WTF? iTMS movies look horrible on Apple in-store Sonys - Page 2

I've watched my own RIP'd DVD's as well as purchases from iTunes on both my 24" iMac and my 50" Hitachi RPLCD TV via Apple TV. While not HD, I've never had a problem with the quality; it's vastly superior to the artifacted, stretched and washed-out appearance of SD movies on DirecTV. I bought and watched The Rookie on Sunday, and within 5 minutes I was focused on the story not the quality.

I think a lot depends upon your expectations and the upscaling of the TV. I can live with this for now, but I too am hoping for 720p downloads.

...and ONLY 720p downloads. People complaining that they need 1080p are smoking crack. The majority of people don't even have HD sets yet, while the majority of HD owners have either 720p/1080i sets or 1080p sets that DON'T ACCEPT 1080P input!!! Anyone complaining that a good ESPN HD broadcast (720p) is not good enough quality for them is anal to the point of choking on their on colon. The fact is that unless your sitting really close to a really big screen, you can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p anyway.

Between the size of the downloads and the facts on the TV's, I think a move to 720p would be a complete coup by Apple. It could literally destroy the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD debate. Are those formats 1080p? Sure, just like a CD is better than mp3 quality; but people will choose convience, simplicity, and instant gratification as long as the quality is not noticeably (to average ears/eyes) worse than another alternative.

Exactly.

TenoBell is keep saying how most people will sit 10-15 feet from their TV, but that is just gross generalization. I have 56" set and I sit 9 feet away (using Mac mini). My friend has 37" set and sit at roughly the same distance (using Apple TV). On both instances I can easily see how insufficient iTunes video quality is (DVD looks a tad soft on my set, but not at all objectionable). And let's not even get into how lame stereo audio is.

And what is gonna happen when Appletv is in Best Buy displayed side by side with content from DVD players and better devices?

Yeah, that's a good point about size. I was thinking resolution, but obviously, at the same resolution, a larger screen is going to make the same video look worse. But what I don't get is why 640 X 480 video should be so much worse than DVD? Isn't DVD just 720 X 480? Should that difference even be really noticeable? Maybe the compression doesn't play well with the TV?

Is all of the seating in your television area arraigned to be 9 feet away? It was a generalization but a pretty safe one. Most people don't set up their living space for the seating priority to be a perfect viewing distance from the television. Most people set up their living space for people in the room to sit and comfortably communicate and interact with each other.


That is a subjective assessment. I know filmmakers who hate the way their films look on DVD. DVD is not a high quality format it is extremely compressed. When comparing the original image to the DVD the texture and detail of the image is gone, colors are less vivid, blacks are not as strong and sometime a soft shade of gray, detail in the highlights are gone, and you can see some aliasing artifacts. We accept this a compromise in quality for the convenience of a 4.72 inch disc.


The iTunes movie is more compressed and uses a lower data rate than a high quality DVD uses. Which will result in lower over all picture quality. This compromise is made for the convenience of streaming the movie without waiting hours it would take to stream a DVD. If you are near an Apple store I suggest you check it out yourself and under your own discretion decide if the image is good enough for you.

720P would certainly be a lot better. Apple would still attempt to slim this down as much as possible to make downloading and streaming as easy as possible. So even that won't be the same quality as a 720P HD-DVD or Blu-ray disc.

From the Ars Technica review

On an HDTV, the currently-available content from iTunes is obviously not going to take advantage of the TV's capabilities. However, despite some early claims of "blurriness," we found that how the Apple TV displays the content on an HDTV is more akin to what we would describe as "jpeggy-ness" (also known as dithering). The Apple TV is forced to scale up the video resolution for the HDTV, but it attempts to compensate for the expected blurry pixels by anti-aliasing in between to create cleaner lines. We watched a trailer for the movie 300 streamed from the iTunes Store on the 42-inch HDTV along with a handful of young professionals—absolutely none of which batted an eye at the video quality whatsoever (in fact, there were several comments about how good it looked). Regardless, to an HDTV aficionado or anyone looking closely at the lines, the somewhat "painted" look of the video is obvious.

