First Experience with iTunes TV Show

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 27
    just so you know, plasma's and lcd's don't do a great job at displaying analog signals. so, connecting your ipod to your plasma through the rca cables will definitely display a fairly poor signal. on a regular old CRT TV, in my experience, iTunes downloads will look great, as good, if not better, than an SD broadcast. but on a plasma or lcd, you really need a progressive signal going in. i have my mac mini connected to my LCD through DVI.. itunes downloads look pretty great.



    one thing i've noticed though.. i've downloaded two movies from iTunes. both looked okay, but almost a little blurry. kind of like a haze over the whole thing. one of them, which i owned on dvd, i converted for iPod myself.. same resolution and similar file size.. it looked much better.. better blacks and much sharper. it almost looked like the movie i downloaded from iTunes was taken from a lower res copy and then upped to 640x??. both were downloaded a while ago, when Disney was the only studio available. is it possible these were originally encoded at 320x?? and up-rezed before posted on iTunes, like some music videos were when iTunes first got converted to the higher res? in the end, i love the ease of movie downloads and the bookmarks, but i'm gonna wait to buy more until iTunes can offer me a higher or at least equal quality than what i can get ripping my own dvds with iPod compatibility.



    that said.. again, TV shows tend to look good, compared to broadcast. but i would say, the quality differs by studio/tv show.. i would definitely say the studios are doing there own encodes, rather than have apple do it. i think i'd prefer apple do all the encodes.. have a real standard in quality.



    and please.. 720p downloads... sooner, than later.
  • Reply 22 of 27
    Would you all say Plasmas handle standard-def better than LCDs? Less noticable pixelation, richer blacks, and so on...? My dad is looking into getting a HDTV this year.



    We need to find a TV shop that will let us bring a boatload of material to test: downloads, 720p trailers off Apple.com, DVDs, standard def satellite payTV... Ideally the Plasma/LCD should have composite, s-video, component, DVI, and HDMI inputs with HDCP support, etc. Hmmm



    On the DVR side, we're also looking into replacing my dad's old VCR. There's a hard disk recorder (Tivo-like) that is built-in to the satellite decoder that you can get now. Only composite and s-video outs. But I think quality and ease-of-use on that is stellar, because out here on the equator the only EPG (electronic program guide) is through the decoder, and I am *assuming* that because the decoder + DVR is in one unit, the MPEG2 stream coming off the satellite dish is directly recorded into the hard disk, that is, no transcoding... or worse, having it composite out to a DVR that then re-compresses to MPEG2. Ugly. Even if the DVR + decoder recompresses the MPEG2 off the satellite dish, at least that's just one step, rather than the composite-out composite-in, recompress MPEG2 which would be the case if we went with a standard DVR.



    Big question is 720p HDTV support. Free-to-air TV here is a write-off but in any case you get it on the satellite. 720p HDTV through satellite may come anywhere between 1 to 5 years, hard to predict. The satellite provider has a new sat. launched recently to handle more bandwidth. Then I wonder if we will have to then get a new satellite decoder + DVR unit to handle HDTV (720p is my target at this stage, forget about 1080p or 1080i)... Hmm...





    **Note: I am no longer in Australia

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  • Reply 23 of 27
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Quote:

    None of the specs and techno-jargon matter to the consumer. What matters, even to someone like me (kind of prosumer, I'd guess) is the best quality and the best convenience at the best price.



    What is acceptable to the general consumer is definitely on a sliding scale. MP3 is an awful audio format but is far more popular than the better formats.



    Recently some friends of mine were watching a bootleg DVD of a movie currently in theaters. The quality was horrendous. I couldn't stand to watch it. But they thought it was fine.
  • Reply 24 of 27
    idaveidave Posts: 1,283member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    What is acceptable to the general consumer is definitely on a sliding scale.



    Ain't it the truth. A friend of mine says he can't see the difference between standard analog TV and HDTV. So he says he never intends to buy into HDTV. I think he needs to visit the optometrist.
  • Reply 25 of 27
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iDave View Post


    Ain't it the truth. A friend of mine says he can't see the difference between standard analog TV and HDTV. So he says he never intends to buy into HDTV. I think he needs to visit the optometrist.



    ROFL
  • Reply 26 of 27
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    Recently some friends of mine were watching a bootleg DVD of a movie currently in theaters. The quality was horrendous. I couldn't stand to watch it. But they thought it was fine.



    It's all the rage in SouthEastAsia, though in the past 2 years the government has tried to clamp down hard on it. But the pirated DVD-movie trade goes on. Costs about the same as a movie ticket. Horrendous quality but a good cheap way to build up your collection and watch it again (?) maybe... but the cinema is still a more experential, social outing. Meh, I can't figure out this bloody world. \
  • Reply 27 of 27
    Obligatory: All Your Media Are Belong To BitTorrent. 8)
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