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1080p in the future?
- Thread starter ginopiazza49
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People are having enough issues as it is trying to stream 720p videos, I just don't see Apple implementing 1080p anytime soon for iTunes.
It should have already been 1080P; that way people with wired can enjoy 1080P and people with sucky wireless can enjoy 720P/480P. The person above me apparently either falls in the second category or doesn't like choice.
Another issue is that I believe iTunes only offers movies in 720P...this ultimately might be the limiting factor and so for that I apologize for my rant above.
Another issue is that I believe iTunes only offers movies in 720P...this ultimately might be the limiting factor and so for that I apologize for my rant above.
Never. In fact next year apple will reduce the maximum resolution to 480p. 720p? Who needs it!
It doesn't take me a long time to download a 1080p video. It might take a long time for people who don't have very fast connection and their connection sucks. So maybe people with slow connections should upgrade their internet speeds?
Having "sucky wireless" might not have anything to do with it. What about internet connection speed? Some people are waiting HOURS for a 720p file to download enough to watch. Try that with a 1080p download, and they'll wait days.
maybe we should have a choice. Those that want 720p or don't have a very good connection buy that & those that have a good and fast connection should be offered 1080p.
You're still assuming everyone can get fast speeds. My office is in Los Angeles, and we can't get above 1.5 mbps. That's it. It's awful.
A choice would be fine. But to make blanket statements that everyone else must have sucky this and sucky that is silly.
Of course, when they want an extra $1 for higher definition, will people be happy? After all, that is more bandwidth and storage on their end.
Hey guys I had a question on speed and ATV2
what speed is a good connection to watch a film continously?
I only ask as currently I get around 2.5mbps and usable is only 1.8mbps, I live miles from the central exchange so the connection gets slower, gotta love the UK
I will be getting Fibre optic in Febuary which is 20mbps as the min max is 40mbps I think.
I just want to know is ATV2 worth me getting now or should I wait? thanks
what speed is a good connection to watch a film continously?
I only ask as currently I get around 2.5mbps and usable is only 1.8mbps, I live miles from the central exchange so the connection gets slower, gotta love the UK
I will be getting Fibre optic in Febuary which is 20mbps as the min max is 40mbps I think.
I just want to know is ATV2 worth me getting now or should I wait? thanks
You do have plenty of choices. Just buy a different device that is optimize for your use case. There are plenty of good options.
How about just saying it takes at least twice as long as 720p to download with twice the storage costs and space required with only a small difference in quality for good setups and not even a noticeable difference for most setups. That statement is true no matter how fast your connection is. And until the convenience/quality ratio gets better I don't think they will move to 1080p.
Heck, I have a nice 60" Sony 1080p TV, wired gigabit ethernet throughout my home, a PS3 Blu Ray player, and I rip my Blu Rays and I still came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth storing and/or streaming huge 1080p files for such a small increase in quality. Especially since I want these files on my mobile devices now where the convenience/quality ratio is exponentially worse. And what about when I want to stream these files over a limited 3G connection? I definitely don't want to be storing and managing multiple files of the same content and paying all these storage costs just to have 1080p. It seems 720p strikes a good balance between all factors involved and allows me to have a complete end to end solution that works well on all screens and all devices.
I assume Apple came to those same conclusions. And now with Airplay connecting mobile devices with big screens, it makes even more sense.
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While you wait for fiber optic you can rip and encode to itunes all of your personal DVD's and watch them through the ATV.
Well written!
I came to the same conclusion.
On a similar note, I love streaming my 720p rips to my ATV2 from my iPad with Airplay. It is full 720p with Dolby Digital 5.1. The quality is fantastic!
Yeah I agree this is fantastic technology! Today I was using Pandora on my ATV2 hooked to my big home theater speakers with Airplay through my iPhone. Sounds great and I'm blasting it way up. My wife calls my iPhone and my music paused automatically. And then after we hung up it just resumed playing on its own right where it left off. A freaking "radio" station at that! I know we've been doing this on the iPhone for a while now but to see this work on my home theater system and wirelessly had me grinning from ear to ear. 
This probably works for video too. They really implemented Airplay well.
This probably works for video too. They really implemented Airplay well.
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720p is indistinguishable from 1080p on ALL TVs. Of course, I sit 7' away from a 110" 1080p projector, so I can appreciate 1080p on that setup, but if you buy any consumer LCD/Plasma (almost all are 65" or under), you are wasting money on a 1080p set.