No one expects DVDs, iTunes movies, or even Blu-Ray/HD DVD to deliver 100% theatrical experience. Perhaps filmmakers and telecine operators do, but film studios probably don't share their sentiments. Heck, most general public have SDTV or HDTV set at lousy factory default settings (e.g., insanely high brightness, halo inducing sharpness, bluish color temperature). Even with 4K elements, most general public will not experience theatrical presentation that filmmakers intended.

Let's draw some parallels from the audio industry. Audio CD came out about 30 years ago. Most audiophiles and musicians find CD to be inadequate representation of studio master. Due to format war politics, poor marketing, and perhaps even lack of interests, its successors (SACD and DVD-Audio) never caught on. About 25 years later, MP3 succeeded audio CD (although not yet completely), which has near-CD audio quality at best. MP3 is clearly a step backward from audio perspective, but it won due to convenience (smaller file size, ID tagging, online distribution). Most general public can't tell differences between CD and MP3/AAC/WMA ripped at default setting -- and that's good enough for them.

Back to video. As you said, video DVD fails to capture theatrical experience, although it is significantly superior to (when properly encoded and mastered) all of its predecessors in terms of color reproduction, resolution, noise, and convenience. Apple claims near-DVD quality for iTunes movies. If only that's true. Anyone with a decent HDTV, upscaling DVD player, and Apple TV will easily spot the differences between iTunes movies and DVD. One would have to be near blind and/or deaf to not spot significant differences between anamorphic DVD with DD/DTS 5.1 and equivalent iTunes movie. iTunes movies are closer to satellite/digital cable (non HD) than DVD.

The real question is whether iTunes movies are that much more convenient to overcome technical weaknesses. iTunes movies = DVD - subtitles - multiple audio tracks - discrete surround sound - anamorphic video - extra features - navigation menu - rental outlets + online distribution + often cheaper to own pricing + "diskless" immediate viewing. Since Apple TV cannot be used to purchase movies, it's not as convenient as it should be and lack of rental business model is a huge hindrance for most general public.

You are right and in fact back in the late 90's when DVD started. Studios were using the same analog D1 source for the DVD master as used for VHS. This D1 master was made from a basic low contrast dupe print with no special color correction no thrills. The DVD's of the time didn't really look much better than VHS.

It took filmmakers to push the studios into spending the money to create higher quality DVD's. Once the studios saw that this actually made them more money, then it became common to have the expensive color correction from a dupe negative, anamorphic encoding , 5.1 DTS.


I agree, but I would divide the market between those who give a rats ass and those who don't.

There are people who have $10,000 50" HDTV, HD-DVD/ Blu-ray, with the full 6.1 DTS system. This person wants 1080 HD high fidelity surround content to play on their system. For this person the current state ATV and iTunes movies is not good enough. I would say there are few people who could afford this type of equipment or anal enough to care that much about HD quality.

Then there are the people who have a 32" HDTV made by some unknown company in China that was purchased on sale at Costco for $999. They have a $89 progressive scan DVD player connected to the TV with S-Video and RCA audio cables. They have two small stereo speakers (perhaps even a subwoofer) connected to the television and have the simulated "surround sound" setting in the DVD player turned on. This person I doubt would care as much about iTunes quality if they found value in the convenience of downloading and streaming without physical media. I would count this type of person as the majority of America.


I think the biggest hump for Apple to get over is even convincing people of how ATV even works. I don't really know of many people who have even thought to store movies on their computer and stream them to their television. I can think of a few when they see this in action would become more interested in it. The question is how many people out there will really see this as something desirable for them.

I think this is something that would probably catch on with teenagers faster than it would catch on with grown adults.

For many years now, people have been able to choose between picture quality and TV size. For the same price, consumers could choose any balance between the two. What continues to baffle audio/videophiles is that the general consumer always chooses a bigger picture over a better picture.

