No it won't. If downloads of lower quality are successful, why would they increase the quality?
Digital downloads were successful when Apple was pushing 320x240 music videos. YouTube is successful. SDTV was successful. DVD was successful. We always want more and better and companies will give the customer what they want if it means getting their business, but if there is no competition in your market then there is no reason for them to improve.
The iPod and iPhone can't play HD content so bundling an SD copy with it is a good practice. While buying an HD copy means you intend to view it on your AppleTV or in iTunes, people do watch content multiple times or the may need or want to transfer the content to their iDevice after watching it part way through in HD. The benefit here is that Apple thought ahead for once on this front.
I agree totally and how nice to be surprised by this. Whoever at Apple came up with this deserves accolades.
Precisely my point. The quality will not improve if the current level of compression is acceptable. Those who say "it'll get better" are just wrong.
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
Of course all technology improves eventually so I don't think that's what he means. And Apple will not be able to compete with BR- because of all the extras BR offers- so forget that. BTW Blu- ray should get a lot of traction this holiday when the players go below $300.
Apple really, REALLY needs to start looking at digital downloads direct to iPod Touch/iPhone from a kiosk. The whole bandwidth thing is an intractable problem for ALL providers of entertainment over "underperforming" lines. This is a problem that no one has been able to solve even with better compression.
I think the world should just stick to Blu-Ray for another 5-10 years utnil the internet actually allows for "HD" video that doesn't look worse than a DVD.
Apple really, REALLY needs to start looking at digital downloads direct to iPod Touch/iPhone from a kiosk. The whole bandwidth thing is an intractable problem for ALL providers of entertainment over "underperforming" lines. This is a problem that no one has been able to solve even with better compression.
I don't understand how this helps. Bandwidth is fine for SD downloads, HD is the problem.
I think the world should just stick to Blu-Ray for another 5-10 years utnil the internet actually allows for "HD" video that doesn't look worse than a DVD.
Its all pretty relative. The further you sit away from your HD television. The less you will even notice more detail in the image.
I think Blu-ray has 5 years at the most. Compression and bandwidth will both improve and will get to a point where the image is good enough for the convenience of downloading from your couch without depending on physical media.
Its all pretty relative. The further you sit away from your HD television. The less you will even notice more detail in the image.
This is true, and something a lot of people don't realize. But if you're sitting too far away to be able to tell that Apple's HD looks worse than an upconverted DVD, what are you paying the extra dollar for? Moreso, what'd you buy that fancy 1080p HDTV for
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
I think Blu-ray has 5 years at the most. Compression and bandwidth will both improve and will get to a point where the image is good enough for the convenience of downloading from your couch without depending on physical media.
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well? I think the instant gratification of downloads is offset by the time and money it takes to safeguard all of that diskless data. It'd be awfully upsetting to lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of movies and tv shows. If Apple kept track of your purchases and allowed you to redownload them in the event of data loss, this would of course become a non-issue.
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well? I think the instant gratification of downloads is offset by the time and money it takes to safeguard all of that diskless data. It'd be awfully upsetting to lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of movies and tv shows. If Apple kept track of your purchases and allowed you to redownload them in the event of data loss, this would of course become a non-issue.
There is an evidence to support Apple letting people re-download all lost media they've purchase at iTS. As for safeguarding it, digital media is more like an airplane disaster and optical media like a car wreck; optical media gets destroyed accidentally more often than digital and may only suffer a scratch, but when digital gets destroyed it's usually completely effaced. And we know people are more scared to fly than to ride in a car, yet they are more likely to die in a car crash. (even here we can't escape an analogy with a car)
As for your archiving, people have the same reservations about all the VHS media they accumulated. Same thing with cassette to CD. You can still keep your current physical libraries and have a digital one too. Oh, but make sure you properly backup your content
Speaking of, Apple needs their own RAIDed home server or RAIDed Time Capsule. Windows Home Server is pretty damn nice for an implementation of Windows. The fan on my HP Home Server is louder than I'd like, but beyond that I have no complaints.
This is true, and something a lot of people don't realize. But if you're sitting too far away to be able to tell that Apple's HD looks worse than an upconverted DVD, what are you paying the extra dollar for? Moreso, what'd you buy that fancy 1080p HDTV for
You say that as if its absolute fact. From what I've seen their can be some higher degree of artifacts and aliasing in iTunes downloads but not all the time.
Quote:
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well? I think the instant gratification of downloads is offset by the time and money it takes to safeguard all of that diskless data. It'd be awfully upsetting to lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of movies and tv shows. If Apple kept track of your purchases and allowed you to redownload them in the event of data loss, this would of course become a non-issue.
