Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
Yea I'm more interested in the possible subscription TV model. I don't watch much TV but the shows I do watch I'm not usually around at the time they're on. It would be nice to be able to watch whatever show I wanted, when I wanted. (Without having to get expensive cable with a DVR service.)
Oh, and the shows would have to be HD, since now that I've gone HD I don't see myself going back.
Agreed. With the right subscription model I would cancel my cable subscription.
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
But Blu-ray is not an Apple invention and iTunesHD is- guess which one I will buy? Besides I earn iTunes points with my credit card purchases and then get $25 iTunes cards free for my iTunesHD purchases.
While true, that does not equate to an automatic win in the market.
For example, I like going to digital movies on large screens with the best sound systems. However, for convenience I go to the close theater with smaller screens and a film projector. I save the best theaters for well done Sci-fi movies. Is the digital theater vastly superior to the other theater I go to, yes, but it doesn’t get my business nearly as much as the other one.
Convenience tends to win, and I think internet-based media is a strong contender without being the highest quality option. That doesn’t mean that they won’t have Blu-ray in the home, too, but I think we’ll find a similar pattern with the way I watch movies being adopted to the home: saving the really cool visual stuff for Blu-ray.
the vast majority of countries still don't have any video content whatsoever available on iTunes Store. So, as much as I like the idea of a new software, maybe with subscriptions, I would much more love that Apple strikes deals to release video on iTunes Store. That, more than a US-centric set of new features, would increase the sales figures of the AppleTV dramatically.
I own an AppleTV and love it, but I cannot buy any content for it from my Swiss account. Which is really a pity, considering we, as basically the whole of Europe, don't have Netflix, Hulu and our satellite tv subscriptions are really expensive.
So there would be a lot less competition here... Of course Apple should sit down with Hollywood and make a deal. Which is impossible, given Hollywoods attitude toward digital distribution and their fears towards Apple.
AppleTV would sell like hotcakes here. And help sell Macs a lot!!
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
720P video
1280 * 720 = 921,600 bits per frame
921,600 * 24 frames per second = 22, 118,400 bits per second
22,118,400 / 8 = 2,764,800 MB
1080p video
1920 * 1080 = 2, 073,600 bits per frame
2,073,600 * 24 fps = 49,766,400
49,766,400 / 8 = 6,220,800 MB
There's no way around it...if you want 1080p you have to use a lot more data.
The million dollar question is, would you rather have a more lightly compressed 720p or a more heavily compressed 1080p in order to achieve more management file sizes? 1080p gives you bragging rights, but if that also bring with it macroblocking, color banding, smeared frames, and dropped audio (all of which I frequently see on overly compressed cable channels) then forget it. Give me a clean 720p over an artifact-laden 1080p any day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Foo2
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
Missing from you quality line-up is cable. From higest to lowest HD offerings, I'd say:
Blu-ray > ATSC (for some stations) > iTunes > cable (I don't have satalite, so not sure where that falls)
You can see a steady degradation of the quality of Comcast's service as they make more and more bandwidth available for internet access. And since cable is where most Americans get their TV service, even iTunes is an improvement. The question is, what will be considered "good enough"? SACD is an example of a higher quality format that wasn't deemed to be essential because CDs were good enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdaddyp
I can't stress enough how wonderful a mini is when it is setup properly as a htpc. And as a file server. And as a print server. And as back up for time machine. And...well you get the idea.
Other then loosing your gaming machine I think you won't regret it.
Even my wife who could care less about tech gear loves the way I have set up our mini.
+1 And the mini can play any QuickTime compatible format you can throw at it via FrontRow. Doesn't have to be in iTunes nor in AppleTV's restricted formats.
Thanks, that's what I suspected. Looks like the Apple TV 3.0 software (now that it is out) provides no hints at what the next revision of Apple TV could include.
