Not exactly. The iTunes store really exists only as a means to fill up folks' iPods. By itself, its a break-even (or close) business. The idea is to sell hardware (iPods)- THAT'S what Apple makes its money off of.
So why not change that, and make a killing off of the iTunes store? Well, because Apple is reliant on others for most of its content (Disney-Pixar being the exception, buddy-buddy wise). If the big music or movie companies see Apple making a fat profit off of iTMS, they'll all want to open their own online stores, and would likely pull their product out of the iTunes store. Apple would lose control. Steve would HATE that.
Its also in Apple's interests to make downloads as cheap (and thus profit-less, for themselves, anyway) as possible. Cheap, legal content for your iPod gives a strong incentive to buy iPods. Yes, the majority of the kids will always pirate, but Gen X and the baby-boomers tend to be more legit on average. And they have the money to buy any iPod they want, even the high-end vid ones.
I'd disagree with that. I think BADLY THOUGHT OUT boycotts don't work, but the technique in general is sound.
I remember the boycott/divestment movement against South Africa for its apartheid policies worked pretty well back in the '80s... when I pulled my money out of Bank of America back then and told them why, they showed tremendous concern and fell all over themselves trying to get me back. They ultimately pulled a lot (not all) of their money out of that country, as did many businesses. South Africa eventually dismantled apartheid. Certainlly not due solely to boycotts/divestment, but it played a role.
Of course, that particular boycott had the advantage of being over a serious human rights issue, not over man's 'inalienable right' to cheap movie downloads.
If you want another example of boycotts or threatened boycotts working, think back to how tame all network programming got after the Janet Jackson 'equipment malfunction' brouhaha at the Super Bowl. Lots of good 'ol Christian folk threatening to boycott anyone who put on racy programming, and the FCC went right along by cracking the whip in terms of fines. The Victoria Secret specials even got cancelled, much to my chagrin. What did underwear ever do to anyone?
I won't argue that the apparent quality isn't close to DVD if you watch it on a standard TV. I actually agree that both would probably look the or very close on standard TV sets, because most standard TV sets are pretty bad. As people upgrade, then the difference is going to be a lot more apparent on a widescreen set, HD set or a computer.
I'd agree with that. I can tell you from experience that the new 640x480 downloads do look pretty good on a standard def TV, but on a computer screen... pure sheeite. Compression artifacts ALL OVER the place, and not just on black backgrounds. Very noticeable. Its like watching bad VHS.
Apple does need to do something here, at the least offering a higher-quality/less compressed version for an extra buck (TV shows) or two (movies). Video iPod watchers can take the low-quality version, computer screen watchers can take the high-quality.
but on a computer screen... pure sheeite.Compression artifacts ALL OVER the place, and not just on black backgrounds. Very noticeable. Its like watching bad VHS.
Computer screens have far more pixels than NTSC is intended to cover.
I've downloaded a few iTunes TV shows. At full screen on my computer monitor it looks basically the same as when I watch cable from my EyeTV Hybrid.
Quote:
Apple does need to do something here, at the least offering a higher-quality/less compressed version for an extra buck (TV shows) or two (movies).
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
For NTSC, anamorphic DVDs are stored as 720x480 pixels. However, the information in the pixels is not "square", it has been "squashed". To get the picture looking right, you have to stretch it out horizontally and display it at 852x480 with square pixels.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio. Otherwise even a 16x9 digital anamorphic movie is still being cropped of actual picture area.
Computer screens have far more pixels than NTSC is intended to cover.
I've downloaded a few iTunes TV shows. At full screen on my computer monitor it looks basically the same as when I watch cable from my EyeTV Hybrid.
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
The problem is that for something that costs almost as much as a DVD, I'd want something that's almost as good as a DVD all-around, not look like something I PVR'd. As it is, an iTunes movie is only a slightly better deal than a UMD.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio. Otherwise even a 16x9 digital anamorphic movie is still being cropped of actual picture area.
Original aspect ratio and anamorphic DVD are complementary, not mutually exclusive. You don't have to fill the entire image area, it still generally contains more image detail than a letterboxed version of a 4:3 image area.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio.
Theatrical aspect ratio is normally 1.85:1 or 2.4:1.
DVDs that contain the full picture still store the info at 720x480. The image is then stretched to 852x480 for a widescreen TV, and the picture will have black bars top and bottom. For a width of 852 pixels, a 1.85:1 picture has a height of 460.5 pixels (so black bars of 10 pixels top and bottom result). For a 2.4:1 picture, the height is 355 pixels (so black bars of 62 and 63 pixels).
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
Sorry, more like my 12" iBook screen, which is only 1024x768. And the video still looked bad even so.
Also, you might want to correct yourself to say "for standard def television". This stuff doesn't look good on HDTVs either, and that's a rapidly growing market.
