Apple seeks user feedback on Apple TV

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Comments

  • Reply 141 of 180
    solsunsolsun Posts: 763member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Not true. Blu-ray is indeed compressed just at a lower ratio. Uncompressed HD would be roughly 375MBps depending on framerate and bitrate.



    Yes, you're right.. I was just making a simple explanation..
  • Reply 142 of 180
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html



    No survey but feedback form is still there. It is really poorly written and unsubstantial. Little is geared on it toward your files. It's all about iTunes purchases/rentals.

    I'm sure the survey was more of the same.



    Have commented to them several times on what I would like to see them do to improve aTV. Thought maybe they were taking that to heart with the survey and wanting more input. They need to make this more than a "hobby" and help us unlock its potential, without having to do a lot of hacks on our own.



    Thanks,
  • Reply 143 of 180
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solsun View Post


    Yes, you're right.. I was just making a simple explanation..



    Oh ok sorry about that. You know I think the sweet spot for 720p video is 720p24 or 720p60 at 8-10Mbps. I'm hoping that Apple does an "iTunes +" for video fans and bumps up beyond the 5mbps limit of today's content.
  • Reply 144 of 180
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solsun View Post


    It absolutely was... If nothing else, watch the first 3 minutes of that link..



    Steve Jobs clearly says " you can BUY all this great content from the iTunes store, movies, music, tv shows and you can PURCHASE and download it to your iPod and your computer" etc etc , "but what about that new big screen tv you bought last week?" now, "you can watch it on your big screen tv too."



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    You are free to use iTunes without ever buying or renting anything.



    Arguing with Teckstud is such a waste of forum space. You can't win against him. As soon you get him into a logical corner that he can't worm his way out of he'll just state that you misinterpreted what he meant. Ergo, you're still wrong.
  • Reply 145 of 180
    quinneyquinney Posts: 2,528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    ... why am I so limited?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Arguing with Teckstud is such a waste of forum space. You can't win against him. As soon you get him into a logical corner that he can't worm his way out of he'll just state that you misinterpreted what he meant. Ergo, you're still wrong.



    Leave him alone. He is having an existential crisis.
  • Reply 146 of 180
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    I don't have much faith in Blu-ray doing anything beneficial for consumers beyond taking more out of their wallet. The BD consortium hasn't made a peep about the ability to do "Managed Copies" which is exactly what you ask. A way to have a more flexible digital copy of a movie.



    So the real problem with the Apple TV is price and dealing with the shenanigans that studios cause willfully. IMO of course.



    Since you obviously don't own a Blu Ray player, then you have no clue. The 1080p picture is far superior than DVD quality, and blows away AppleTV.



    I don't know why anyone would rip a DVD by recompressing it to watch it on AppleTV with a picture quality that is less than the original DVD. What a waste of time.
  • Reply 147 of 180
    gigigigi Posts: 65member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solsun View Post


    You are right that it's "HD" from Apple TV, but your wrong in that it's the same as Blu-Ray..



    To put it simply, Apple TV HD is compressed 720p H.264 files, Blu-Ray is uncompressed 1080p files. Blu-Ray is definitely higher quality than ATV downloads.



    Sorry but Blue Ray is not an uncompress files. Blue Ray use the same H264 compression than the one use in Apple TV HD film



    The only difference is like you said, it's 720p or 1080i instead of 1080P but this do not cause artefact like some people say.



    In the meantime, I see some artefact on a blue ray film. The Blue Ray disc is not an assurance of a great quality. you can put a poor compress film on a Blue Ray disc. Blue Ray disc is just a higher capacity container and a chip that can decode an higher resolution
  • Reply 148 of 180
    gigigigi Posts: 65member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Since you obviously don't own a Blu Ray player, then you have no clue. The 1080p picture is far superior than DVD quality, and blows away AppleTV.



    Does anyone see the difference between 720P and 1080P?



