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Apple TV HD quality??

L

Learjet035

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 24, 2005
326
0
S. Floriduh
Forgive me, I haven't read too much about ATV but was curious.
It seems that ATV is all about HD viewing (HD menu, HDMI, etc) but then the quality of the movies or shows available are no where near HD.
Am I wrong? If so, how long does it take to DL a HD movie?
 
Learjet035 said:
Forgive me, I haven't read too much about ATV but was curious.
It seems that ATV is all about HD viewing (HD menu, HDMI, etc) but then the quality of the movies or shows available are no where near HD.
Am I wrong? If so, how long does it take to DL a HD movie?
Click to expand...

That depends on a lot of factors such as who you're downloading it from (Apple has a very fast connection), what quality the movie is and other factors.

It's probably at least 4 times the size of the current movies on the iTMS (although I can't be sure as they don't offer any in Canada yet!).

You can always encode your own.
 
I'm not sure how long it would take, but the file sizes should be around 4-6GB per compressed HD movie.

Forced Perfect. Without a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive how does one plan on doing that? :p
 
An HD movie (720p) is about 4 to 6GB on Xbox live. I had a 5 megabit connection and it took about 2 to 3 hours to get 70% of the movie, at that point I could start playing it.

I have since moved and had to bump down to a 1.3 megabit connection and haven't downloaded an HD movie but have downloaded several HD TV shows at 1.9 to 2.5GB in size. Those take about the same amount of time as 70% did on my faster connection.

So take the above for what its worth but I think that before HD content over the internet can become common place faster internet connections will either have to be the norm or people will have to get used to starting the download before going to bed or work to watch later.
 
Learjet035 said:
Forgive me, I haven't read too much about ATV but was curious.
It seems that ATV is all about HD viewing (HD menu, HDMI, etc) but then the quality of the movies or shows available are no where near HD.
Am I wrong? If so, how long does it take to DL a HD movie?
Click to expand...

you are right.

and ATV is nothing about HD, at least for now, (Im not sure if current ATV is hardware-ly ready, anybody tried HD-DVD in any unofficial way to test it?)
 
But, you could find alot of HD movies illegaly, which play fine on apple tv. you'll have to convert them to mp4. It's a way to watch HD movies before they appear in iTunes Store.
 
macphin said:
But, you could find alot of HD movies illegaly, which play fine on apple tv. you'll have to convert them to mp4. It's a way to watch HD movies before they appear in iTunes Store.
Click to expand...

Careful buddy. Talking about stuff like that can get you banned on this forum. It's explicit in the rules that pirating is not to be discussed.

Cheers :)
 
Erendiox said:
Careful buddy. Talking about stuff like that can get you banned on this forum. It's explicit in the rules that pirating is not to be discussed.

Cheers :)
Click to expand...

oh yes, plus, u can't expect compressed video to have same quality as HD-DVD.
 
clevin said:
oh yes, plus, u can't expect compressed video to have same quality as HD-DVD.
Click to expand...

c'mon, everybody knows that it is possible to find any info online, legally or illegaly, and I didn't mention any links.

Clevin, sure, compressed video won't have same quality, but resolution still remains the same, which is still way better than DVD... when you compress, you cut only (in most cases) bit rate.
 
clevin said:
oh yes, plus, u can't expect compressed video to have same quality as HD-DVD.
Click to expand...

HD-DVD/Blu-ray both are compressed video (although I think technically they do support uncompressed, raw HD video). What we're really talking about here is transcoding a video into a new format. Meaning compressed -> compressed in a different format. Which does result in a loss of quality.
 
Learjet035 said:
Ok, so what is availible right now with ATV? HD movies? Or that video iPod resolution stuff?
Click to expand...

From iTunes there is just the iPod resolution stuff. Being in Canada I've never actually watched an iTMS TV episode but have heard that they're alright - though not even close to HD. My opinion (as is the same with many others) is that because there is no HD or 5.1 or anything offered from iTunes, Apple does not have to really support it in AppleTV. I hope/assume that as 5.1 becomes available through iTunes or as HD becomes available through iTunes the "official" specs get updated. Of course, using stuff like Handbrake you'll hopefully be able to get DPL II really soon from your own DVDs.
 
Learjet035 said:
So if you buy an ATV, where are you getting the content from? If you aren't so savvy as to get it else where.
Click to expand...