I realize that the bandwidth required to give us good quality, HIGH DEF movies is scary, but that's where the market's heading, and that's the ultimate goal. In the meantime, Apple, can I please get some downloadable video that isn't quite so viciously compressed?
I'd prefer 'near DVD quality' to 'near VHS quality', if you don't mind. Yeesh.
The .50 per download margin could be right. I believe the $14.50 is the price for the $14.99 downloads. It's probably only $9.50 for the $9.99 downloads. (Note that Disney only had revenue of around $1M for around 125K downloads which is only $8 per download on average, though they could be rounding it off.)
Since Apple is aiming only to break even on content sales (given a certain volume), Apple is okay with giving the extra profit to the content owners/creators. I believe Apple is willing even to take a loss early on until the sales volumes increases to its breakeven threshold.
And this would be very smart, as it will make margins really small for anyone else entering this video download market. Unless they also have hardware sales like an iPod or "iTV", they will have a hard time staying in the business. The low projected ROI will cause only those with deep pockets or those whose businesses are being wiped out by it to enter.
Why can I say this? Because it's exactly what Apple has been doing with music downloads.
How about DVDs with just the movie, widescreen and fullscreen, with captions and language tracks? No extra feature crap that you only watch once, if at all! No more extraware. That's a way to reduce the price. And those DVD boxes... they are huge.
Ironically Apple may be simultaneously hurting demand for it's DVD Studio Pro software by making the DVD look like a dinosaur.
Actually, the movie downloads are not that far off of dvd quality. A widescreen dvd is 720x304. Apple is selling full screen version with a resolution of 640x480. I doubt you could tell much difference in the quality when played on a standard TV.
Glor
Can someone actually give us the *real* resolution of the widescreen movies? It ain't 640x480, it's either 640x268 for 2.39:1 wide, or 640x360 for 16:9 wide, or something a bit bigger than that? Like 720x300 for 2.39:1 wide, or 720x405 for 16:9 wide, or something like that?
Also, DVD resolutions are:
* PAL:
720 × 576 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 576 pixels MPEG-2
* NTSC:
720 × 480 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 480 pixels MPEG-2
Widescreen DVD images are stored either by encoding these approx. 4:3 ratio images with black bars in the input images, or smaller black bars in the input images and pumping more pixels as close to the full pixel resolution of the PAL or NTSC resolutions above via anamorphic encoding into 4:3 ratio images.
I'd want something that's almost as good as a DVD all-around, not look like something I PVR'd.
DVD is no example of great quality. Its an example of great compromise. From a movie's theatrical run, to its HD master, the DVD is about the worst quality format the movie will be on.
But because of DVD's advantages its good enough to satisfy the mass market.
Quote:
Apple, can I please get some downloadable video that isn't quite so viciously compressed?
DVD's and digital cable are also viscously compressed. At MPEG 2 on top of it. You just don't know what it looked like before to compare it to.
A 720x576 PAL DVD or 720x480 NTSC DVD overall gives 414,720 and 345,600 total pixels available. (Not all is used even in anamorphic encoding of DVDs).
Even if Apple iTunes Movies are something like 720x405 for 16:9 ratio films (apparently if cropped from the full widescreen 2.39:1 ratio of major films eg. Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2), that's 291,600 total pixels.
Near-DVD quality is what Apple can offer at this stage, near but not that close to DVD. Close enough to the uninformed consumer I guess. but discernible to the smarter consumer/ movie enthusiast.
iTunes movies are delivered as 640x360. They have worse sound (Dolby Pro Logic Vs. Dolby Digital and/or DTS) and the comparative level of compression is up for debate (DVDs have a higher bit-rate but use MPEG-2 rather than MPEG-4 AVC)
Can we confirm then that 640x360 means you are getting cropped versions, that is, 16:9 versions of movies that are 2.39:1 at the theatre? What bitrate as well? Can someone look into an actual movie file they bought and give us some specs of the file? Thanks
Agreed re: lower pixel count, lower number of sound channels, and debatable level of compression, vs DVD. All a moot point if you watch DVDs on a standard def TV and use iTV to output to a standard def TV 8)
You just don't know what it looked like before to compare it to.
So what? There probably won't be a consumer digital format available for quite some time that won't be "viciously compressed", so for most people, that particular type of comparison simply won't arise. That sort of statement does me as little good as telling me that Casio and no-name watches are so horrible compared to Rolex, when most people are never going to touch a Rolex anyway, I sure as hell won't for reasons that should be obvious. That still doesn't mean that the Casio isn't much better than the noname.
Comments
Not exactly. The iTunes store really exists only as a means to fill up folks' iPods. By itself, its a break-even (or close) business. The idea is to sell hardware (iPods)- THAT'S what Apple makes its money off of.
