Picture Quaity of movies downloaded from ITunes
What sort of picture quality could I expect from movies downloaded from ITunes, and played on my fairly good plasma flat panel TV ? i.e., how would it compare with movies recorded on blu ray, or HD DVD disks ? I am going to upgrade from a G5 to an Intel Mac Pro in the near future, and if It turns out to be feasible to download lots of movies, then it would affect the amount of hard disk space I would need. Advice and info will be appreciated. HBJ7
Comments
Unfortunately, they don't look very good. The resolution and compression used on iTMS movie downloads don't hold up very well on a large fixed pixel displays.
And they definitely are going to look much, much worse compared to Blu Ray or HD DVD. They look slightly worse than a VHS recording.
Everyone expects Apple to start offering HD (or at least somewhat higher res, or bit rate, or both) downloads at some point, and no doubt they'll look quite a bit better. But I certainly wouldn't be purchasing iTMS movies for looking at on a big display, at this point.
I guess Apple is still looking at the shows working best with the iPod but they need to figure this out ASAP.
What's even worse is that I can download most of the same shows offered on iTunes from Xbox Live on my 360 in 720p or 1080i. If Microsoft can offer these shows in HD, why can't Apple?
1: They want to cram as many things into your harddrive (you know, like 128kbps AAC), so they keep the files as small as possible but still bearable
2: Like you said, putting it on the iPod would be senseless b/c that would take up much more room than necessary... hmm... what could Apple do? Download 2 versions of the movies every time you buy a movie and have one of them in HD and one in iPod-sized video?
I always thought that it would take a huge amount of time to download an HD movie, but I guess that isn't true since the Xbox360 and other things started offering HD movie downloads
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As odd as it may seem, don't judge by what you see in the store. Those Sony Bravia displays make the AppleTV/iTunes Movies look terrible. They look darn close to DVD on my 50" Hitachi 50VS810 LCD RPTV. Clearly your TV has a lot to do with it.
Unless you know someone that has the AppleTV you have to judge based on the store and the store displays are awful. As someone else said it looks worse than VHS. I certainly wouldn't buy one based on what I have seen so far.
Its not AppleTV that reduces the quality. Right now there isnt any HD content from iTunes so thats the bottleneck. Actually, it isnt just iTunes thats lacking HD content. HD content is hard to find and very expensive. it has a ways to go before it hits main stream. if you have an AppleTV i would buy standard (not HD) dvds and rip them into an AppleTV recognizable format. this will give you good quality movies NOW while you wait for HD content to really take off. The AppleTV is just a bit ahead of the game. They had to get the WorkHorse out before the Cart. HD content is the intention. But we just cant snap our fingers.
so, once again, its not AppleTV thats of poor quality. if you rip an HD dvd to an AppleTV recognizable format it would be stunning. its not the hardware its the capturing and source of the video file.
As of now, you can begin to download and start watching immediately on DSL. Any higher resolution, and that would be impossible. Apple understands that people want immediate gratification or else they wouldn't be looking to buy things online. Until FIOS or better is incredibly common, apple will likely stick with lower resolution formats for its immediate sales...
they dont look as bad as vhs. thats bs. the iTMS movies are just about as good as a dvd. not HD dvd but normal dvd.
That's demonstrably untrue. Other people on these boards have eyes, you know.
That's demonstrably untrue. Other people on these boards have eyes, you know.
It depends on what you download. I made my first iTunes purchases buying music videos for the AppleTV. Some were OK and others were not. A better test is Podcasts, there are some with really good video quality. Most, even the two year old stuff, is of a better quality that what Apple is providing.