewers speak positively of Microsoft's 1.0 entry while advising users to wait for 3.0 -- that's THREE; they tell you to skip even the next version, they are so able to predict Microsoft's standard suckage routine. And yet they don't see the cognitive dissonance in combining this ridiculous advice with praise for the company.
Nobody else gets forgiven for this stuff, and nobody else gets this kind of press. Nobody.
Perhaps I should make up a new acronym for pedants who get mad when I use the term HD improperly.
There's another term. 480p or EDTV. Don't get all self-righteous when you mislead others about the resolution of your recording, and someone calls you on it.
Plenty of DVDs are "mastered from high definition" and that DOES NOT EQUAL HDTV. DirecTV is being sued for falsely claiming HD resolution on their channels. Why should we hold you to any less of a standard? Hey, how about telling the truth? What a concept!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Go and get one of these instead.
Supports everything from DivX, Ogg, Host USB, Wifi, ethernet, you can also buy it with or without a hdd...
Kicks Apple TV out of the water.
http://www.mvixusa.com/product.php?product=mx760
Since iTunes refuses to properly support DivX, I won't touch it.
Maybe I'm just not up on all the hype, but I really don't mind watching regular non-HD programming. Sounds like some elitism going on here.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
well, duh, it's called Apple "TV". If Apple wanted to guarantee HDTV resolution, they would have called it Apple HDTV.
you're not complaining that your TV can't show HD content at the source resolution, are you?
-Tony
Reporting in on the quality of random videos I've bought from the iTMS:
(Bought about a year ago)
Battlestar Galactica season 2.0: 320x240 / pan & scan (eww) / 649kb/sec (iPod quality)
(Bought last week)
Battlestar Galactica season 3: 640x360 / true 16x9 / 1569kb/sec
The earlier videos I purchased from the store look like ass (shocking!) on my 42" 1080p HD plasma, while season 3 looks quite a bit better than the Comcast compressed-to-hell feed of the scifi channel upsampled to 1080p (surprise!).
The reviewer may have had crap source, or the plasma may have had absolute crap upsampling, but let's face it: you buy SD content and then complain it's not HD? I know Apple's got the reputation for distorting reality, but seriously, pass the crackpipe.
HD content is coming as soon as the content providers deem it worth their time and bandwidth. BSG and major network shows are the exception that are currently actually available in HD.
Apple's getting the infrastructure in place, and the AppleTV is meant for early adopters right now. First hint: no composite out. Second hint: it's DIRT cheap and wide open to crazy hacks which the mothership has been completely mum about (and silently supportive if rumors are to be believed).
I'm currently in the process of ripping my DVD collection to H.264 like I did with my CDs 10 years ago. Oh for the holy grail that would make them instantly HD, but that's not how it works. The AppleTV with a few minor hacks (or, I'm sure, version 2.0) will fit my needs *perfectly* for a media center.
This is not just a technicality, "HD content" means something that looks a hell of a lot better than anything you can record on your Windows box, which was the entire fucking point.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Oh fuck off.
This produce does what it is supposed to....
Heh, just when I thought my reading skills went to shit with "Bad Meth Causes Explosion at CERN Collider",
an honest to $deity real typo.
Initial reply was: "Of course Apples are produce...errr..."
Apple produces a product that is not produce. Dude.
Thanks for the chuckle and double-take.
I blame S.T.A.L.K.E.R, amazing how fast it becomes 1am after dinner.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Watch Analog standard-definition cable TV then something more or less equivalent to watching YouTube videos in full screen.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
$7 - $10 for something that looks like it came out of my PVR150 and then got compressed is absurd. A large portion of the available DVD's already sell for that price or less. Apple doesn't have to deal with the physical limitations that Target, Blockbuster & Walmart have to live with. There's no excuse for their product being more expensive at a given quality le
New, popular movies are not available for $7. That goes for $15-$20. Charging 1/3 to 1/2 of that will find a substantial market; it's probably not for you (or me), but that will sell if they did it.
Do note that $7 is much less than they're currently selling for.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Yuck. Did you come up with that yourself? Pretty foul either way.
The writer keeps comparing it to "Xbox" without specifying if we mean original Xbox or Xbox 360.
Or better yet, download the high-quality version and have iTunes build an iPod version in the background during and after the download. That way, there's only one download, and with the speed of modern computers, iTunes could probably build the smaller version on the fly at the same speed as a download over cable or DSL.
Of course, make that an option that can be turned off for Apple TV users who don't have an iPod.
So you're saying that iTunes is essentially USELESS for anyone that's not interested in anything except for the fad du jour?
That's pretty dang worthless.
I didn't realize the selection on iTunes was so pathetic.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
AllofMP3 can't help the fact that the RIAA refuses to take the money that is due to them from ROMS.
I'd like to buy your house for $20. Therefore I've set $20 aside so you can pick it up whenever you are ready. In the meanwhile, I'm just going to move in. I'm not doing anything illegal, because it's not MY fault that you haven't picked up your money. Quit whining and come get your stuff off the curb in front of my new house.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ahh, the ol' real property to intellectual property analogy. Sorry, that line of logic has been fully discredited by legions of previous comments. Thanks for playing.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Actually, in this case it applies. You are talking about setting aside money in a proxy in order to "buy" something without any agreement with the seller (for far less money than they are likely to demand), and then behaving as if you've legally purchased it.
So shall I start moving in to your house now? The $20 is ready for you anytime.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
You clearly have not been grasping how "intellectual property" is different from real property (real estate in your example), so I will give you a topline explanation of how they're different. So-called intellectual property refers to a limited period of time granted by the government to a content creator during which they have exclusive distribution rights to profit from an idea. This is in stark contrast to real estate where one legal entity retains control over a defined piece of property which can not be held by any other legal entity while they possess it. Their ownership persists forever unless it is transferred to another entity via some transaction, such as a sale.
Thus, the two are really not similar at all because one resource is limited in nature and your taking of it deprives it from another, whereas something like ROMS is a completely legitimate way of compensating a multitude of artists for their work. So legitimate in fact, that even the U.S. has a similar regime for radio. You will probably ignore all of this anyway, but I figured I should write it for you in the off-chance that you might actually care. For a more in-depth explanation of the abstraction of intellectual property from real property, give this book a read-through.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Ah, I see. You're a moron, that explains it.
720p is "true" HDTV, 1080i, and 1080p are "true" HDTV, and if additional higher resolution standard follow under the HDTV rubrik, they will be "true" HDTV.
HDTV is a set of standards that includes 720p, there's no wiggle room there.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Who gave the Apple cheerleading brigade mod points?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.