For me, well to start, I don't yet have one but will be purchasing one within the next 6 months (hopefully sooner). Again, being in Canada I don't (yet) have access to any of the video media on iTMS (except music vids and some animation shorts... well and video podcasts). My content is coming from DVDs that I own.. mostly TV DVDs. I am ripping them with MacTheRipper to my external drive for now. When the next release of Handbrake/Mediafork is put out if (hopefully) will have solid support for bookmarks and at least DPL II sound track (so I can get simulated surround sound). At that point I'll just start ripping my movies and TV episodes with a standard setting and that will be my source of content. I guess I'll see where the hacks are with AppleTV at that point to decide what to do with any unsupported content I have (unsupported formats I mean).
 
why go through all the hassle of ripping a dvd to your computer then playing through this ATV?? why not just watch the dvd on your dvd player? am i missing something?? i dont have time to do all that..
 
JonHimself said:
When the next release of Handbrake/Mediafork is put out if (hopefully) will have solid support for bookmarks and at least DPL II sound track (so I can get simulated surround sound).
Click to expand...

Handbrake allready rips with DLP II. DLP II is encoded into a stereo track. Handbrake does exactly what a DVD player does and mixes down the 5.1 down to a stereo track with the simulated surround.
 
macphin said:
But, you could find alot of HD movies illegaly, which play fine on apple tv. you'll have to convert them to mp4. It's a way to watch HD movies before they appear in iTunes Store.
Click to expand...

Then it isn't HD and that's the whole point. The AppleTV will not play files bigger than 4GB, which rules out almost any 720p file.

The best way to watch HD movies with a Mac interface is just spend the extra $300 and set up a Mac Mini.

jon
 
I'm interested in buying one but the more I read about it the more I am confused...
 
djsound said:
why go through all the hassle of ripping a dvd to your computer then playing through this ATV?? why not just watch the dvd on your dvd player? am i missing something?? i dont have time to do all that..
Click to expand...

Easier to have all of movies stored in one location without having the need to have DVDs around. It may sound crazy, but millions of people already do the same with their music. I haven't touched CDs in a very long time (aside from when I purcahse them and rip them to my computer). They then get put on shelves. All of my music is available on my computer and my iPod which can be hooked up to any stereo system.
I see AppleTV as just that for my video. Only difference being that it is harder to get my video into a format that can be used like that. Also, I'm not just ripping to be viewed on an AppleTV. They can also be viewed on my computer (or any computer on my network), or on my iPod, or streamed through XBMC in a different room. Having my movies and TV episodes in a digital format just makes them easier to access without any hassles of having to shuffle discs around.
 
iJon said:
Then it isn't HD and that's the whole point. The AppleTV will not play files bigger than 4GB, which rules out almost any 720p file.

The best way to watch HD movies with a Mac interface is just spend the extra $300 and set up a Mac Mini.

jon
Click to expand...


Apple TV plays files bigger than 4gb. I've played 7gb on it... But, I can't stream it, only sync.
 
macphin said:
Apple TV plays files bigger than 4gb. I've played 7gb on it... But, I can't stream it, only sync.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. I wonder how it fairs with an 8GB 720p x264 file. I am going to predict not to well.

jon
 
iJon said:
That's good to know. I wonder how it fairs with an 8GB 720p x264 file. I am going to predict not to well.

jon
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the file size has nothing to do with playback performance. It's all dependent on the bit rate. The higher the bit rate, the more processor power you need to playback smoothly.

So you could have a low bitrate video that has a super long duration and it'll play fine. Or you could have a high bitrate video that is very short and it'll be choppy.

ft
 
ftaok said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the file size has nothing to do with playback performance. It's all dependent on the bit rate. The higher the bit rate, the more processor power you need to playback smoothly.

So you could have a low bitrate video that has a super long duration and it'll play fine. Or you could have a high bitrate video that is very short and it'll be choppy.

ft
Click to expand...

Correct. The file size only shows how much total information is in the video, not how much the computer needs to process. If you had an 8 GB file that was encoded at 128 Kbit/sec you'd get days (probably) of video. But if you encoded it at like... 1024 MB/sec you'd only get 8 seconds and the computer could never get a gig a second read, decoded and displayed. So the higher the rate, the more the computer has to do per second which pushes the computer and the drive in keeping up. Also too high would prevent you from reliably streaming it over wireless, etc.
 
ftaok was right, but, I was talking about HD movie wich is about 7000 kb/s, 720p, which played smoothly, even though, it says in specification that :apple:tv can't support more than 5 mb/s. I think that it will play more than 7000 kb/s. Although it's pretty fine for 1ghz and 256mb.
 
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