While the iTS video quality is ok by most peoples' standards, it would never satisfy me. On an average size TV, the video quality isn't noticeably degraded (by most people's standards). But on a large screen, digital artifacts are apparent from a few feet away. In an apple store, people are only a few feet from these screens. It would be interesting to know if these artifacts bother your average consumer at such a distance.

So apple had a choice, hook the AppleTVs up to large TVs and impress your average joe with a gigantor picture. Maybe most consumers are still oblivious to even the most obvious compression artifacts. Or they could hook AppleTVs up to small displays and annoy audiophiles slightly less. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Alright addabox.

I stopped by another Apple store today that wasn't so busy. I had the chance to play with ATV again. The first time the store was really crowded and I had limited time to look through the shows.

I again looked through the music video section and for the most part they looked fine. I looked through the television section. I noticed more compression artifacts with television than with music video, but it was still ok for the most part. Then I looked through the movies. And yes the movies absolutely looked the worst of the three. "O' Brother Where Art Thou" was the worst of them all it looked absolutely horrendous. I imagine Roger Deakins would be mortified.

Looking at the pattern from what I can see more compression is added the longer the content is. Music video being around 5 minutes does not receive much compression. Television shows being half/hour to an hour long receive more compression more artifacts but are still ok. Movies being 90 - 120 minutes receive the most compression and the results are pretty bad.

Actually the movies varied from ok to completely unacceptable. Animated movies seemed to have the least artifacts while live action had the worst artifacts. "O' Brother Where Art Thou" was completely horrible.

I still have to say though that I've seen people watching bootleg DVD's that looked even worse than that, and they seemed to think it was fine. But I agree with you addabox those movies looked bad.

If and when I ever own an AppleTV its likely most if not all of the content will be ripped from DVD's the same way the far major of the music on my iPod is from CD's.

Wow you guys really look down on your fellow americans don't you?
So many of you guys have refered to other people as joe sixpack or something slightly demeaning instead of just "joe average" and always give them border line hick dialogue.

I like ATV. Its a good start for such a product.

Mine is set to 1080i on my two year old 32 inch crt HDTV using the HDMI connection. Downloaded movies from iTunes and ripped DVDs look better than SD digital cable and not as good as the HD channels on cable. Compared to the original DVD, about 90% as good.

I would describe the quality as watchable and it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie.

However, I went to an Apple Store today and the picture quality didn't look as nice as what I have at home. Go figure, maybe a bad demo movie?!

I can confirm that it looks bad, just listening to others in the store talk, saying things like "that sucks" "gee, apperantly you cant just blow up an ipod screen" and my favorite "why are the icons made out of little blocks? the same ones on the iMac here look smooth and pretty"



ya know, after seeing the ATV, Tivo HD seems a like quite a bargin.

Oops.


Did not know that.

I stand by that statement. Anytime anything negative is said about ATV, the same chorus comes out proclaiming its doomed to fail. This is being said with total subjectivity and no objectivity. It may fail it may not fail. Most likely Apple will sell a few hundred thousand units which will be a profit and over time Apple will increase ATV functionality the same way it did with the iPod.

The poor movie quality is a compromise. In everyone's complaints that fact is being left out. Few people in the general public would have the patience to wait for hours for a DVD quality download. When we press the buy button most people want instant gratification.

The music videos are the least compressed because no one has a problem waiting 5-10 minutes for a download. Television shows are more compressed but people can wait 20-30 minutes for a download. Apple likely feels people don't have the patience to wait more than an hour for a full movie to download and ready to view. So they've found a bit rate and file size that allows the movie to be fully downloaded in that amount of time and ready to view.

I agree that the movies are overly compressed. I would rather wait a couple of hours for better quality. Ultimately the market will determine if Apple made the best choice. If it shows they haven't I'm sure they will adjust.

Have you tried this?

You have to be anal to care about quality?

