iTunes Move vs DVD

tenobelltenobell
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
A guy on Ars posted theses screen shots of Gross Point Blank. The iTunes Movie on the left the DVD is on the right.



http://homepage.mac.com/bdrago/Movie001.jpg



http://homepage.mac.com/bdrago/Movie002.jpg



http://homepage.mac.com/bdrago/Movie003.jpg



http://homepage.mac.com/bdrago/Movie004.jpg



http://homepage.mac.com/bdrago/Movie005.jpg



This test is really a wash between the two. The DVD has a lot more contrast, a bit more color saturation, and the skin tones are reddish.



The iTunes movie has less contrast, realistic colors, and natural skin tones.



These differences are pretty superficial. You could watch the same DVD on two different televisions and see these same differences.



Which look is better really comes down to which look did the original filmmaker intend. But if the litmus test were based on accurate skin and color reproduction I would give it to the iTunes movie.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    minderbinderminderbinder Posts: 1,703member
    I've seen another comparison where the iTunes version is visibly worse than the DVD. Unfortunately I can't find it again.



    One downside of iTunes is that instead of being anamorphic, the picture just uses fewer lines vertically, which means less resolution. So picture quality may be worse the wider the widescreen ratio is.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    People are too caught up on resolution. Any one who really knows about video knows resolution is only one quality factor, there are several other variables. That just like saying a 4GHz Pentium 4 is better than a 2.8 Core Duo just because its clocked at 4GHz. There are many factors involved.



    The real test is to watch both on a regular television. If the iTunes movie is visibly softer than the DVD or exhibited aliasing or noise then I would call it technically inferior. But differences in contrast or color are more aesthetic and don't necessarily reflect poor quality.



    Quote:

    One downside of iTunes is that instead of being anamorphic, the picture just uses fewer lines vertically, which means less resolution.



    That depends on the movies native aspect ratio. Anamorphic simply means video with a widescreen aspect ratio is being squeezed onto a 4x3 screen. It appears that iTunes movies have a native 16x9 aspect ratio.



    Since movies are shot either at a 2.40 or 1.85 native aspect ratio, some horizontal picture information is being cut to crop them to 1.77 (16x9).
  • Reply 3 of 12
    minderbinderminderbinder Posts: 1,703member
    In the comparision I saw, the iTunes picture was noticibly blurrier.



    Anamorphic using 640x480 gives you more data than 640x300 (or whatever it's bumped down to as a result of changing the aspect ratio).
  • Reply 4 of 12
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Ah ok I see what you are saying. Its the same number of vertical lines as a movie that has been letterboxed for 4x3. They eliminate the black bars so the frame is 16x9.



    Even with that the quality of the original video source, the compression and encoding process, and data rate all play much more a part in final quality than loosing 180 vertical lines.



    I'm sure iTunes movies are being compressed with expensive proprietary hardware used by a professional compressionist. Because of this these movies will look a lot better than DVD's that were made in 2000 and earlier before studios began to spend a lot of money for DVD authoring.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    An excellent side-by-side comparison. Thanks for the links.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    IMO, the iTunes version looks better in all of those. The DVD has more contrast, at the expense of much less black detail and way oversaturated colors that are blown out.



    I've been mostly looking at music videos in the new 640x480, they mostly look pretty good, but some have pretty severe artifacting. At the older resolution, Apple seemed to not have clamped the bit rates, so at least the 320 by 240 was perfect quality. Some of these 640x480 videos are subjectively worse (in that there's more detail, but far more artifacts, so it's an iffy tradeoff).



    I still haven't bought a single video from iTunes yet :P
  • Reply 7 of 12
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Quote:

    the iTunes version looks better in all of those. The DVD has more contrast, at the expense of much less black detail and way oversaturated colors that are blown out.



    Maybe... it depends. I didn't see Gross Point Blank in the movie theater so I don't know how the filmmakers originally intended it. They may have wanted it to be contrasty with crushed blacks and saturated colors.



    After looking at the pictures again though I do see noise on John Cusak's black suit in the DVD shot, which does indicate inferior video processing. Its possible this is an old DVD from 1999 that wasn't mastered with the same quality that is commonly used today.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    catman4d2catman4d2 Posts: 174member
    I can tell you that some of the movies are very good looking!!! while others are outstanding!!!

    I purchased the Independant comedy kinky boots and it looks very VERY close to dvd quality after watching for a while i forgot totally any differences! i for one am excited about the new service... and i actually am a gearhead and videofile.



    some who were able to get their hands on itv at the conference did rather sneakily get into the settings and YES it does output 1080p well we kind of knew that because of how photos looked during the demo,SO that being, if Itv will stream from our macs these nice movie downloads then upscale them to 1080p without any nasty artifacts using some of the latest upscaling chips then will be in hog heaven come this time next spring, i for one love this!!!!!!!!!!!!



    think about this as well: we got over double the quality on our t.v. shows in less than a year if they can do that with these whoah man........
  • Reply 9 of 12
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Upscale quality can also depend on the television. I've seen some friends with those cheap large screen televisions from Costco. Those don't seem to upscale SD very well.



    While the more expensive Sony televisions look great.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    I just downloaded and watched the Review of Battlestar Galactica.



    640x480 is an extreme improvement over 320x240 video.



    The movie weighs in at 466.9 MB, data rate is 14.9 Mbps, 24 frames per second.



    I watched the video through iTunes on full screen on my 1600x1200 computer monitor. And it looked no worse than when I watch television at full screen. Actually there are less artifacts in the iTunes movie than normally appears from my cable connection.



    The iTunes movie viewer has improved a great deal also. The viewer in iTunes 6 was crappy. I tried to use it but didn't like it at all. The new viewer in 7 is much much better.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,320moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell


    The iTunes Movie on the left the DVD is on the right.



    Are you sure it's not the other way round? I would have thought the itunes movies would have black bars embedded in the movie so they would come out 640x480 for the ipod video. DVD software doesn't usually show black bars in windowed mode unless it's forced into a 4:3 viewer.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin


    Are you sure it's not the other way round? I would have thought the itunes movies would have black bars embedded in the movie so they would come out 640x480 for the ipod video. DVD software doesn't usually show black bars in windowed mode unless it's forced into a 4:3 viewer.



    Nope, he's definitely right. You can tell by the way the window looks - DVD player has edges. Remember also that that movie isn't exactly a new release.
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