You are also able to burn iTunes media files to DVD if that makes you feel more secure.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
The engadget article point out an interesting fact. If it takes too long to download the video. It may be easier to go to Blcokbuster and watch the film before the download has even started.
And where would the second version show up, if I got both HD and SD? I only see the one listed in my Library.
Maybe "get info"? I see two downloads, though I would think that Apple would stack them or hide one in a way that it doesn't cause confusion where someone would delete a duplicate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory Bauer
I saw Apple had some Battlestar Galactica episodes in their HD section that weren't actually HD; that is what you got if it's resolution isn't 1280x720. 853x480 is the standard definition size for 16:9 anamorphic material.
Is it really that size? Does it say that with "get info"? Apple doesn't seem to show the res numbers on the store. It doesn't make sense to use that res and give it 3x the data rate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by caliminius
Except of course for the fact that HD content is generally bought for the purpose of actually watching it in HD. So bundling a SD copy may be a nice bonus, but really it seems a bit pointless (as does the Digital Copy being included with DVD's and Blu-Ray's).
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
The point of the SD version is to have the ability to watch your purchase on a portable device that cannot play HD.
Other than a notebook computer, I don't know of any portable device that can play an HD video.
I think it's a fine bonus, because of the above fact. Not only that, even if iPhone can play it, I don't want a file on it that's so much larger than it really needs to be that I'm storing 1+ GB of data on the device that would make no absolutely difference in how good it looks on the portable display. It's nice to have one purchase that covers a broad range of devices rather than one purchase that covers just a couple devices.
It's too bad that there is no consumer-accessible high quality wavelet codec, this would be unnecessary. To copy it to an iPod, all that would need to be would be to just copy certain chunks of the file.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
With Apple's introduction of TV series in HD, their HD catalog might be getting close enough in title count with Blu-Ray, and there's probably not so much authoring and up-front mastering cost as with Blu-Ray. Then there's the convenience factor, getting an episode shortly after it airs vs. waiting 6+ months for the BR set. So there's a chance that Apple can actually get some traction if they can maintain a certain level of quality, even if it's not going to be the same as BR.
So there's a chance that Apple can actually get some traction if they can maintain a certain level of quality, even if it's not going to be the same as BR.
If iTS's 128Kbps audio with DRM can trounce CDs with all the extras that come with it because of its overwhelming convenience, then I think that Apple and other online distributors have an excellent chance. Especially since DRM is now a part of both video formats.
The difference in quality is very, very apparent. GIzmodo is not blowing things out of proportion. An upconverted standard definition DVD looks better than what Apple passes off has HD. Gizmodo clearly state that there is noticeable pixelation, and even back their claims with photo proof.
The studies I've seen basically resulted in
1) BluRay (or HDDVD) are the best
2) AppleTV HD next best
3) HD mpeg4 next (on cable or satellite)
4) HD mpeg2 (via FTA or cable)
5) DVD
6) AppleTV SD
etc etc
That would agree with my experience too. I haven't used MS Xbox.
Also it's interesting that there are now proponents of a new compression scheme which deliberately downgrades the detail of fast moving scenes - to avoid pixelation and actually decrease the bandwidth of those scenes (in contrast to the regular increase in bandwidth). They focus their efforts on slow scenes where the viewer can actually see the quality.
.... This type of compression would be very bad by Gizmodo's tests (and the studies I've read) since they take fast moving scenes and pause them, analysing the quality frame by frame.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to see viewer reactions to various qualities. I know for me that regardless of compression 720p looks no different than 1080p - and 4Mbps 720p will be better quality than 6Mbps 1080p.
You are also able to burn iTunes media files to DVD if that makes you feel more secure.
Unless I'm mistaken, the only files you have been able to burn to physical media from iTunes are music files. Movies and TV shows have never been able to be burned to DVD, and I still haven't been able to find a workaround for it, either (though not for lack of trying )
Unless I'm mistaken, the only files you have been able to burn to physical media from iTunes are music files. Movies and TV shows have never been able to be burned to DVD, and I still haven't been able to find a workaround for it, either (though not for lack of trying )
It can be burned to DVD as a data file. It would not be burned as DVD-Video. I think it defeats the point of digital media, to not have to manage a bunch of discs. I'm a lot better at managing pressed DVDs than I am burned discs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
There is an evidence to support Apple letting people re-download all lost media they've purchase at iTS. As for safeguarding it, digital media is more like an airplane disaster and optical media like a car wreck; optical media gets destroyed accidentally more often than digital and may only suffer a scratch, but when digital gets destroyed it's usually completely effaced. And we know people are more scared to fly than to ride in a car, yet they are more likely to die in a car crash. (even here we can't escape an analogy with a car)
One problem I've had with my iTunes library is that occasionally files turn up missing, thankfully it was usually just a disposable podcast or a free sample download. A backup does not help me as a backup would copy the state of the existing library before I am aware that files are missing. I have no good way of maintaining an archive, too many files would be spread over too many discs.
