Perhaps I should just buy a Mini and use FrontRow instead. No HD movie rentals then, but frankly I think standard DVDs upconverted look better than heavily compressed H.264 at 720p most of the time. I'll take lower resolution over visible artifacting any day.
I thought the same thing, too. But then I read (forget where) that the new FrontRow doesn't pass-through the 5.1 digital audio when playing DVDs. Apparently, the old FrontRow actually played DVDs in the DVD Player application, which has a preference for 5.1 output. The new FrontRow no longer relies on DVD Player, and apparently Apple didn't think to include that option. If it weren't for that, I'd have an Intel mini with optical out hooked up to my TV and I'd be copying video_ts folders to an external hard drive. Granted, you could just play it in the DVD Player app manually, but that defeats the purpose of the convenience of it!
So:
- AppleTV with 5.1 HD content for rent, but can't play what you already own (until Handbrake figures out way to easily make a 5.1 rip of my DVDs!)
- or -
- Mac mini to (inconveniently) play the DVDs you already own, but no HD rental
Come on Apple, you are sooooo close to getting me to spend money!
"Apple TV is essentially a low end Mac with a video card supporting 1280x800 resolution."
This is the first I've read anywhere the actual video card resolution limit. I always understood that video was limited to 720p. But nowhere, including Apple's own specs page, have I ever seen a max resolution for photos. So, I assumed the 720p limit was related to limits for decoding video, not a display resolution limit.
But from the above, it appears that AppleTV will not display my photos at 1920 x 1080 resolution, even though it now supports 1080p ouput. Is that correct???
When Apple first released AirTunes, it could only play to a single AirportExpress at a time. They later updated it so you could stream to multiple recievers simultaneously.
I read a post elsewhere that stated that you can not stream to both an AppleTV and Airport Express at the same time. Can you confirm this? I hope it's not the case as that would disrupt my music distribution system!
Sigh, Appleinsider has been sliding downhill ever since the RoughlyDrafted people invaded (or perhaps simply took over). If the constant links to RD in EVERY "review" and many articles weren't enough, the reviews hardly deserve that moniker.
I know this is a pro-Apple site but maybe a little objectivity is in order. The first page of the article basically sets up the defense for why the video content of iTunes Store is more than sufficient for the needs of people wanting HD content, and the final page sets up the eventual comparison in the second part of this review. I'm sure that "review" will be no less than glowing. I'm sure it will point at a flaw or too but in the end, the "review" will end finding that "AppleTV and the iTunes Store is a great way to get into HD."
The review can't even get the facts straight. Blu-Ray is NOT Sony's format. And HD DVD certainly isn't Microsoft's format at this article states.
And despite the author's claim that "consumers haven't been buying the new HD disc formats," 2007 revenue from HD disc formats was more than double that of downloads:
And the author is quick to dismiss the fact that the Apple is priced not that far off the price of a Blu-Ray player or the fact that every time you want to watch an HD movie via the AppleTV it will cost you $5 with no current way to ever own that film.
Again, I've stopped expecting objectivity from this site's reviews but maybe they could just the name to Roughly Drafted 2 or just merge the two sites and be done with it.
Remote Disc with a MacBook Air does not allow you to play video DVDs, so I don't think that would help with AppleTV.
I know I'll get laughed at for suggeting it (again) but Apple really need to add an optical drive. They've already got a DVD Player application and have whatever licensing they need for audio (might need an MPEG2 license); but for about $20 they could include the drive plus a few extra dollars (if that) for any additional licensing and then sell a new version of Apple TV for an additional $100 markup.
That extra $80 of profit would MORE than make up for any marginal decrease in iTunes Store sales, along with getting what I believe would be a much larger number of AppleTVs into homes. THAT should be their primary push right now. Not maximizing iTunes sales on day one.
That and the more practical argument that I have neither shelf space nor TV inputs for an AppleTV. Something's got to go. It will never replace either my cable box or my TiVo. That leaves the DVD player as the only candidate for replacement. And right now, AppleTV can not replace a DVD player.