So why not change that, and make a killing off of the iTunes store? Well, because Apple is reliant on others for most of its content (Disney-Pixar being the exception, buddy-buddy wise). If the big music or movie companies see Apple making a fat profit off of iTMS, they'll all want to open their own online stores, and would likely pull their product out of the iTunes store. Apple would lose control. Steve would HATE that.
Its also in Apple's interests to make downloads as cheap (and thus profit-less, for themselves, anyway) as possible. Cheap, legal content for your iPod gives a strong incentive to buy iPods. Yes, the majority of the kids will always pirate, but Gen X and the baby-boomers tend to be more legit on average. And they have the money to buy any iPod they want, even the high-end vid ones.
.....
I'd disagree with that. I think BADLY THOUGHT OUT boycotts don't work, but the technique in general is sound.
I remember the boycott/divestment movement against South Africa for its apartheid policies worked pretty well back in the '80s... when I pulled my money out of Bank of America back then and told them why, they showed tremendous concern and fell all over themselves trying to get me back. They ultimately pulled a lot (not all) of their money out of that country, as did many businesses. South Africa eventually dismantled apartheid. Certainlly not due solely to boycotts/divestment, but it played a role.
Of course, that particular boycott had the advantage of being over a serious human rights issue, not over man's 'inalienable right' to cheap movie downloads.
If you want another example of boycotts or threatened boycotts working, think back to how tame all network programming got after the Janet Jackson 'equipment malfunction' brouhaha at the Super Bowl. Lots of good 'ol Christian folk threatening to boycott anyone who put on racy programming, and the FCC went right along by cracking the whip in terms of fines. The Victoria Secret specials even got cancelled, much to my chagrin. What did underwear ever do to anyone?
I won't argue that the apparent quality isn't close to DVD if you watch it on a standard TV. I actually agree that both would probably look the or very close on standard TV sets, because most standard TV sets are pretty bad. As people upgrade, then the difference is going to be a lot more apparent on a widescreen set, HD set or a computer.
I'd agree with that. I can tell you from experience that the new 640x480 downloads do look pretty good on a standard def TV, but on a computer screen... pure sheeite. Compression artifacts ALL OVER the place, and not just on black backgrounds. Very noticeable. Its like watching bad VHS.
Apple does need to do something here, at the least offering a higher-quality/less compressed version for an extra buck (TV shows) or two (movies). Video iPod watchers can take the low-quality version, computer screen watchers can take the high-quality.
.
but on a computer screen... pure sheeite.Compression artifacts ALL OVER the place, and not just on black backgrounds. Very noticeable. Its like watching bad VHS.
Computer screens have far more pixels than NTSC is intended to cover.
I've downloaded a few iTunes TV shows. At full screen on my computer monitor it looks basically the same as when I watch cable from my EyeTV Hybrid.
Apple does need to do something here, at the least offering a higher-quality/less compressed version for an extra buck (TV shows) or two (movies).
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
Geez, I bought like ~600 DVD's between 1998-2002, that's like 120/yr, at ~$20/ea, that's like ~12K. Never again.
Since then it's been, well you know what I mean? Rent!
The other alternatives aren't exactly legit, but you would think that the MPAA and RIAA would get a clue!
Greedy bastards!
For NTSC, anamorphic DVDs are stored as 720x480 pixels. However, the information in the pixels is not "square", it has been "squashed". To get the picture looking right, you have to stretch it out horizontally and display it at 852x480 with square pixels.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio. Otherwise even a 16x9 digital anamorphic movie is still being cropped of actual picture area.
Computer screens have far more pixels than NTSC is intended to cover.
I've downloaded a few iTunes TV shows. At full screen on my computer monitor it looks basically the same as when I watch cable from my EyeTV Hybrid.
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
The problem is that for something that costs almost as much as a DVD, I'd want something that's almost as good as a DVD all-around, not look like something I PVR'd. As it is, an iTunes movie is only a slightly better deal than a UMD.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio. Otherwise even a 16x9 digital anamorphic movie is still being cropped of actual picture area.
Original aspect ratio and anamorphic DVD are complementary, not mutually exclusive. You don't have to fill the entire image area, it still generally contains more image detail than a letterboxed version of a 4:3 image area.
I generally look for DVD's that play movies at their original theatrical aspect ratio.
Theatrical aspect ratio is normally 1.85:1 or 2.4:1.
DVDs that contain the full picture still store the info at 720x480. The image is then stretched to 852x480 for a widescreen TV, and the picture will have black bars top and bottom. For a width of 852 pixels, a 1.85:1 picture has a height of 460.5 pixels (so black bars of 10 pixels top and bottom result). For a 2.4:1 picture, the height is 355 pixels (so black bars of 62 and 63 pixels).