Comments
No it won't. If downloads of lower quality are successful, why would they increase the quality?
Digital downloads were successful when Apple was pushing 320x240 music videos. YouTube is successful. SDTV was successful. DVD was successful. We always want more and better and companies will give the customer what they want if it means getting their business, but if there is no competition in your market then there is no reason for them to improve.
The iPod and iPhone can't play HD content so bundling an SD copy with it is a good practice. While buying an HD copy means you intend to view it on your AppleTV or in iTunes, people do watch content multiple times or the may need or want to transfer the content to their iDevice after watching it part way through in HD. The benefit here is that Apple thought ahead for once on this front.
I agree totally and how nice to be surprised by this. Whoever at Apple came up with this deserves accolades.
Precisely my point. The quality will not improve if the current level of compression is acceptable. Those who say "it'll get better" are just wrong.
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
Of course all technology improves eventually so I don't think that's what he means. And Apple will not be able to compete with BR- because of all the extras BR offers- so forget that. BTW Blu- ray should get a lot of traction this holiday when the players go below $300.
Blu- ray should get a lot of traction this holiday when the players go below $300.
I'll certainly be buying a couple for family this year. At least one will be as a PS3.
Apple really, REALLY needs to start looking at digital downloads direct to iPod Touch/iPhone from a kiosk. The whole bandwidth thing is an intractable problem for ALL providers of entertainment over "underperforming" lines. This is a problem that no one has been able to solve even with better compression.
I don't understand how this helps. Bandwidth is fine for SD downloads, HD is the problem.
I'll certainly be buying a couple for family this year. At least one will be as a PS3.
Check out the Sony BDP-S350 expected to drop to $299 by end of September. New small model- very fast start up.
I think the world should just stick to Blu-Ray for another 5-10 years utnil the internet actually allows for "HD" video that doesn't look worse than a DVD.
Its all pretty relative. The further you sit away from your HD television. The less you will even notice more detail in the image.
I think Blu-ray has 5 years at the most. Compression and bandwidth will both improve and will get to a point where the image is good enough for the convenience of downloading from your couch without depending on physical media.
Its all pretty relative. The further you sit away from your HD television. The less you will even notice more detail in the image.
This is true, and something a lot of people don't realize. But if you're sitting too far away to be able to tell that Apple's HD looks worse than an upconverted DVD, what are you paying the extra dollar for?
I think Blu-ray has 5 years at the most. Compression and bandwidth will both improve and will get to a point where the image is good enough for the convenience of downloading from your couch without depending on physical media.
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well?
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well?
There is an evidence to support Apple letting people re-download all lost media they've purchase at iTS. As for safeguarding it, digital media is more like an airplane disaster and optical media like a car wreck; optical media gets destroyed accidentally more often than digital and may only suffer a scratch, but when digital gets destroyed it's usually completely effaced. And we know people are more scared to fly than to ride in a car, yet they are more likely to die in a car crash. (even here we can't escape an analogy with a car)
As for your archiving, people have the same reservations about all the VHS media they accumulated. Same thing with cassette to CD. You can still keep your current physical libraries and have a digital one too. Oh, but make sure you properly backup your content
Speaking of, Apple needs their own RAIDed home server or RAIDed Time Capsule. Windows Home Server is pretty damn nice for an implementation of Windows. The fan on my HP Home Server is louder than I'd like, but beyond that I have no complaints.
This is true, and something a lot of people don't realize. But if you're sitting too far away to be able to tell that Apple's HD looks worse than an upconverted DVD, what are you paying the extra dollar for?
You say that as if its absolute fact. From what I've seen their can be some higher degree of artifacts and aliasing in iTunes downloads but not all the time.
Is Apple going to come to my house and safely archive 2TB worth of movie and television purchases for me, as well?
You are also able to burn iTunes media files to DVD if that makes you feel more secure.
News as of today shows Vudu doing that exact thing. I highly doubt the bitrate will match BR, but for the convenience it doesn't have to, but one thing is for certain it'll be better than iTS and if gains traction Apple will up their quality.
The engadget article point out an interesting fact. If it takes too long to download the video. It may be easier to go to Blcokbuster and watch the film before the download has even started.
And where would the second version show up, if I got both HD and SD? I only see the one listed in my Library.
Maybe "get info"? I see two downloads, though I would think that Apple would stack them or hide one in a way that it doesn't cause confusion where someone would delete a duplicate.