One final argument... people can relate to a DVD player. They know what it does and how to use it. I think it would be a much easier sales pitch if you could say, "It'll play all your DVDs and all this other cools stuff it does." As opposed to, "It does a bunch of cools stuff you'll really like, but you've never done it before so just trust me."
Remote Disc with a MacBook Air does not allow you to play video DVDs, so I don't think that would help with AppleTV.
I know I'll get laughed at for suggeting it (again) but Apple really need to add an optical drive. They've already got a DVD Player application and have whatever licensing they need for audio (might need an MPEG2 license); but for about $20 they could include the drive plus a few extra dollars (if that) for any additional licensing and then sell a new version of Apple TV for an additional $100 markup.
That extra $80 of profit would MORE than make up for any marginal decrease in iTunes Store sales, along with getting what I believe would be a much larger number of AppleTVs into homes. THAT should be their primary push right now. Not maximizing iTunes sales on day one.
That and the more practical argument that I have neither shelf space nor TV inputs for an AppleTV. Something's got to go. It will never replace either my cable box or my TiVo. That leaves the DVD player as the only candidate for replacement. And right now, AppleTV can not replace a DVD player.
One final argument... people can relate to a DVD player. They know what it does and how to use it. I think it would be a much easier sales pitch if you could say, "It'll play all your DVDs and all this other cools stuff it does." As opposed to, "It does a bunch of cools stuff you'll really like, but you've never done it before so just trust me."
Not a blu-ray? ATV is HD after all and DVDs are on the decline. And it would play both.
Not a blu-ray? ATV is HD after all and DVDs are on the decline. And it would play both.
Sure, that would be ideal; but even I know the limits of reasonable expectations!
To me, the arguement for DVD is easy...to allow me to play the content I alreay own. Image how spectacularly UNsuccesful the iPod would have been if you weren't able to load your own CDs onto it! A DVD drive would allow me to get immediate use of my purchase with the content I already own.
Put in a blu-ray and mark the price up another $200, and I'll buy one tomorrow! But, as has been pointed out in the article, the current AppleTV's video card wouldn't be able to decode the 1080p video on a blu-ray disc. You'd also need additinal licensing, etc, etc. So it would be a bit more work to implement.
If you purchase a song from the iTunes Store on an AppleTV, can you get it back to the library on your Mac? I would assume so, but you never know with Apple and the studios lately.
This does work... I bought a song on the AppleTV and it was soon on my iMac upstairs. I think this is supposed to work for all files EXCEPT movies.
Sigh, Appleinsider has been sliding downhill ever since the RoughlyDrafted people invaded (or perhaps simply took over). If the constant links to RD in EVERY "review" and many articles weren't enough, the reviews hardly deserve that moniker.
I know this is a pro-Apple site but maybe a little objectivity is in order. The first page of the article basically sets up the defense for why the video content of iTunes Store is more than sufficient for the needs of people wanting HD content, and the final page sets up the eventual comparison in the second part of this review. I'm sure that "review" will be no less than glowing. I'm sure it will point at a flaw or too but in the end, the "review" will end finding that "AppleTV and the iTunes Store is a great way to get into HD."
The review can't even get the facts straight. Blu-Ray is NOT Sony's format. And HD DVD certainly isn't Microsoft's format at this article states.
And despite the author's claim that "consumers haven't been buying the new HD disc formats," 2007 revenue from HD disc formats was more than double that of downloads:
And the author is quick to dismiss the fact that the Apple is priced not that far off the price of a Blu-Ray player or the fact that every time you want to watch an HD movie via the AppleTV it will cost you $5 with no current way to ever own that film.
Again, I've stopped expecting objectivity from this site's reviews but maybe they could just the name to Roughly Drafted 2 or just merge the two sites and be done with it.
+1
Totally agree, unless Apple move to a (or compete with a) subscription model they will fall the way of practically every cable VOD service, interesting at first but ultimately not worth the cost.
Regarding the article I spotted several technical misstatements that appear to make the Apple TV sound better than it actually is. Rather lame and obviously an Apple sales pitch IMO.
Speaking of which- wouldn't it be cool if we could set the image directly on the ATV- can we?
You can on cable TV remotes and most DVD machines. I rather set this on the device than the TV for 4:3 programs.