The million dollar question is, would you rather have a more lightly compressed 720p or a more heavily compressed 1080p in order to achieve more management file sizes? 1080p gives you bragging rights, but if that also bring with it macroblocking, color banding, smeared frames, and dropped audio (all of which I frequently see on overly compressed cable channels) then forget it. Give me a clean 720p over an artifact-laden 1080p any day.
720p non starved. When bandwidth is an issue it almost always makes sense to go with 720p. In the same bandwidth that 1080p24 takes up you can do 720p/60 (great for sports) and it'll be more fluid.
I agree with Solipsism. Just because I like downloads doesn't mean that I dislike Blu-ray. Epic movies scream for the Blu-ray treatment. But if watching House or Dexter or Heroes I don't need 1080p. Well encoded 720p will do them fine.
I agree with Solipsism. Just because I like downloads doesn't mean that I dislike Blu-ray. Epic movies scream for the Blu-ray treatment. But if watching House or Dexter or Heroes I don't need 1080p. Well encoded 720p will do them fine.
On that note, I don?t even torrent missed shows that I missed if I can get it on Hulu. It?s only 480p with a poor overall framerate, but it?s convenient and immediate.
Didn't know hand break was for HD yet? Nice if it is thanks I will check . Having said that I am not ripping from DVDs I get sent digital media from family in UK. I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
Didn't know hand break was for HD yet? Nice if it is thanks I will check . Having said that I am not ripping from DVDs I get sent digital media from family in UK. I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
Handbrake can convert media files into 720/24 using the "Legacy AppleTV" preset (the standard AppleTV preset converts down to 480 for some reason). I would think that Visual Hub should be able to as well. Baring that, there are also various solutions using command-line tools such as mplayer/ffmpeg that should suit you.
I know you said you're not ripping from DVDs, but I would suspect that Handbrake could handle the ripping of Region 2/PAL DVDs into AppleTV compatible files. I know that, on the Windows side, DVDDecrypter can bypass region coding (although it uses some raw transfer mode that slows things down quite a bit).
another_steve. Yes yes yes. I forgot to state that I hope to the hardware move to 1080p playback with the explicit acknowledgement from Apple that there are no plans for iTunes HD movies to move to 1080p. This way I can play 1080p home created files or trailers in their full glory.
Okay, good. Then we're in agreement on the 1080p issue.
Quote:
The Blu-ray rips that you speak of have been recompressed. There's no way to take a Blu-ray video file running 15GB and 30+ Megabits per second and compress that down to 4GB without hammering the mbps and stripping audio channels.
I don't know if that's true or not. I suspect it's not true as I've sometimes seen these files in their native format (file extension) at the same size. Further, ripping a standard DVD to H.264 usually results in a 1GB file. Full HD has roughly 6x the pixel count, so that's a bit less than what you describe. Also, just because a format has a maximum bit rate and can store many GB for a movie, doesn't mean they do. But, to be fair, I haven't done a comparison of actual Blu-ray disks to make that comparison.
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
Quote:
720P video
1280 * 720 = 921,600 bits per frame
921,600 * 24 frames per second = 22, 118,400 bits per second
22,118,400 / 8 = 2,764,800 MB
1080p video
1920 * 1080 = 2, 073,600 bits per frame
2,073,600 * 24 fps = 49,766,400
49,766,400 / 8 = 6,220,800 MB
There's no way around it...if you want 1080p you have to use a lot more data.
Well, I certainly agree with the notion that 1080p requires more data. The question is how much is necessary? Not to be pedantic, but there are two things wrong with your analysis. Since you went to the trouble of "doing the math" in order to prove your case, I'll agree that your math is correct (not that I checked), but your assumptions are not. First, your "bits per frame" erroneously makes the assumption that each pixel only requires 1 bit. Second, every frame isn't compressed in its entirety. H.264 does use reference frames, but then it uses techniques like inter-picture prediction to essentially only encode the changes between frames, etc. Likewise, the size of a file needed to display an h.264 encoded movie does not necessarily fall into a simple math equation.
In any case, the bigger issue here is that we all agree that 1080p support is strongly desired and that iTunes support for this feature is a completely independent issue.