I saw Apple had some Battlestar Galactica episodes in their HD section that weren't actually HD; that is what you got if it's resolution isn't 1280x720. 853x480 is the standard definition size for 16:9 anamorphic material.
Is it really that size? Does it say that with "get info"? Apple doesn't seem to show the res numbers on the store. It doesn't make sense to use that res and give it 3x the data rate.
Except of course for the fact that HD content is generally bought for the purpose of actually watching it in HD. So bundling a SD copy may be a nice bonus, but really it seems a bit pointless (as does the Digital Copy being included with DVD's and Blu-Ray's).
The point of the SD version is to have the ability to watch your purchase on a portable device that cannot play HD.
Other than a notebook computer, I don't know of any portable device that can play an HD video.
I think it's a fine bonus, because of the above fact. Not only that, even if iPhone can play it, I don't want a file on it that's so much larger than it really needs to be that I'm storing 1+ GB of data on the device that would make no absolutely difference in how good it looks on the portable display. It's nice to have one purchase that covers a broad range of devices rather than one purchase that covers just a couple devices.
It's too bad that there is no consumer-accessible high quality wavelet codec, this would be unnecessary. To copy it to an iPod, all that would need to be would be to just copy certain chunks of the file.
You are saying that this is the best quality iTS will even have for video? If BR gets the traction Apple will have to respond. If Amazon or MS' video stores offer better quality to steal Apple's iTS customers Apple will respond in kind.
With Apple's introduction of TV series in HD, their HD catalog might be getting close enough in title count with Blu-Ray, and there's probably not so much authoring and up-front mastering cost as with Blu-Ray. Then there's the convenience factor, getting an episode shortly after it airs vs. waiting 6+ months for the BR set. So there's a chance that Apple can actually get some traction if they can maintain a certain level of quality, even if it's not going to be the same as BR.
So there's a chance that Apple can actually get some traction if they can maintain a certain level of quality, even if it's not going to be the same as BR.
If iTS's 128Kbps audio with DRM can trounce CDs with all the extras that come with it because of its overwhelming convenience, then I think that Apple and other online distributors have an excellent chance. Especially since DRM is now a part of both video formats.
The difference in quality is very, very apparent. GIzmodo is not blowing things out of proportion. An upconverted standard definition DVD looks better than what Apple passes off has HD. Gizmodo clearly state that there is noticeable pixelation, and even back their claims with photo proof.
The studies I've seen basically resulted in
1) BluRay (or HDDVD) are the best
2) AppleTV HD next best
3) HD mpeg4 next (on cable or satellite)
4) HD mpeg2 (via FTA or cable)
5) DVD
6) AppleTV SD
etc etc
That would agree with my experience too. I haven't used MS Xbox.
Also it's interesting that there are now proponents of a new compression scheme which deliberately downgrades the detail of fast moving scenes - to avoid pixelation and actually decrease the bandwidth of those scenes (in contrast to the regular increase in bandwidth). They focus their efforts on slow scenes where the viewer can actually see the quality.
.... This type of compression would be very bad by Gizmodo's tests (and the studies I've read) since they take fast moving scenes and pause them, analysing the quality frame by frame.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to see viewer reactions to various qualities. I know for me that regardless of compression 720p looks no different than 1080p - and 4Mbps 720p will be better quality than 6Mbps 1080p.
You are also able to burn iTunes media files to DVD if that makes you feel more secure.
Unless I'm mistaken, the only files you have been able to burn to physical media from iTunes are music files. Movies and TV shows have never been able to be burned to DVD, and I still haven't been able to find a workaround for it, either (though not for lack of trying
Unless I'm mistaken, the only files you have been able to burn to physical media from iTunes are music files. Movies and TV shows have never been able to be burned to DVD, and I still haven't been able to find a workaround for it, either (though not for lack of trying
It can be burned to DVD as a data file. It would not be burned as DVD-Video. I think it defeats the point of digital media, to not have to manage a bunch of discs. I'm a lot better at managing pressed DVDs than I am burned discs.
There is an evidence to support Apple letting people re-download all lost media they've purchase at iTS. As for safeguarding it, digital media is more like an airplane disaster and optical media like a car wreck; optical media gets destroyed accidentally more often than digital and may only suffer a scratch, but when digital gets destroyed it's usually completely effaced. And we know people are more scared to fly than to ride in a car, yet they are more likely to die in a car crash. (even here we can't escape an analogy with a car)
One problem I've had with my iTunes library is that occasionally files turn up missing, thankfully it was usually just a disposable podcast or a free sample download. A backup does not help me as a backup would copy the state of the existing library before I am aware that files are missing. I have no good way of maintaining an archive, too many files would be spread over too many discs.