    I compare both with Apple TV and a Blue Ray player with the same film and on my 58 inch samsung plasma, I did not see any difference, even if I check more closely to the TV.
  • Reply 149 of 180
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Since you obviously don't own a Blu Ray player, then you have no clue. The 1080p picture is far superior than DVD quality, and blows away AppleTV.



    I don't know why anyone would rip a DVD by recompressing it to watch it on AppleTV with a picture quality that is less than the original DVD. What a waste of time.



    Agreed. I'm going to rip my DVD but I'm not worried about compression. Any sort of transcoding is going to result in a poorer picture quality.



    1080p is in fact far superior to DVD. However I think it's less superior than 720p. There's certainly a law of diminishing scale here.



    Though picture quality is determined not only by what resolution and quality of source is playing but also by the display's ability to deliver the picture and our occular ability to perceive the clarity.



    1080p downloads would be nice but you need a big screen to really see the difference between 720 and 1080.
  • Reply 150 of 180
    After reading some of the posts, I think it is hilarious that Teckstud was so stupid he didn't know what AppleTV was designed to do, wasted his money on it, and then whines about it later instead of returning it. Of course he was dumb enough to buy the useless box in the first place!



    Teckstud hates everything about Apple so I don't know why he bothers buying their products. All he does is whine and complain.
  • Reply 151 of 180
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gigi View Post


    Does anyone see the difference between 720P and 1080P?



    I compare both with Apple TV and a Blue Ray player with the same film and on my 58 inch samsung plasma, I did not see any difference, even if I check more closely to the TV.



    I was able to spot the difference right away on my computer, using 720p and 1080p versions of the same trailer from Apple's Quicktime HD page, without looking closely. It was actually by accident, I didn't know that it was specifically 720p until I checked the file info, it just seemed a bit fuzzy.
  • Reply 152 of 180
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gigi View Post


    Does anyone see the difference between 720P and 1080P?



    I compare both with Apple TV and a Blue Ray player with the same film and on my 58 inch samsung plasma, I did not see any difference, even if I check more closely to the TV.



    gigi



    You're not the only one. 720p content looks damn good on a quality HDTV. Can a person tell a difference? Probably if they've got good eyes, HDTV and they know the material.



    I used to get caught up in the whole resolution spec whore syndrome and then I sat back and realized that that's silly.



    There will be a bigger difference in two LCD panels from different manufacturers than there will be in 720p and 1080p in many cases. In fact I wouldn't but my FIOS TV up against anything on iTunes because frankly it's crap and so is Comcast HD mostly. Artifact heaven on some channels.



    Seriously give me 720p and bump the ceiling to 8mbps and I doubt that the majority of consumers would really care about having anything more.



    The thing about compression is that over the lifetime of a codec the compressionist continue to get better and better. I can grab a recent DVD release like No Country For Old Men and it looks better at likely half the bitrate of my older DVDs. Compression will better results with less data over the CODEC life.
  • Reply 153 of 180
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Arguing with Teckstud is such a waste of forum space. You can't win against him. As soon you get him into a logical corner that he can't worm his way out of he'll just state that you misinterpreted what he meant. Ergo, you're still wrong.



    As stated by the only pretentious worm of AppleInsider himself.

    Nothing you writes pertains to AppleTV. Ergo, get lost.
  • Reply 154 of 180
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solsun View Post


    It absolutely was... If nothing else, watch the first 3 minutes of that link..



    Steve Jobs clearly says " you can BUY all this great content from the iTunes store, movies, music, tv shows and you can PURCHASE and download it to your iPod and your computer" etc etc , "but what about that new big screen tv you bought last week?" now, "you can watch it on your big screen tv too."



    Did Steve Jobs ever mention at the advent of AppleTV that buying or renting from the AppleTV itself was AppleTv's ultimate and fundamental intention?

    End of story.
  • Reply 155 of 180
    Does that have BluRay? It's gotta have BluRay mate...

    Oh, you, so creative and all that...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post






    Hopefully Apple are finally going to take the hint!