Update: It looks like this is all a moot point as Apple has just released their AppleTV 3.0 software, but no new hardware. Apparently, this is still just a hobby for them. This is sad. I may have to invest in a product from someone else to meet my needs apparently.
I don't know if that's true or not. I suspect it's not true as I've sometimes seen these files in their native format (file extension) at the same size. Further, ripping a standard DVD to H.264 usually results in a 1GB file. Full HD has roughly 6x the pixel count, so that's a bit less than what you describe. Also, just because a format has a maximum bit rate and can store many GB for a movie, doesn't mean they do. But, to be fair, I haven't done a comparison of actual Blu-ray disks to make that comparison.
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
Well, I certainly agree with the notion that 1080p requires more data. The question is how much is necessary? Not to be pedantic, but there are two things wrong with your analysis. Since you went to the trouble of "doing the math" in order to prove your case, I'll agree that your math is correct (not that I checked), but your assumptions are not. First, your "bits per frame" erroneously makes the assumption that each pixel only requires 1 bit. Second, every frame isn't compressed in its entirety. H.264 does use reference frames, but then it uses techniques like inter-picture prediction to essentially only encode the changes between frames, etc. Likewise, the size of a file needed to display an h.264 encoded movie does not necessarily fall into a simple math equation.
In any case, the bigger issue here is that we all agree that 1080p support is strongly desired and that iTunes support for this feature is a completely independent issue.
Well you have different options for ripping movies. Products like RipIt will only extract the actual video content and frameworks leaving the end result the same size as the disc. Other products will do DVD ripping with compression. Since Blu-ray is the paragon of consumer HD playback it would seem a bit antithetical to recompress the video which will undoubtedly lose he quality that Blu-ray can potentially offer.
I have a bunch of HD DVD and Blu-ray files and the video files themselves tend to avg 12-20GB.
One thing about my numbers is that they refrence uncompressed numbers. We don't have a viable optical format that could deliver those numbers without a judicious amount of compression. Once we delve into the "black art" of compression the tools of the trade and the artisan factor into the final product. There used to be a guy that hung out on AVS Forums who did compression for Warner Bros and he was, of course, very knowledgable about advancements in compression technology and the technical aspects of it. Ben Waggoner is another guy with excellent experience in compression tech. I don't claim to know more than these guys have forgotten about compression but with the codec as the equalizer it's hard to deliver 1080p video of a production that is equal or superior to 720p in quality without a 2x jump in size.
i gave my ATV to my mom, who doesn't use it, either... I still think a nice MacMini is better because it can do 1080p.. but there is more to HD than just resolution... that's the part that easiest to see... but compare the bit-rates of ATV 720p or Cable/SAT HD to blu-ray, and you'll see a big difference. Plus, Blu-ray offers lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD) that no download service offers because the entire file is heavily compressed...
One day, we might get to a point where downloadable is as good as blu-ray, but it might not be in my lifetime.. and I am just a mere 36 years old.
I do agree that convenience wins out because people are lazy.
I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
I played a bit with my parents AppleTV when they first got it.
You're right that US material (24fps) on PAL settings (25/50) has a tiny stutter, as does the opposite (25fps on a 60 NTSC set). I remember wishing the AppleTV could switch between 50 & 60 depending on the source.
In the end, I just had to decide which source material they were more likely to have and use that setting. I played with getting VisualHub to change the frame rate and it didn't look good (VisualHub does a good job of converting material, pity it was discontinued... I hear EVOM does a similar job now).
Note also that although AppleTV specs say 720p24 is the biggest size (US movies), it works fine on 720p25 (European movies & HDTV)
Comments
How much is that?
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
Thanks Foo2!
Yea I'm more interested in the possible subscription TV model. I don't watch much TV but the shows I do watch I'm not usually around at the time they're on. It would be nice to be able to watch whatever show I wanted, when I wanted. (Without having to get expensive cable with a DVR service.)
Oh, and the shows would have to be HD, since now that I've gone HD I don't see myself going back.