There are two things at play here. First, assuming the DVD is anamorphic and the source 16:9, all of those 720x480 pixels are used for the picture. If the source is 2.35:1, around 720 x 363 pixels are used for picture information (the rest make up black bars top and bottom of the image). iTunes Movies are not anamorphic. The maximum width is 640 pixels, and the height varies with movie ratio. 16:9 movies are 640 x 360, 2.35:1 movies are 640 x 272. So widescreen movies have 50% more pixels on anamorphic DVD relative to iTunes Movie encodes. Secondly, as discussed already in this thread, is the compression being used. Whilst H.264 is a superior codec to MPEG-2, the Main Profile (as used by iTunes) can't compensate for the drastically lower bitrate relative to DVDs.

Using High Profile H.264 instead would really help, but unfortunately this is even harder to decode than Main Profile, so only the computers with the very fastest CPUs, or hardware-decode assistance, would be able to play the files. And at the moment Apple haven't implemented the High Profile in QuickTime, but that's another matter.

Personally, I think that the files should be at least equal to DVD in terms of resolution, and have at least 1/2 the bitrate of DVD. Yes, increasing the bitrate would mean the files take longer to download, but I feel Apple got the convenience/quality balance wrong on this occasion.

One thing that people haven't mentioned is that increasing the size of downloads doesn't only mean the customer has to wait longer - it also means that Apple have to pay more for bandwidth. Do not underestimate the impact of this. I'm really hoping that Apple are working on some kind of bit-torrent type distribution system to try and work around this problem, with an aim to ultimately offering 720p downloads. This would bring the requirement for another increase in video track bit-rate.

It seems that the consensus in this thread is that the AppleTV image quality problem is the amount of compression used on the iTunes Movie files. I think it may be possible that there is a driver issue on the AppleTV as well. AppleTV uses the GeForce Go 7300 to decode/de-interlace/scale - I don't know how much the quality of this process depends upon driver implementation - could the process be flawed for low-resolution, low bit-rate files? I talked in another thread about how this (hardware decode/de-interlace/scale) should give the AppleTV an upper hand in video quality (relative to a Mac) when driving TVs, but maybe I was mistaken ? How do the same files look when a Mac is playing the same files and outputting to the same TVs?

Hey, what's up with no surround sound with Atv???

Who would shell out all that money for an HDTV and not have at least 5 channel sound? Once Apple finally puts HD content on iTunes, they still won't be able to send surround through Atv...

I don't believe that's accurate. The "no discrete surround-sound" problem with the AppleTV is a software one rather than a hardware one.

Could be both hardware and software.

Solution 1: Add multi-channel AAC codec to Apple TV and re-encode appropriate iTunes Store contents. Requires HDMI connection and receiver/processor capable of decoding multi-channel AAC (virtually none) or multi-channel LPCM (newer mid- to high-end receivers). If Apple TV had multi-channel analog audio output, just about all receivers/processors would be able to handle multi-channel audio. 5G and 5.5G iPods may require firmware update to handle multi-channel AAC audio.

Solution 2: Same as solution 1, but with Dolby Digital Live. Requires Toslink digital audio connection and receiver/processor capable of decoding Dolby Digital (just about any receivers on the market). Apple will need to pay license and Apple TV may not handle this additional chore while playing 720p video.

Solution 3: Add Dolby Digital (or Dolby Digital Plus) codec to Apple TV, QuickTime Player, and 5G and 5.5G iPods; re-encode appropriate iTunes Store contents. This would be most ideal for consumers, but it will require Apple to pay license to Dolby.

Likely scenario would be solution 1 that requires HDMI connection and receiver/processor capable of processing multi-channel LPCM audio over HDMI.

I think more likely scenario would be none of the above, as in Apple won't do a thing and promote plain vanilla Dolby Surround.

I'm late to the thread, apologies if all this has been mentioned, just needed to sound off a few thoughts.

I think Sony always goes for a too "sharp and pure" look with it's LCDs, Still and Video cameras. On my 17" 1280x1024 DVI LCD I can almost taste the bullets whizzing by when playing Ghost Recon A.W. NFS: Most Wanted and FEAR, HL2+ looks sharp and tasty.