The AppleTV plays video in its native ratio. If the video is 4x3, it is played in 4x3 with black bars on each side. The problem is that most TVs out of the box have been set to stretch 4x3 video onto their 16x9 displays.
When Apple first released AirTunes, it could only play to a single AirportExpress at a time. They later updated it so you could stream to multiple recievers simultaneously.
I read a post elsewhere that stated that you can not stream to both an AppleTV and Airport Express at the same time. Can you confirm this? I hope it's not the case as that would disrupt my music distribution system!
AirTunes will play on both your AppleTV and AirPort Express at the same time. I have successfully streamed a iTunes playlist to both my AppleTV and to my bedroom stereo.
"Apple TV is essentially a low end Mac with a video card supporting 1280x800 resolution."
This is the first I've read anywhere the actual video card resolution limit. I always understood that video was limited to 720p. But nowhere, including Apple's own specs page, have I ever seen a max resolution for photos. So, I assumed the 720p limit was related to limits for decoding video, not a display resolution limit.
But from the above, it appears that AppleTV will not display my photos at 1920 x 1080 resolution, even though it now supports 1080p ouput. Is that correct???
If so, very, very, sad.....
This does seem mighty strange, since the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 chip internal to the Apple TV
can easily do 1920x1200 external with the right drivers. Even ye olde (4 years ancient)
Mac PPC G5 tower that contains a stock NVIDIA 5200 did this.
If this is true, then it is by dint of Apple's software choice, not due to a limitation of the 7300 graphix.
If Apple is taking multimegabit photo resolution (a property of even the most primitive
digital camera), then pumping it all through the AppleTV MacOS system at one measly
megapixel, then fuzzily re-scaling this to 2 megapixel 1080p, this is more than very, very sad.
I guess they are trying to say that 1280x800 to an Apple TV-internal HDMI 1080p
hardware scaler is an improvement over 1280x800 to an HDTV scaler (doubtful, since
expensive HDTVs would use scaler chips at least as sophisticated), but they could just
use the internal NVIDIA 7300 GPU + software to get better results without that nonsense.
If the Appleinsider author is not just plain wrong, what is the technical justification
for Apple to go thru this byzantine procedure to downscale photos (and future
webpages, too) by ignoring the inherent NVIDIA GPU chip capabitlities?
So I was so excited for this update and ended up with huge disappointment.
There might be an issue with my update and I might need to repeat it although I don't know how to.... It appears that my ATV will freeze everyonce in awhile and the remote will not respond to any clicks, or will respond after 30 seconds. Also after pausing, it takes 10 secods sometimes for the media to start playing again. Anyone has the same issues?
I restrated several times and also run the diagnostic which tells me my ATV is working correctly... Why oh why Apple did not give us an option to have Genres for our collection of movies and tv shows is beyond me, It just lead me to think that Apple is no longer the company that strived to satisfy its users but rather make sure we all have an easy wat to spend $$ on renting or buying movies.
Hi - yes I have exactly the same problem, I was hoping that the update would cure that but it has not. I think it is an overheating issue, the unit is so well sealed there is no passage of air to cool it. I have tried relocating it in different areas, but no difference, was considering removing the rubber base and putting some stickers to raise it slightly.
Like you would be pleased to know if we are alone. I live in Singapore and the ambient temperature is usually 30 degrees celcius.. Is this the issue??
The AppleTV plays video in its native ratio. If the video is 4x3, it is played in 4x3 with black bars on each side. The problem is that most TVs out of the box have been set to stretch 4x3 video onto their 16x9 displays.
I understand that. I just wish I could manipulate the ATV's aspect ratio direct on the ATV like I can on my cable remote and DVD remote. I prefer to leave the TV at 16:9. Long 4:3 programs I like to stretch out on occasion. I prefer to set the TV once with 16:9 as the default and not change it again (don't like to have to use yet another remote).
Comments
Perhaps I should just buy a Mini and use FrontRow instead. No HD movie rentals then, but frankly I think standard DVDs upconverted look better than heavily compressed H.264 at 720p most of the time. I'll take lower resolution over visible artifacting any day.