Agreed. With the right subscription model I would cancel my cable subscription.
How much is that?
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
But Blu-ray is not an Apple invention and iTunesHD is- guess which one I will buy? Besides I earn iTunes points with my credit card purchases and then get $25 iTunes cards free for my iTunesHD purchases.
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD.
While true, that does not equate to an automatic win in the market.
For example, I like going to digital movies on large screens with the best sound systems. However, for convenience I go to the close theater with smaller screens and a film projector. I save the best theaters for well done Sci-fi movies. Is the digital theater vastly superior to the other theater I go to, yes, but it doesn’t get my business nearly as much as the other one.
Convenience tends to win, and I think internet-based media is a strong contender without being the highest quality option. That doesn’t mean that they won’t have Blu-ray in the home, too, but I think we’ll find a similar pattern with the way I watch movies being adopted to the home: saving the really cool visual stuff for Blu-ray.
http://www.apple.com/appletv/whats-on/movies.html
I own an AppleTV and love it, but I cannot buy any content for it from my Swiss account. Which is really a pity, considering we, as basically the whole of Europe, don't have Netflix, Hulu and our satellite tv subscriptions are really expensive.
So there would be a lot less competition here... Of course Apple should sit down with Hollywood and make a deal. Which is impossible, given Hollywoods attitude toward digital distribution and their fears towards Apple.
AppleTV would sell like hotcakes here. And help sell Macs a lot!!
AppleTV would sell like hotcakes here.
That top of the current AppleTV can cook hotcakes.
A redesigned AppleTV?
image: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9...91029at158.png
1) It’s referring to the UI, not the HW.
2) For huge images please crop the images or just post a link to the image.
edit: I guess you were saying that the AppleTV 3.0 update is out.
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
720P video
1280 * 720 = 921,600 bits per frame
921,600 * 24 frames per second = 22, 118,400 bits per second
22,118,400 / 8 = 2,764,800 MB
1080p video
1920 * 1080 = 2, 073,600 bits per frame
2,073,600 * 24 fps = 49,766,400
49,766,400 / 8 = 6,220,800 MB
There's no way around it...if you want 1080p you have to use a lot more data.
The million dollar question is, would you rather have a more lightly compressed 720p or a more heavily compressed 1080p in order to achieve more management file sizes? 1080p gives you bragging rights, but if that also bring with it macroblocking, color banding, smeared frames, and dropped audio (all of which I frequently see on overly compressed cable channels) then forget it. Give me a clean 720p over an artifact-laden 1080p any day.
Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to iTunes HD. Blu-ray is quite a bit better than ATSC HD, especially if the viewer is sitting near the display - as is the norm with a computer monitor - or during action sequences where compression artifacts look lousy.
Missing from you quality line-up is cable. From higest to lowest HD offerings, I'd say:
Blu-ray > ATSC (for some stations) > iTunes > cable (I don't have satalite, so not sure where that falls)
You can see a steady degradation of the quality of Comcast's service as they make more and more bandwidth available for internet access. And since cable is where most Americans get their TV service, even iTunes is an improvement. The question is, what will be considered "good enough"? SACD is an example of a higher quality format that wasn't deemed to be essential because CDs were good enough.
I can't stress enough how wonderful a mini is when it is setup properly as a htpc. And as a file server. And as a print server. And as back up for time machine. And...well you get the idea.
Other then loosing your gaming machine I think you won't regret it.
Even my wife who could care less about tech gear loves the way I have set up our mini.
+1 And the mini can play any QuickTime compatible format you can throw at it via FrontRow. Doesn't have to be in iTunes nor in AppleTV's restricted formats.
Much worse than the Wii.
Thanks, that's what I suspected. Looks like the Apple TV 3.0 software (now that it is out) provides no hints at what the next revision of Apple TV could include.
2) For huge images please crop the images or just post a link to the image.
