Hmm, I've watched quite a few 640x480 TV shows purchased from iTunes on my iMac display, and I've always felt it looks fine. It's clearly not HD, and I can't say I've gotten up close to look at it, but I've never had a "yech" response like you describe addabox. And I believe the iMac display is higher resolution than that Sony 32".
Interesting you should mention this, as it is my experience as well.
I think part of the issue is the bigger screen. I don't know what size iMac you have, but it's definitely not 32". I've watched some iTMS TV shows and movies on my MBP, which is 15", and I find them to be "OK", but even then there's an element of reduced expectations after looking at stuff in the original iPod res, and there's something about looking at something you downloaded on your (relatively small) computer screen that sets you up for "good enough".
What struck me about the Apple Store set-up is that a big LCD television definitely puts one in mind of DVDs, so when the quality is well short of that it seems like something is wrong.
Maybe something like hearing "cheap boombox" (tinny, muddy, with what bass there is making a a vague froggy sound) level audio coming out of a demo of Airtunes/Airport Express hooked up to a good stereo. We can argue about whether cheap boombox sound is "good enough" in and of itself, but there would be a certain let-down if one heard that sound coming out of a nice stereo system.
In making the transition from computer to TV, I think it changes the expectations of what the video "should" look like. We've all seen a lot of really really terrible quality video on our computers. Our $2,000 flat screens? Not so much.
Yeah, unfortunately one would have to be 50 feet away to mistake what was showing at the Apple store to mistake that for HD or DVD quality.
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?
Worse, the in-store HD feed.
Which, it is interesting to note, looked hideous when they first started doing it, to the point that I was motivated to ask a sales guy why they thought putting butt ugly video on all their TVs was going to move product.
They subsequently got their act together and it looks fine now, so perhaps there is a lesson there.
Interesting you should mention this, as it is my experience as well.
I think part of the issue is the bigger screen. I don't know what size iMac you have, but it's definitely not 32". I've watched some iTMS TV shows and movies on my MBP, which is 15", and I find them to be "OK", but even then there's an element of reduced expectations after looking at stuff in the original iPod res, and there's something about looking at something you downloaded on your (relatively small) computer screen that sets you up for "good enough".
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?
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?
That question is actually why I started the thread. The point is, even though it will be nice when Apple starts offering HD downloads, what they are offering now shouldn't look that bad. With decent scaling and the right display, I know for a fact that 640x480, or even lower, can look what I would call "acceptable".
Which is why I keep coming back to the Sony monitors they're using in the stores. Which, if that is the source of the trouble, is both good news and bad: good, because it can look much better, but bad, because it means Apple is pointlessly degrading people's first impressions.
OTOH, if the scaling problem is at the iTunes/Atv end, there's really no excuse for that. Apple's been (rightly, in my book) criticized for the so-so quality of their software DVD decoding; I can't understand why a company like Apple, so heavily invested in video, video creation, and video distribution wouldn't put all necessary resources into having best of breed codecs.
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).
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.
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DVD looks a tad soft on my set, but not at all objectionable
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.
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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?
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.
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.
Ok, I'm posting from the Apple Store now. Couple of things:
The trailers look much better than film clips. If I had been shown the trailer of "300" I wouldn't have squawked either.
Anyone can check it out: go back and forth between the films and trailers, and the difference jumps out at you. The trailers are what I expected the movies to look like: "near DVD", with somewhat more compression artifacting. The films are slightly to somewhat worse than an average VHS recording, with the blocky scaling being somewhat more objectional than just low resolution.
The guy at the store is claiming that trailers stream at the same res as the movie downloads, but who knows if that's true? (Maybe someone could check it out).
He also said that most people looking at the movies immediately ask "Why is it so blurry?" which is just what I feared.
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.
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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.
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.
Perhaps filmmakers and telecine operators do, but film studios probably don't share their sentiments.
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.
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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.
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.
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The real question is whether iTunes movies are that much more convenient to overcome technical weaknesses. 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.
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.
.......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...
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I think that's most probably true (about the average set-up) but here's the thing: digital technology has changed the terms of the older "good set-up carefully adjusted top quality components expensive" vs. "average to crummy cheap indifferent components set-up".