    This slot could be used to play users existing DVD collections, which is very important. It also gives people the opportunity to ditch their bulky DVD player and have a neater setup than they had prior to buying Apple TV. The last thing people want it *another* box under their TV. Apple then can add a subscription TV Show service so users can even ditch their cable/digital TV box from under their TV also. Apple then make a TV with this box and DVD drive built-in, and user could have *zero* boxes under their TV. If necessasary people can then plug in their super sound system, but that would be it!



    One more thing; widgets for weather, TV guide etc., and live sports and news as an optional extra.



    My job is done here



  • Reply 156 of 180
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I was able to spot the difference right away on my computer, using 720p and 1080p versions of the same trailer from Apple's Quicktime HD page, without looking closely. It was actually by accident, I didn't know that it was specifically 720p until I checked the file info, it just seemed a bit fuzzy.



    I think that too many are caught up in numbers. I personally do see a diference between 720p and 1080p. 720p to me has a more film-like quality while 1080p has a hyper computer reallty which I personally do not prefer.

    However, not all 720p nor HD is alike. Cable 720p is nowhere comparable to a Blu-ray 720p feed. IMHO.
  • Reply 157 of 180
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Does that have BluRay? It's gotta have BluRay mate...

    Oh, you, so creative and all that...



    Give us a slot Apple!

    Thank you Ireland.
  • Reply 158 of 180
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Some of us do understand the subtleties behind Apple's "recent" product developments, and the AppleTV has never followed their SOP. The very fact that they find a need to create a survey indicates they have not been listening already and are rudderless as to the direction of this product. This is atypical Apple behavior and it is a clear indicator (as I mentioned before) that they are splashing around in the water right now, and this will soon become de rigueur for the various divisions... there is no Steve Jobs/Saddam Hussein around to keep the insurgents in place.



    If they aren't taking surveys how should they be listening? By going to forums like this one? With the amount of disagreement here I can't imagine what the AppleTHING would end up looking like
  • Reply 159 of 180
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    I think that too many are caught up in numbers. I personally do see a diference between 720p and 1080p. 720p to me has a more film-like quality while 1080p has a hyper computer reallty which I personally do not prefer.

    However, not all 720p nor HD is alike. Cable 720p is nowhere comparable to a Blu-ray 720p feed. IMHO.



    I'd have to agree with you there...for the most part cable is no where near as good as BluRay - save maybe HDTheater, and even it still falls behind.
  • Reply 160 of 180
    I am glad they are doing the survey. I wish I could have gotten in on it.



    I have 2 ATV's that I stream to from my iMac. I have had them for about a year. I have come very close to replacing both of them recently.



    Things I am very happy with:



    Music - the ATV plays music very well. I like being able to use my tvs as external speakers for my IMac for whole house sound.



    Podcasts - are great. They are easily searchable and have provided me hours of entertainment.



    Pictures - are Ok I don't use it much since it is hard to move through the pictures with ease.



    Things I am not very happy with:



    The Gui - I never plan on buying or renting a movie/tv show from ITunes store, but there is no way for me to simplify the GUI so it is my shared - Music - Movies - TV Shows.



    Movie Format - I am insanely tired of converting all of my content to .mp4 .m4v. If I have to sit through another 6 hour Handbrake session I am going to lose it. Please just let me play my old .avi's .mkv's ISO's TS folders. (my old school xbox with XBMC never had a problem with most of that.)



    Other things I would like.



    1. Ability to skin/theme to my liking. ( I can't do it (easily) on my Leopard iMac so I think this might be a long shot.)

    2. It would be nice to view the Movies in Cover Flow or DVD wall format.

    3. I hope that some day they make 3 party apps a la iPhon?Touch. ( I would pay for the ability to watch Netflix - Hulu - Firefox - etc.)

    4. It would be nice to be able to stream from a NAS instead of leaving my Mac on 24/7 365.

    5. Bigger HD's (Wouldn't need this if I can stream from NAS.



    Just my .02.



    If it is just a hobby for Apple I am sure one of the other companies would appreciate my business. Maybe a decent Boxee branded STB is close.
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