I thought the same thing, too. But then I read (forget where) that the new FrontRow doesn't pass-through the 5.1 digital audio when playing DVDs. Apparently, the old FrontRow actually played DVDs in the DVD Player application, which has a preference for 5.1 output. The new FrontRow no longer relies on DVD Player, and apparently Apple didn't think to include that option. If it weren't for that, I'd have an Intel mini with optical out hooked up to my TV and I'd be copying video_ts folders to an external hard drive. Granted, you could just play it in the DVD Player app manually, but that defeats the purpose of the convenience of it!
So:
- AppleTV with 5.1 HD content for rent, but can't play what you already own (until Handbrake figures out way to easily make a 5.1 rip of my DVDs!)
- or -
- Mac mini to (inconveniently) play the DVDs you already own, but no HD rental
Come on Apple, you are sooooo close to getting me to spend money!
So:
- AppleTV with 5.1 HD content for rent, but can't play what you already own (until Handbrake figures out way to easily make a 5.1 rip of my DVDs!)
- or -
- Mac mini to (inconveniently) play the DVDs you already own, but no HD rental
Come on Apple, you are sooooo close to getting me to spend money!
With all of using it- shouldn't Handbrake be getting a cut?
This is the first I've read anywhere the actual video card resolution limit. I always understood that video was limited to 720p. But nowhere, including Apple's own specs page, have I ever seen a max resolution for photos. So, I assumed the 720p limit was related to limits for decoding video, not a display resolution limit.
But from the above, it appears that AppleTV will not display my photos at 1920 x 1080 resolution, even though it now supports 1080p ouput. Is that correct???
If so, very, very, sad.....
With all of using it- shouldn't Handbrake be getting a cut?
Using it? Who me? Why heavens no! That would be legally questionable!
I read a post elsewhere that stated that you can not stream to both an AppleTV and Airport Express at the same time. Can you confirm this? I hope it's not the case as that would disrupt my music distribution system!
I know this is a pro-Apple site but maybe a little objectivity is in order. The first page of the article basically sets up the defense for why the video content of iTunes Store is more than sufficient for the needs of people wanting HD content, and the final page sets up the eventual comparison in the second part of this review. I'm sure that "review" will be no less than glowing. I'm sure it will point at a flaw or too but in the end, the "review" will end finding that "AppleTV and the iTunes Store is a great way to get into HD."
The review can't even get the facts straight. Blu-Ray is NOT Sony's format. And HD DVD certainly isn't Microsoft's format at this article states.
And despite the author's claim that "consumers haven't been buying the new HD disc formats," 2007 revenue from HD disc formats was more than double that of downloads:
http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=164
And the author is quick to dismiss the fact that the Apple is priced not that far off the price of a Blu-Ray player or the fact that every time you want to watch an HD movie via the AppleTV it will cost you $5 with no current way to ever own that film.
Again, I've stopped expecting objectivity from this site's reviews but maybe they could just the name to Roughly Drafted 2 or just merge the two sites and be done with it.
Remote Disc needs to be added..
Remote Disc with a MacBook Air does not allow you to play video DVDs, so I don't think that would help with AppleTV.
I know I'll get laughed at for suggeting it (again) but Apple really need to add an optical drive. They've already got a DVD Player application and have whatever licensing they need for audio (might need an MPEG2 license); but for about $20 they could include the drive plus a few extra dollars (if that) for any additional licensing and then sell a new version of Apple TV for an additional $100 markup.
That extra $80 of profit would MORE than make up for any marginal decrease in iTunes Store sales, along with getting what I believe would be a much larger number of AppleTVs into homes. THAT should be their primary push right now. Not maximizing iTunes sales on day one.
That and the more practical argument that I have neither shelf space nor TV inputs for an AppleTV. Something's got to go. It will never replace either my cable box or my TiVo. That leaves the DVD player as the only candidate for replacement. And right now, AppleTV can not replace a DVD player.
One final argument... people can relate to a DVD player. They know what it does and how to use it. I think it would be a much easier sales pitch if you could say, "It'll play all your DVDs and all this other cools stuff it does." As opposed to, "It does a bunch of cools stuff you'll really like, but you've never done it before so just trust me."