The intent of these movies is for iPod and television not to look good on your 1600x1050 computer monitor.
Sorry, more like my 12" iBook screen, which is only 1024x768. And the video still looked bad even so.
Also, you might want to correct yourself to say "for standard def television". This stuff doesn't look good on HDTVs either, and that's a rapidly growing market.
I realize that the bandwidth required to give us good quality, HIGH DEF movies is scary, but that's where the market's heading, and that's the ultimate goal. In the meantime, Apple, can I please get some downloadable video that isn't quite so viciously compressed?
I'd prefer 'near DVD quality' to 'near VHS quality', if you don't mind. Yeesh.
Since Apple is aiming only to break even on content sales (given a certain volume), Apple is okay with giving the extra profit to the content owners/creators. I believe Apple is willing even to take a loss early on until the sales volumes increases to its breakeven threshold.
And this would be very smart, as it will make margins really small for anyone else entering this video download market. Unless they also have hardware sales like an iPod or "iTV", they will have a hard time staying in the business. The low projected ROI will cause only those with deep pockets or those whose businesses are being wiped out by it to enter.
Why can I say this? Because it's exactly what Apple has been doing with music downloads.
How about DVDs with just the movie, widescreen and fullscreen, with captions and language tracks? No extra feature crap that you only watch once, if at all! No more extraware. That's a way to reduce the price. And those DVD boxes... they are huge.
Ironically Apple may be simultaneously hurting demand for it's DVD Studio Pro software by making the DVD look like a dinosaur.
Ironically Apple may be simultaneously hurting demand for it's DVD Studio Pro software by making the DVD look like a dinosaur.
For one, it's not sold separately anymore and for another, the iTunes service isn't offering a fraction of what the DVD versions offer.
Actually, the movie downloads are not that far off of dvd quality. A widescreen dvd is 720x304. Apple is selling full screen version with a resolution of 640x480. I doubt you could tell much difference in the quality when played on a standard TV.
Glor
Can someone actually give us the *real* resolution of the widescreen movies? It ain't 640x480, it's either 640x268 for 2.39:1 wide, or 640x360 for 16:9 wide, or something a bit bigger than that? Like 720x300 for 2.39:1 wide, or 720x405 for 16:9 wide, or something like that?
Also, DVD resolutions are:
* PAL:
720 × 576 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 576 pixels MPEG-2
* NTSC:
720 × 480 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 480 pixels MPEG-2
Widescreen DVD images are stored either by encoding these approx. 4:3 ratio images with black bars in the input images, or smaller black bars in the input images and pumping more pixels as close to the full pixel resolution of the PAL or NTSC resolutions above via anamorphic encoding into 4:3 ratio images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic
..............................................
..............................................
I'd want something that's almost as good as a DVD all-around, not look like something I PVR'd.
DVD is no example of great quality. Its an example of great compromise. From a movie's theatrical run, to its HD master, the DVD is about the worst quality format the movie will be on.
But because of DVD's advantages its good enough to satisfy the mass market.
Apple, can I please get some downloadable video that isn't quite so viciously compressed?
DVD's and digital cable are also viscously compressed. At MPEG 2 on top of it. You just don't know what it looked like before to compare it to.
Even if Apple iTunes Movies are something like 720x405 for 16:9 ratio films (apparently if cropped from the full widescreen 2.39:1 ratio of major films eg. Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2), that's 291,600 total pixels.
Near-DVD quality is what Apple can offer at this stage, near but not that close to DVD. Close enough to the uninformed consumer I guess. but discernible to the smarter consumer/ movie enthusiast.
iTunes movies are delivered as 640x360. They have worse sound (Dolby Pro Logic Vs. Dolby Digital and/or DTS) and the comparative level of compression is up for debate (DVDs have a higher bit-rate but use MPEG-2 rather than MPEG-4 AVC)
Can we confirm then that 640x360 means you are getting cropped versions, that is, 16:9 versions of movies that are 2.39:1 at the theatre? What bitrate as well? Can someone look into an actual movie file they bought and give us some specs of the file? Thanks
Agreed re: lower pixel count, lower number of sound channels, and debatable level of compression, vs DVD. All a moot point if you watch DVDs on a standard def TV and use iTV to output to a standard def TV 8)
You just don't know what it looked like before to compare it to.
So what? There probably won't be a consumer digital format available for quite some time that won't be "viciously compressed", so for most people, that particular type of comparison simply won't arise. That sort of statement does me as little good as telling me that Casio and no-name watches are so horrible compared to Rolex, when most people are never going to touch a Rolex anyway, I sure as hell won't for reasons that should be obvious. That still doesn't mean that the Casio isn't much better than the noname.