My bad:
The million dollar question is, would you rather have a more lightly compressed 720p or a more heavily compressed 1080p in order to achieve more management file sizes? 1080p gives you bragging rights, but if that also bring with it macroblocking, color banding, smeared frames, and dropped audio (all of which I frequently see on overly compressed cable channels) then forget it. Give me a clean 720p over an artifact-laden 1080p any day.
720p non starved. When bandwidth is an issue it almost always makes sense to go with 720p. In the same bandwidth that 1080p24 takes up you can do 720p/60 (great for sports) and it'll be more fluid.
I agree with Solipsism. Just because I like downloads doesn't mean that I dislike Blu-ray. Epic movies scream for the Blu-ray treatment. But if watching House or Dexter or Heroes I don't need 1080p. Well encoded 720p will do them fine.
I agree with Solipsism. Just because I like downloads doesn't mean that I dislike Blu-ray. Epic movies scream for the Blu-ray treatment. But if watching House or Dexter or Heroes I don't need 1080p. Well encoded 720p will do them fine.
On that note, I don?t even torrent missed shows that I missed if I can get it on Hulu. It?s only 480p with a poor overall framerate, but it?s convenient and immediate.
May not work, but try converting files to mp4 using either or both of the following:
HandBrake
VLC
Let me know what your results are.
Good Luck[/QUOTE
Didn't know hand break was for HD yet? Nice if it is thanks I will check . Having said that I am not ripping from DVDs I get sent digital media from family in UK. I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
Didn't know hand break was for HD yet? Nice if it is thanks I will check . Having said that I am not ripping from DVDs I get sent digital media from family in UK. I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
Handbrake can convert media files into 720/24 using the "Legacy AppleTV" preset (the standard AppleTV preset converts down to 480 for some reason). I would think that Visual Hub should be able to as well. Baring that, there are also various solutions using command-line tools such as mplayer/ffmpeg that should suit you.
I know you said you're not ripping from DVDs, but I would suspect that Handbrake could handle the ripping of Region 2/PAL DVDs into AppleTV compatible files. I know that, on the Windows side, DVDDecrypter can bypass region coding (although it uses some raw transfer mode that slows things down quite a bit).
another_steve. Yes yes yes. I forgot to state that I hope to the hardware move to 1080p playback with the explicit acknowledgement from Apple that there are no plans for iTunes HD movies to move to 1080p. This way I can play 1080p home created files or trailers in their full glory.
Okay, good. Then we're in agreement on the 1080p issue.
The Blu-ray rips that you speak of have been recompressed. There's no way to take a Blu-ray video file running 15GB and 30+ Megabits per second and compress that down to 4GB without hammering the mbps and stripping audio channels.
I don't know if that's true or not. I suspect it's not true as I've sometimes seen these files in their native format (file extension) at the same size. Further, ripping a standard DVD to H.264 usually results in a 1GB file. Full HD has roughly 6x the pixel count, so that's a bit less than what you describe. Also, just because a format has a maximum bit rate and can store many GB for a movie, doesn't mean they do. But, to be fair, I haven't done a comparison of actual Blu-ray disks to make that comparison.
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
720P video
1280 * 720 = 921,600 bits per frame
921,600 * 24 frames per second = 22, 118,400 bits per second
22,118,400 / 8 = 2,764,800 MB
1080p video
1920 * 1080 = 2, 073,600 bits per frame
2,073,600 * 24 fps = 49,766,400
49,766,400 / 8 = 6,220,800 MB
There's no way around it...if you want 1080p you have to use a lot more data.
Well, I certainly agree with the notion that 1080p requires more data. The question is how much is necessary? Not to be pedantic, but there are two things wrong with your analysis. Since you went to the trouble of "doing the math" in order to prove your case, I'll agree that your math is correct (not that I checked), but your assumptions are not. First, your "bits per frame" erroneously makes the assumption that each pixel only requires 1 bit. Second, every frame isn't compressed in its entirety. H.264 does use reference frames, but then it uses techniques like inter-picture prediction to essentially only encode the changes between frames, etc. Likewise, the size of a file needed to display an h.264 encoded movie does not necessarily fall into a simple math equation.