For movies: dvdrips, xvids, trailers, I rather watch on my widescreen MacBook, even if it is only 13.3", the contrast and reflections and blockiness of the Sony LCD is not so nice.

Plasmas have *always* had a nice, softer look with velvety blacks.

I think there are two problems here. One is of course the rez and upscaling limitations of the video clips, iTunes Movies, Bravias. Another is that the Bravias are probably 30+inch 1080p-spec'd, and they're LCDs. All this = welcome to block-Town.

On a Mac Pro 2.66ghz QuadXeon 1GB RAM, the 7300GT when driving a 30" Cinema Display, the upscaling is pretty darn good for taking something like a DVD [Matrix(1999)] and bashing it up to 2560 x 1600 pixels. That is 4 megapixels compared to 1920x1080p which is 2 megapixels. A well-encoded (ie no shadow/ dark areas, high contrast film source) 1080p trailer from Apple website upscaled to 2560 x 1600 looks stunning even right in front of a 30" Cinema Display.

Current Mac hardware driving DVI output-input into a Plasma 42" would be a nice setup.

NO AppleTV in my neck of the "woods" yet, but LCDs = I'd never game without one ever again (with an LCD I feel I'm getting every pixel worth out of that nVidia GPU) ; at the same time LCDs = I'd never watch big screen video/movie/tv stuff on it.

Don't get me started on 1080p film cameras. I'd prefer everything still be shot on super35mm or anamorphic or whatever. FILM. 1080 HDTV even fairly bloody high-end stuff, nice, but Sonys in that range are way too "harsh and sharp". The Panasonics especially prosumer to high-end pro 1080p cameras are nicer, particularly those with variable frame rate (ie, true slow motion). OK. Now back to my nVidia 6600GT... Mmm... smell those pixels....on my Sony ... Heh

Sony made them an offer they couldn't refuse... ...His Steveness IMHO wanted to roll out this convergence stuff, for the "common man", blockiness is a part of life. Satellite TV, for example, some people get it at somewhat blocky MPEG2. HDD recorders, MPEG2, I believe.

It is confusing. Maybe it's the chief of Retail Stores, that decided to go with the latest and sexiest "true 1080p" Bravias. And now most people are like, oops....

Yeah, still, IMHO, iSteve wanted to get this rolling, at current quality and bitrates, and hoping that more studios come on board. Perhaps using Sonys in store was to get Sony Film content ??? ...What do they need for WB? Huge "Neo" and "Morpheus" cardboard cutouts at the Store? ... And LucasFilm? Apple has to THX-certify everything from iPod to AppleTV to all Macs [all of which must now come with THX certified speakers and/or headphones] ...???? ........ Hmmm

Anyway, I'm ready to stick a fork in this one. The whole HDTV/Convergence thing is a bit out of my focus at this stage. In my internship (4th week this week ! OMFG!) I've got to focus on some EDU clients, track down a freakin' HP Designjet dealer price, plus April is BIG for NAB, CS3 official launches and shipping begins, and........ um, yeah, more stuff.... ).

I love Panasonic. Plasma. Progressive HDTV true-slow motion prosumer video cams. Word.

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I'd say the term "Joe Six-pack" is a common term for a working stiff, HOWEVER, it is dismissive if not derogatory. It's certainly no compliment.

I think Steve may not have been the 'final OK' on AppleTV. If his fingerprints were all over the thing, he would have talked it up much hotter than he did. Anyone else get that impression.

I got the feeling from Steve that he was Colin Powell trying to convince the UN that Iraq had mobile chemical weapon labs just before we invaded... I didn't buy it, even from him.

I can't even find an Apple TV to check out. Comp USA doesn't have any on display in their Apple section. The ASC is on vacation. Circuit City doesn't have them on display yet. Best Buy had one synced to a Windows PC, but it must've been in the warehouse because I sure as heck couldn't find it!

Maybe he was in treatment for his illness at the time? I really don't know, but it is so not Apple... and it sounds even more un-Applish everytime I hear a new disappointing report on it.