Time was, there was a vast gulf between the performance of really good stuff and cheap stuff.
Now? The difference between that Costco display and that $90 DVD player and the big Panny plasma with a "reference" DVD player? Not so much. Sure, there's a difference, but the gap between joe sixpack's "hey, let's get us one of them big screen TVs" system and a "luxury" system has been drastically narrowed, in the era of high quality scaling on a cheap chip and broadly used raw panels going into multiple manufacturer's sets.
My point being that you are making an assumption about the discernment of people with cheap systems based on the fact that their systems are, well, cheap, reasoning that they must not care much about image quality if they are willing to buy their display at Costco-- but such a scenario doesn't take into account the fact that the Costco system is actually pretty good, and that price conscious consumers are fully capable of taking note of the fact that twice the price is adding a very modest improvement in perceived quality.
Which doesn't mean, of course, that the same consumers aren't capable of noticing a big drop-off in quality.
I'll warrant that if those Costco systems produced a picture like Apple TV showing iTMS movies, price conscious consumers would still be buying CRTs and good looking flat panels would still be the plaything of the very affluent.
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.
In the era of flat screen displays, though, the Sony's aren't that big. I've been saying 32", but from my last visit I'm thinking they might be 28". Either way, that's on the small side of current flat panel offerings.
Those sizes would have been quite big in CRT days, but the relative footprint and weight of flat panels have changed that perception.
And as far as average people not noticing, again, I asked the Apple guy point blank what the response had been and he said that pretty much everybody seemed a little concerned about the image quality.
Now granted: most people are probably looking at these things from pretty close up, much as they would look at the display of a computer. But, when you back off, you go from blocky digital artifacts to "blurry", much in the way of a second generation VHS dupe, so I'm not sure I buy the "back off far enough and all is well" argument.
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.
but the gap between joe sixpack's "hey, let's get us one of them big screen TVs"
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.
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 grew up in Alabama. "Those people" are my family, and that's how they talk.
"Joe Sixpack", on the other hand, is a widely used colloquialism for "average working guy", and not generally thought of as derogatory.
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?!
Geez, this is no surprise coming from people who have already been vocal detractors of ATV.
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.
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Hmm, I've watched quite a few 640x480 TV shows purchased from iTunes on my iMac display, and I've always felt it looks fine. It's clearly not HD, and I can't say I've gotten up close to look at it, but I've never had a "yech" response like you describe addabox. And I believe the iMac display is higher resolution than that Sony 32".
Interesting you should mention this, as it is my experience as well.
I think part of the issue is the bigger screen. I don't know what size iMac you have, but it's definitely not 32". I've watched some iTMS TV shows and movies on my MBP, which is 15", and I find them to be "OK", but even then there's an element of reduced expectations after looking at stuff in the original iPod res, and there's something about looking at something you downloaded on your (relatively small) computer screen that sets you up for "good enough".
What struck me about the Apple Store set-up is that a big LCD television definitely puts one in mind of DVDs, so when the quality is well short of that it seems like something is wrong.
Maybe something like hearing "cheap boombox" (tinny, muddy, with what bass there is making a a vague froggy sound) level audio coming out of a demo of Airtunes/Airport Express hooked up to a good stereo. We can argue about whether cheap boombox sound is "good enough" in and of itself, but there would be a certain let-down if one heard that sound coming out of a nice stereo system.
In making the transition from computer to TV, I think it changes the expectations of what the video "should" look like. We've all seen a lot of really really terrible quality video on our computers. Our $2,000 flat screens? Not so much.
Yeah, unfortunately one would have to be 50 feet away to mistake what was showing at the Apple store to mistake that for HD or DVD quality.
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?
Worse, the in-store HD feed.
Which, it is interesting to note, looked hideous when they first started doing it, to the point that I was motivated to ask a sales guy why they thought putting butt ugly video on all their TVs was going to move product.
They subsequently got their act together and it looks fine now, so perhaps there is a lesson there.
Interesting you should mention this, as it is my experience as well.
I think part of the issue is the bigger screen. I don't know what size iMac you have, but it's definitely not 32". I've watched some iTMS TV shows and movies on my MBP, which is 15", and I find them to be "OK", but even then there's an element of reduced expectations after looking at stuff in the original iPod res, and there's something about looking at something you downloaded on your (relatively small) computer screen that sets you up for "good enough".