In any case, the bigger issue here is that we all agree that 1080p support is strongly desired and that iTunes support for this feature is a completely independent issue.
Update: It looks like this is all a moot point as Apple has just released their AppleTV 3.0 software, but no new hardware. Apparently, this is still just a hobby for them. This is sad. I may have to invest in a product from someone else to meet my needs apparently.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1435...appletv_3.html
I don't know if that's true or not. I suspect it's not true as I've sometimes seen these files in their native format (file extension) at the same size. Further, ripping a standard DVD to H.264 usually results in a 1GB file. Full HD has roughly 6x the pixel count, so that's a bit less than what you describe. Also, just because a format has a maximum bit rate and can store many GB for a movie, doesn't mean they do. But, to be fair, I haven't done a comparison of actual Blu-ray disks to make that comparison.
Regarding the qualitative difference it's pretty clear 1080p video is a bigger pill to manage.
Well, I certainly agree with the notion that 1080p requires more data. The question is how much is necessary? Not to be pedantic, but there are two things wrong with your analysis. Since you went to the trouble of "doing the math" in order to prove your case, I'll agree that your math is correct (not that I checked), but your assumptions are not. First, your "bits per frame" erroneously makes the assumption that each pixel only requires 1 bit. Second, every frame isn't compressed in its entirety. H.264 does use reference frames, but then it uses techniques like inter-picture prediction to essentially only encode the changes between frames, etc. Likewise, the size of a file needed to display an h.264 encoded movie does not necessarily fall into a simple math equation.
In any case, the bigger issue here is that we all agree that 1080p support is strongly desired and that iTunes support for this feature is a completely independent issue.
Well you have different options for ripping movies. Products like RipIt will only extract the actual video content and frameworks leaving the end result the same size as the disc. Other products will do DVD ripping with compression. Since Blu-ray is the paragon of consumer HD playback it would seem a bit antithetical to recompress the video which will undoubtedly lose he quality that Blu-ray can potentially offer.
I have a bunch of HD DVD and Blu-ray files and the video files themselves tend to avg 12-20GB.
One thing about my numbers is that they refrence uncompressed numbers. We don't have a viable optical format that could deliver those numbers without a judicious amount of compression. Once we delve into the "black art" of compression the tools of the trade and the artisan factor into the final product. There used to be a guy that hung out on AVS Forums who did compression for Warner Bros and he was, of course, very knowledgable about advancements in compression technology and the technical aspects of it. Ben Waggoner is another guy with excellent experience in compression tech. I don't claim to know more than these guys have forgotten about compression but with the codec as the equalizer it's hard to deliver 1080p video of a production that is equal or superior to 720p in quality without a 2x jump in size.
One day, we might get to a point where downloadable is as good as blu-ray, but it might not be in my lifetime.. and I am just a mere 36 years old.
I do agree that convenience wins out because people are lazy.
I am trying Visual Hub next. It is the complex relationship between frame rate and size for ATV that is the pain the ass when dealing with PAL frame rates in the USA. PAL can be larger than US material for the ATV. At 29.97 there is a limit of 960 x 540 where as PAL can go 1280 x 720, or at least that what my experiments show. Regardless of size 25 fps movie will still stutter a bit in the USA and changing it to 29.97 screws the audio sync. I was hoping there was a really easy solution.
I played a bit with my parents AppleTV when they first got it.
You're right that US material (24fps) on PAL settings (25/50) has a tiny stutter, as does the opposite (25fps on a 60 NTSC set). I remember wishing the AppleTV could switch between 50 & 60 depending on the source.
In the end, I just had to decide which source material they were more likely to have and use that setting. I played with getting VisualHub to change the frame rate and it didn't look good (VisualHub does a good job of converting material, pity it was discontinued... I hear EVOM does a similar job now).
Note also that although AppleTV specs say 720p24 is the biggest size (US movies), it works fine on 720p25 (European movies & HDTV)