Apple TV Article

[kiranmk2]

It does "support" 1080p output - I have 1080p selected on mine - but this is just the output resolution. It's the same as upscaling DVD players - just because they output 1080p doesn't mean they can play 1080p content.

The specs are locked down pretty tight - no CABAC stuff, maximum of 5 Mbps and 24 fps max. For 30 fps stuff you only only get 960x540p. The GPU is also limited by the 1 GHz cpu - if you remember, when HD started coming out people needed pretty beefy core2duo chips to get 1080p playback - gpu acceleration has only come about in the last few generations of gpus.

I wish it could be soft-upgraded to support 1080p, but I don't think a new hardware revision based on the new iphone internals is coming.

 

[TuckBodi]

<sigh>

They said the same thing about 720p before Apple enabled it. Said the CPU couldn't do it, which it couldn't, and then Apple did their magic using the GPU (and CPU). As far as being limited by the 1 GHz CPU, have you seen what they've pulled off with the Linux VDPAU driver implementations for XBMC? I don't think the CPU's in some of those homemade systems are considered screamers.

All I'm saying is I saw some threads where some dev's said the GPU was capable of 1080p video playback, if they could take advantage of it (ex: the reverse engineering effort). Similar to how the Linux guys can now use the VDPAU Nvidia drivers for playback (although it's only been released down to the 8xxx hardware).

I'm no hardware expert, just going on hearsay, albeit, from what I consider a very good source in Davilla. So I guess if you're an expert at this stuff, and know exactly what the Nvidia h/w is capable of, they hey, power to yah.

PS: Too bad those cheap Sigma chips weren't around way back when and Apple had thrown one of those in the AppleTV. Then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[GraphicRhino]

Good read.