Remote Disc with a MacBook Air does not allow you to play video DVDs, so I don't think that would help with AppleTV.
I know I'll get laughed at for suggeting it (again) but Apple really need to add an optical drive. They've already got a DVD Player application and have whatever licensing they need for audio (might need an MPEG2 license); but for about $20 they could include the drive plus a few extra dollars (if that) for any additional licensing and then sell a new version of Apple TV for an additional $100 markup.
That extra $80 of profit would MORE than make up for any marginal decrease in iTunes Store sales, along with getting what I believe would be a much larger number of AppleTVs into homes. THAT should be their primary push right now. Not maximizing iTunes sales on day one.
That and the more practical argument that I have neither shelf space nor TV inputs for an AppleTV. Something's got to go. It will never replace either my cable box or my TiVo. That leaves the DVD player as the only candidate for replacement. And right now, AppleTV can not replace a DVD player.
One final argument... people can relate to a DVD player. They know what it does and how to use it. I think it would be a much easier sales pitch if you could say, "It'll play all your DVDs and all this other cools stuff it does." As opposed to, "It does a bunch of cools stuff you'll really like, but you've never done it before so just trust me."
Not a blu-ray? ATV is HD after all and DVDs are on the decline. And it would play both.
Not a blu-ray? ATV is HD after all and DVDs are on the decline. And it would play both.
Sure, that would be ideal; but even I know the limits of reasonable expectations!
To me, the arguement for DVD is easy...to allow me to play the content I alreay own. Image how spectacularly UNsuccesful the iPod would have been if you weren't able to load your own CDs onto it! A DVD drive would allow me to get immediate use of my purchase with the content I already own.
Put in a blu-ray and mark the price up another $200, and I'll buy one tomorrow! But, as has been pointed out in the article, the current AppleTV's video card wouldn't be able to decode the 1080p video on a blu-ray disc. You'd also need additinal licensing, etc, etc. So it would be a bit more work to implement.
If you purchase a song from the iTunes Store on an AppleTV, can you get it back to the library on your Mac? I would assume so, but you never know with Apple and the studios lately.
This does work... I bought a song on the AppleTV and it was soon on my iMac upstairs. I think this is supposed to work for all files EXCEPT movies.
Sigh, Appleinsider has been sliding downhill ever since the RoughlyDrafted people invaded (or perhaps simply took over). If the constant links to RD in EVERY "review" and many articles weren't enough, the reviews hardly deserve that moniker.
I know this is a pro-Apple site but maybe a little objectivity is in order. The first page of the article basically sets up the defense for why the video content of iTunes Store is more than sufficient for the needs of people wanting HD content, and the final page sets up the eventual comparison in the second part of this review. I'm sure that "review" will be no less than glowing. I'm sure it will point at a flaw or too but in the end, the "review" will end finding that "AppleTV and the iTunes Store is a great way to get into HD."
The review can't even get the facts straight. Blu-Ray is NOT Sony's format. And HD DVD certainly isn't Microsoft's format at this article states.
And despite the author's claim that "consumers haven't been buying the new HD disc formats," 2007 revenue from HD disc formats was more than double that of downloads:
http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=164
And the author is quick to dismiss the fact that the Apple is priced not that far off the price of a Blu-Ray player or the fact that every time you want to watch an HD movie via the AppleTV it will cost you $5 with no current way to ever own that film.
Again, I've stopped expecting objectivity from this site's reviews but maybe they could just the name to Roughly Drafted 2 or just merge the two sites and be done with it.
+1
Totally agree, unless Apple move to a (or compete with a) subscription model they will fall the way of practically every cable VOD service, interesting at first but ultimately not worth the cost.
Regarding the article I spotted several technical misstatements that appear to make the Apple TV sound better than it actually is. Rather lame and obviously an Apple sales pitch IMO.
This does work... I bought a song on the AppleTV and it was soon on my iMac upstairs. I think this is supposed to work for all files EXCEPT movies.
It works for all purchased files, including movies, but not for rentals.
Speaking of which- wouldn't it be cool if we could set the image directly on the ATV- can we?