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?
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?
That question is actually why I started the thread. The point is, even though it will be nice when Apple starts offering HD downloads, what they are offering now shouldn't look that bad. With decent scaling and the right display, I know for a fact that 640x480, or even lower, can look what I would call "acceptable".
Which is why I keep coming back to the Sony monitors they're using in the stores. Which, if that is the source of the trouble, is both good news and bad: good, because it can look much better, but bad, because it means Apple is pointlessly degrading people's first impressions.
OTOH, if the scaling problem is at the iTunes/Atv end, there's really no excuse for that. Apple's been (rightly, in my book) criticized for the so-so quality of their software DVD decoding; I can't understand why a company like Apple, so heavily invested in video, video creation, and video distribution wouldn't put all necessary resources into having best of breed codecs.
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).
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.
DVD looks a tad soft on my set, but not at all objectionable
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.
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?
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.
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.
The trailers look much better than film clips. If I had been shown the trailer of "300" I wouldn't have squawked either.
Anyone can check it out: go back and forth between the films and trailers, and the difference jumps out at you. The trailers are what I expected the movies to look like: "near DVD", with somewhat more compression artifacting. The films are slightly to somewhat worse than an average VHS recording, with the blocky scaling being somewhat more objectional than just low resolution.
The guy at the store is claiming that trailers stream at the same res as the movie downloads, but who knows if that's true? (Maybe someone could check it out).
He also said that most people looking at the movies immediately ask "Why is it so blurry?" which is just what I feared.
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.
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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.
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.
Perhaps filmmakers and telecine operators do, but film studios probably don't share their sentiments.
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.
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.
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.
The real question is whether iTunes movies are that much more convenient to overcome technical weaknesses. 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.
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.
.......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...
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I think that's most probably true (about the average set-up) but here's the thing: digital technology has changed the terms of the older "good set-up carefully adjusted top quality components expensive" vs. "average to crummy cheap indifferent components set-up".
Time was, there was a vast gulf between the performance of really good stuff and cheap stuff.
Now? The difference between that Costco display and that $90 DVD player and the big Panny plasma with a "reference" DVD player? Not so much. Sure, there's a difference, but the gap between joe sixpack's "hey, let's get us one of them big screen TVs" system and a "luxury" system has been drastically narrowed, in the era of high quality scaling on a cheap chip and broadly used raw panels going into multiple manufacturer's sets.
My point being that you are making an assumption about the discernment of people with cheap systems based on the fact that their systems are, well, cheap, reasoning that they must not care much about image quality if they are willing to buy their display at Costco-- but such a scenario doesn't take into account the fact that the Costco system is actually pretty good, and that price conscious consumers are fully capable of taking note of the fact that twice the price is adding a very modest improvement in perceived quality.
Which doesn't mean, of course, that the same consumers aren't capable of noticing a big drop-off in quality.
I'll warrant that if those Costco systems produced a picture like Apple TV showing iTMS movies, price conscious consumers would still be buying CRTs and good looking flat panels would still be the plaything of the very affluent.
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.
Those sizes would have been quite big in CRT days, but the relative footprint and weight of flat panels have changed that perception.
And as far as average people not noticing, again, I asked the Apple guy point blank what the response had been and he said that pretty much everybody seemed a little concerned about the image quality.
Now granted: most people are probably looking at these things from pretty close up, much as they would look at the display of a computer. But, when you back off, you go from blocky digital artifacts to "blurry", much in the way of a second generation VHS dupe, so I'm not sure I buy the "back off far enough and all is well" argument.
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.
but the gap between joe sixpack's "hey, let's get us one of them big screen TVs"
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.
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 grew up in Alabama. "Those people" are my family, and that's how they talk.
"Joe Sixpack", on the other hand, is a widely used colloquialism for "average working guy", and not generally thought of as derogatory.
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?!
Geez, this is no surprise coming from people who have already been vocal detractors of ATV.
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.
I grew up in Alabama. "Those people" are my family, and that's how they talk.
Oops.
"Joe Sixpack", on the other hand, is a widely used colloquialism for "average working guy", and not generally thought of as derogatory.
Did not know that.