Apple could test limited iTunes HD+ 1080p movie service

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  • Reply 21 of 77
    kpluckkpluck Posts: 500member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    You'd rather have 1080p than 720p even if that 1080p had a lower bitrate than Apple's 720p content? I surely wouldn't.



    Exactly. The fact of the matter is, 720P can easily look better than 1080P depending on how much compression is applied. I would be willing to bet any 1080P stream supplied by anyone will have more compression applied than a 720P stream.



    Chances are, most people would be better off with less compressed 720P video than 1080P.



    -kpluck
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  • Reply 22 of 77
    cvaldes1831cvaldes1831 Posts: 1,832member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    You'd rather have 1080p than 720p even if that 1080p had a lower bitrate than Apple's 720p content? I surely wouldn't.



    Depends on the content.



    Note: I use a rabbit ear antenna for the majority of my HD television content.
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  • Reply 23 of 77
    dualiedualie Posts: 334member
    It seems to me that the coming data caps on home internet service are at least as important a consideration as resolution, yet it's not mentioned anywhere. Regularly downloading or streaming 1080p can eat a through 250GB limit very easily. Just last December when I was home from work for extended periods I used more than 450GB in three weeks simply by streaming many Netflix movies and other TV shows. If those has been all 1080p I would have gone over the soft limit much, much sooner.
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  • Reply 24 of 77
    kotatsukotatsu Posts: 1,010member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Booga View Post


    Who cares about the 1080p spec... what will the compression ratio be? It doesn't matter if they have 60 frames a second at full resolution if all of those pixels are filled with macroblocks during any sort of motion.



    Microsoft have been streaming 10mbit 1080p to Xbox 360s for years now and the quality is acceptable, and certainly a huge upgrade from iTunes 720p. Obviously it's not going to come anywhere near blu-ray, but it's definitely very watchable.
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  • Reply 25 of 77
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kotatsu View Post


    Microsoft have been streaming 10mbit 1080p to Xbox 360s for years now and the quality is acceptable, and certainly a huge upgrade from iTunes 720p. Obviously it's not going to come anywhere near blu-ray, but it's definitely very watchable.



    Can you supply any evidence that it's now 10Mb/s? Last I read it was just under 4Mb/s.
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  • Reply 26 of 77
    abarryabarry Posts: 31member
    While everyone else is commenting on 720 v. 1080, I'm dismayed and ashamed, as an American, that we are the 14th on the list. Even some former Soviet-bloc nations have much higher bandwidth average than the good old USA.



    We prefer to spend money on propping up dictators and conducting wars, while our infrastructure at home (be it roads, healthcare, Internet, etc.) decays. We encourage greedy Wall Street and Telcos to make as much money from a poor consumer but not provide the state-of-the-art.



    It won't be long when we will be left holding the bag and alone as no other country will give a sh*t for who we are.



    Very sad.
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  • Reply 27 of 77
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by abarry View Post


    While everyone else is commenting on 720 v. 1080, I'm dismayed and ashamed, as an American, that we are the 14th on the list. Even some former Soviet-bloc nations have much higher bandwidth average than the good old USA.



    We prefer to spend money on propping up dictators and conducting wars, while our infrastructure at home (be it roads, healthcare, Internet, etc.) decays. We encourage greedy Wall Street and Telcos to make as much money from a poor consumer but not provide the state-of-the-art.



    It won't be long when we will be left holding the bag and alone as no other country will give a sh*t for who we are.



    Very sad.



    Your whole post demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the world.



    Consider the following data



    http://www.demographia.com/db-intlua-area2000.htm



    Broadband penetration correlates (unsurprisingly) with income per capita and population density. The US is actually doing very well given the incredibly low urban population density, and correspondingly high standard of living, that it enjoys.



    The real problem that the USA has today is people like you, who leap to explain everything in terms of your fixed political view, rather than actually looking at facts or considering alternatives.
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  • Reply 28 of 77
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cvaldes1831 View Post


    Depends on the content.



    Note: I use a rabbit ear antenna for the majority of my HD television content.



    Then you're getting the best HD available. The over the air HD spec devotes WAY more bandwidth to each channel than even FiOS, let alone the paltry cable allotments. That means they can turn the compression way down to close to Blu-Ray levels. The 1080p we get via iTunes wouldn't come close to the 1080p you get on a Blu-Ray. The 1080 and progressive scan at 60fps is only a measure of the maximum resolution, not the total information going over the line. 720p at low compression can look better than 1080p at high compression.
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  • Reply 29 of 77
    evilutionevilution Posts: 1,399member
    My Internet isn't quick enough to stream HD video, it struggles to do do 720.