You can on cable TV remotes and most DVD machines. I rather set this on the device than the TV for 4:3 programs.
The AppleTV plays video in its native ratio. If the video is 4x3, it is played in 4x3 with black bars on each side. The problem is that most TVs out of the box have been set to stretch 4x3 video onto their 16x9 displays.
When Apple first released AirTunes, it could only play to a single AirportExpress at a time. They later updated it so you could stream to multiple recievers simultaneously.
I read a post elsewhere that stated that you can not stream to both an AppleTV and Airport Express at the same time. Can you confirm this? I hope it's not the case as that would disrupt my music distribution system!
AirTunes will play on both your AppleTV and AirPort Express at the same time. I have successfully streamed a iTunes playlist to both my AppleTV and to my bedroom stereo.
"Apple TV is essentially a low end Mac with a video card supporting 1280x800 resolution."
This is the first I've read anywhere the actual video card resolution limit. I always understood that video was limited to 720p. But nowhere, including Apple's own specs page, have I ever seen a max resolution for photos. So, I assumed the 720p limit was related to limits for decoding video, not a display resolution limit.
But from the above, it appears that AppleTV will not display my photos at 1920 x 1080 resolution, even though it now supports 1080p ouput. Is that correct???
If so, very, very, sad.....
This does seem mighty strange, since the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 chip internal to the Apple TV
can easily do 1920x1200 external with the right drivers. Even ye olde (4 years ancient)
Mac PPC G5 tower that contains a stock NVIDIA 5200 did this.
If this is true, then it is by dint of Apple's software choice, not due to a limitation of the 7300 graphix.
If Apple is taking multimegabit photo resolution (a property of even the most primitive
digital camera), then pumping it all through the AppleTV MacOS system at one measly
megapixel, then fuzzily re-scaling this to 2 megapixel 1080p, this is more than very, very sad.
I guess they are trying to say that 1280x800 to an Apple TV-internal HDMI 1080p
hardware scaler is an improvement over 1280x800 to an HDTV scaler (doubtful, since
expensive HDTVs would use scaler chips at least as sophisticated), but they could just
use the internal NVIDIA 7300 GPU + software to get better results without that nonsense.
If the Appleinsider author is not just plain wrong, what is the technical justification
for Apple to go thru this byzantine procedure to downscale photos (and future
webpages, too) by ignoring the inherent NVIDIA GPU chip capabitlities?
So I was so excited for this update and ended up with huge disappointment.
There might be an issue with my update and I might need to repeat it although I don't know how to.... It appears that my ATV will freeze everyonce in awhile and the remote will not respond to any clicks, or will respond after 30 seconds. Also after pausing, it takes 10 secods sometimes for the media to start playing again. Anyone has the same issues?
I restrated several times and also run the diagnostic which tells me my ATV is working correctly... Why oh why Apple did not give us an option to have Genres for our collection of movies and tv shows is beyond me, It just lead me to think that Apple is no longer the company that strived to satisfy its users but rather make sure we all have an easy wat to spend $$ on renting or buying movies.
Hi - yes I have exactly the same problem, I was hoping that the update would cure that but it has not. I think it is an overheating issue, the unit is so well sealed there is no passage of air to cool it. I have tried relocating it in different areas, but no difference, was considering removing the rubber base and putting some stickers to raise it slightly.
Like you would be pleased to know if we are alone. I live in Singapore and the ambient temperature is usually 30 degrees celcius.. Is this the issue??
Brgds/Tony
The AppleTV plays video in its native ratio. If the video is 4x3, it is played in 4x3 with black bars on each side. The problem is that most TVs out of the box have been set to stretch 4x3 video onto their 16x9 displays.
I understand that. I just wish I could manipulate the ATV's aspect ratio direct on the ATV like I can on my cable remote and DVD remote. I prefer to leave the TV at 16:9. Long 4:3 programs I like to stretch out on occasion. I prefer to set the TV once with 16:9 as the default and not change it again (don't like to have to use yet another remote).
... I prefer to leave the TV at 16:9. Long 4:3 programs I like to stretch out on occasion. ...
Ugh, the distortion drives me crazy.
Ugh, the distortion drives me crazy.
Me too.