I needed a TV for my bedroom and I got the most expensive 720p set rather than the cheapest 1080p set and the picture quality is much better.
I needed a TV for my bedroom and I got the most expensive 720p set rather than the cheapest 1080p set and the picture quality is much better.
The best 720p set will obviously be better than the worst 1080p set; but the best 1080p set will be better than the best 720p set. 1080p becomes indistinguishable from 720p from a certain distance but it's not true to say that it's always indistinguishable.
I would have to agree with the 1080p streaming is not ready for prime time yet camp.
Once datarates and bandwidth in the states tops 30-50 Mbps (sustained), then we'll see 1080p streaming worth it as an alternative to Blu-ray.
Has anyone tried streaming 1080p to the ATV2 since the update? - there was a lot of debate on the boards shortly after release as 1080p videos could quite happily be streamed to the ATV2, but stuttered and dropped frames. If the dropped frames in Apple's own 720p media is gone, what about steamed 1080p content?
Here is a link to a thread which has the estimated wait times for iTunes downloads/streaming based upon your internet speed:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11213415&average#post11213415
I'm not an expert, but have learned a few things at the handbrake forums.
First of all, 1080p doesn't have to mean longer downloads than 720p. If they encode at the same bitrate, there would be no difference in file size. If you encode a video at both 720p and 1080p using the same bitrate, the encoding artifacts in the 720p will become more obvious when upscalled to 1080p than they would be in native 1080p files. So there would be an advantage to encoding them as 1080p, but at the same bitrate. Downside would be hardware requirements, which I expect was the reason Apple chose 720p. When HD downloads became available on iTunes, my computer stuttered even with those. I expect that the choice for 720p for iTunes HD also has much to do with batterylife on their devices such as the iPad. Having two HD versions on their store would probably cause confusion for most users seeing as we already can choose between SD and HD.
As for how easily noticable the artifacts are compared to 1080p is another matter. But it is a valid point nontheless. For an extreme example, take a blu-ray. Encode it as 480p and 1080p using the same bitrate. Resize the 480p image to match the 1080p and you'll get a very visible exampe of what I'm talking about. Like I said though, it won't be as easily noticable as the difference between 720p and 1080p, but at least you'll get the idea of what I'm talking about. I doubt average users with average equipment would have any chance of noticing difference between 720p and 1080p though. Had the Apple TV not done upscaling of the 720p material up to 1080p, we might notice the difference more easily, but probably still not by much.
As for why the Apple TV 2 doesn't support 1080p, my guess is that Apple doesn't want people to interprete it as them getting ready to offer 1080p. After all. The Apple TV was made for iTunes content. So supporting 1080p on the Apple TV would probably just start such rumors.
That's my guess anyway
First of all, 1080p doesn't have to mean longer downloads than 720p. If they encode at the same bitrate, there would be no difference in file size. If you encode a video at both 720p and 1080p using the same bitrate, the encoding artifacts in the 720p will become more obvious when upscalled to 1080p than they would be in native 1080p files. So there would be an advantage to encoding them as 1080p, but at the same bitrate. Downside would be hardware requirements, which I expect was the reason Apple chose 720p. When HD downloads became available on iTunes, my computer stuttered even with those. I expect that the choice for 720p for iTunes HD also has much to do with batterylife on their devices such as the iPad. Having two HD versions on their store would probably cause confusion for most users seeing as we already can choose between SD and HD.
As for how easily noticable the artifacts are compared to 1080p is another matter. But it is a valid point nontheless. For an extreme example, take a blu-ray. Encode it as 480p and 1080p using the same bitrate. Resize the 480p image to match the 1080p and you'll get a very visible exampe of what I'm talking about. Like I said though, it won't be as easily noticable as the difference between 720p and 1080p, but at least you'll get the idea of what I'm talking about. I doubt average users with average equipment would have any chance of noticing difference between 720p and 1080p though. Had the Apple TV not done upscaling of the 720p material up to 1080p, we might notice the difference more easily, but probably still not by much.
As for why the Apple TV 2 doesn't support 1080p, my guess is that Apple doesn't want people to interprete it as them getting ready to offer 1080p. After all. The Apple TV was made for iTunes content. So supporting 1080p on the Apple TV would probably just start such rumors.
That's my guess anyway
I highly doubt it has anything to do with bandwidth as 1080P@24 FPS would hardly use more bandwidth than 720P@ 60FPS.