    I also don't have enough data allowance to stream or download movies.



    I have films on blu-ray, I'd be a lot happier if I could copy those to my external hdd and stream them via wifi.



    Cmon Jobs, we don't all have the ability to stream or download HD movies.
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  • Reply 30 of 77
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


    I care.



    Where in the article did Apple say it was implementing it? There are merely testing it, and trying to get ideas. Are you implying that since most homes are not ready for it, that they shouldn't even bother?



    Can't seem to win no matter what.



    He didn't say or any of that or even imply it, he was talking about image quality and how it doesn't necessarily improve just because you add more pixels. He's wrong, but not for the reasons you say.



    The Apple encoding offers 1,500kbps for 480p, 4500kbps for 720p and 10,000kbps for 1080p. If we take audio out of the equation, which just muddies things, you'll find that for 480p, 720p and 1080p, there are the same number of kilobytes per pixel per frame - meaning the quality does actually scale with the picture size.



    Of course, this doesn't come even close to BluRay.
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  • Reply 31 of 77
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Another limitation on the utility of 1080p, not only do you need enough bandwidth to download it, and enough storage to hold it, you also need a big enough TV to justify it.
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  • Reply 32 of 77
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Does putting a Breaking News icon and changing the header to red an hour or more after you published the article make it more important?
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  • Reply 33 of 77
    haggarhaggar Posts: 1,568member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    On the other hand I really hate the blu-ray experience. I hate the unskippable crap, warnings, adverts etc.



    Streaming shows from major TV studio web sites are the same way. And Apple fans keep saying how great it will be for broadcast TV and DVR to be replaced by internet streaming. Ironically, one wonders why the entire TV industry hasn't gone to internet streaming sooner, given all the new ways they can control what viewers see and force more ads on everyone. Especially if their web page happens to mysteriously reload in the middle of playing a video, thereby forcing the viewer to watch all the unskippable stuff all over again.
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  • Reply 34 of 77
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    Streaming shows from major TV studio web sites are the same way. And Apple fans keep saying how great it will be for broadcast TV and DVR to be replaced by internet streaming. Ironically, one wonders why the entire TV industry hasn't gone to internet streaming sooner, given all the new ways they can control what viewers see and force more ads on everyone.



    I'm kinda assuming that this service would work in current iTunes fashion - you pay to buy or rent, but don't have to stream. Increasingly Fox is stuffing extranous crap onto iTunes but at least it puts most of the crap at the end of the show where it's only wasting my storage and not my time.
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  • Reply 35 of 77
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Does putting a Breaking News icon and changing the header to red an hour or more after you published the article make it more important?



    My working theory is that the guy with the power of the red flashy header is not the same as the guy who wrote the article, but I'll admit - it's a puzzler.
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  • Reply 36 of 77
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    People need to quit whining. If you have a crap internet connection, then too bad for you.



    Having more options is better, and if somebody wants to watch a movie in 1080p then they should be able to do so. If somebody doesn't want to or can't, then they can simply choose a lower rate.



    I'm looking forward to monitors that do more than 16:9, as that is insufficient for watching most movies. I would like a 2.35 :1 monitor at least. And I think that those kind of tv's and monitors will be coming in the future.
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  • Reply 37 of 77
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    Another limitation on the utility of 1080p, not only do you need enough bandwidth to download it, and enough storage to hold it, you also need a big enough TV to justify it.



    Not exactly true. I can easily tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on my monitor, and that's not a huge tv. I have a few different monitors, and I can even tell the difference between the two on the 21.5 " monitor.
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  • Reply 38 of 77
    dickprinterdickprinter Posts: 1,060member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Does putting a Breaking News icon and changing the header to red an hour or more after you published the article make it more important?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    My working theory is that the guy with the power of the red flashy header is not the same as the guy who wrote the article, but I'll admit - it's a puzzler.



    I was wondering the same thing. I read the story only minutes after being posted, only to come back a half hour later to see it highlighted.....with no update or anything additionally intriguing in the article.



    Kasper? Anyone?
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  • Reply 39 of 77
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Does putting a Breaking News icon and changing the header to red an hour or more after you published the article make it more important?



    I just had to LMAO...
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  • Reply 40 of 77
    dickprinterdickprinter Posts: 1,060member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dickprinter View Post


    I was wondering the same thing. I read the story only minutes after being posted, only to come back a half hour later to see it highlighted.....with no update or anything additionally intriguing in the article.



    Kasper? Anyone?



    Maybe I'll try to answer my own question. The article was quickly written and posted to get a jump on the competition while the writer or staff try to verify additional news that is coming in on the teletype.
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