New iPod Nano can play 720x400!

tkellytkelly
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Okay, I just added a video to iTunes, and synched it to my new ipod nano. Later did I try to watch it on my computer and noticed it was larger than the 640x480. It was actually 720x400.



Is this new or have video iPods always been able to do this, and I'm just out of it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    irelandireland Posts: 17,799member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tkelly View Post


    Okay, I just added a video to iTunes, and synched it to my new ipod nano. Later did I try to watch it on my computer and noticed it was larger than the 640x480. It was actually 720x400.



    Is this new or have video iPods always been able to do this, and I'm just out of it?



    As far as I know it's the 480 part that really counts. That's where people get the 480p thing. Your other video is actually 400.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    filburtfilburt Posts: 398member
    640x480 = 307,200 pixels

    720x400 = 288,000 pixels
  • Reply 3 of 6
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    So, your video is a torrent, right? 720x400 seems to be a popular compression res for file sharing, although I'm not sure why...... split the dif between 16:9 and 4:3?



    Anyway, I don't think this tells us anything about the upper limit of the iPod's playback-- it's just the size the file came down as.



    If the iPod can do 720x400, I'm willing to bet it can do 720x480 (DVD res), which is my bet for the soon to be announced iTunes Movie Store upgrade. Of course, they'll need to get the bit rate up to really match DVD quality, or get better at compressing, or something, to really match DVD quality. A lot to the current stuff on the iTunes store looks far worse than it should, even at the current res.



    I know a lot of people are convinced that Apple must immediately offer HD downloads, but given the tiny penetration of high def DVD players, I think most people are comfortable with with DVD quality for purchase and rental. Especially rental, come on Apple, give us movie rentals.



    720p will come, but probably not till later next year, at the earliest.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    galleygalley Posts: 971member
    Higher-resolution content, and better support for that content is coming soon. That's all I can say.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    scarpadscarpad Posts: 14member
    Apple did increase the Bit rates that the new IPODs support , encodes that did not work from My Apple TV now will play, so H264 3.0 can now go to 2.5 mipps and you can probably push the resolution past 640x480 a bit as long as it does'nt exceeed the pixel count. Now sure if 740x480 would be doable thou.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    ralphthemagicianralphthemagician Posts: 7member
    It's not a matter of pixel count, it's a matter of macroblocks. 720x480 will likely never be doable on iPods, as it is out of the macroblock range the iPod is capable of. iPod is capable of 1200 macroblocks, which is equal to the amount of macroblocks in 640x480. 720x400 is equal to 1125 macroblocks. 720x480 would be equal to 1350 macroblocks.



    That's fine too, because 720x480 isn't a resolution you'd actually want unless all your rips were anamorphic. A 720x480 DVD rip is actually extremely distorted unless it's anamorphic. That's why 720x400 is the standard for rips, because it allows for "full" DVD resolution without having to use anamorphic encoding.



    That is, while DVDs are technically 720x480, they are actually capable of filling a 16:9 space, which means their effective resolution is 854x480. That's full 16:9 DVD resolution. DVDs achieve this by using rectangular pixels that are longer than they are tall.
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