Before I pull the trigger.

[Markleshark]

Couple of questions before I pull the trigger on the AppleTV.

1) After I sync a Movie to the AppleTV from my iTunes Library, is it then possible to delete it from my iTunes Library and the Movie stays on the AppleTV without any problems?

2) The Apple TV only supports 720p at the moment, yes? Is this software related, or hardware?

Thanks.

 

[jsw]

The movie will be deleted from your AppleTV as soon as it resyncs. The only way to keep it on is to prevent it from accessing the source to resync.

As far as the 720p limit, I suspect it's a mix of both software and hardware, but I suspect the hardware has not the intestinal fortitude to attempt 1080i and certainly that it would fear 1080p.

 

[Markleshark]

I see, well I'll have to get a bigger drive for my iTunes Library as well then, that can wait for a while though, I have 38Gig left to fill with films.

Cheers jsw, ordering now.

 

[BoulderBum]

2) The Apple TV only supports 720p at the moment, yes? Is this software related, or hardware?

I've seen this question come up a lot of times. The direct answer is that you can choose to have Apple TV displayed in 1080i, so I think it's not the hardware holding anything back.

The second thing I wanted to say, however, is that I actually think 720p is perfectly appropriate for the rental use case. For one thing, the difference between 720p and 1080p is negligible (the human eye is incapable of viewing the difference in most scenarios), but the other thing is that 1080p would take more space on the drive, and a lot more time to download.

I think the choice of offering 720p HD rentals with 5.1 channel surround sound was the correct move for Apple.

 

[zedsdead]

The new Apple TV software has a selection for outputting 1080P, but I imagine it is for the Pictures. There is still a 720p limit on the video and that may be hardware related since the Apple TV is not really a powerhouse of a product. Apple also does not like to add specs to their iPod like devices that they themselves do not support so their is a chance it may work, but I doubt it. Eventually an Apple TV will have to support 1080P Videos, but not until Apple has them available to rent.

 

[a4abt]

1) After I sync a Movie to the AppleTV from my iTunes Library, is it then possible to delete it from my iTunes Library and the Movie stays on the AppleTV without any problems?

It can be done...just delete the file, but not in iTunes (delete the source file, but leave it in iTunes!)

 

[EvilRob]

The direct answer is that you can choose to have Apple TV displayed in 1080i, so I think it's not the hardware holding anything back.

There are two aspects to this problem, which is where the confusion arises.

The AppleTV scales the video output using the graphics hardware. Modern GPU hardware have built-in functions for this type of scaling, typically used to scale textures in 3D applications. This approach uses very little CPU power, regardless of resolution.

The video files are decompressed using the main CPU, and this is the limitation which prevents higher bitrates and resolutions. The trade-off in the AppleTV is a CPU which can be silently cooled. After a month with one in your lounge, this trade-off will make a lot of sense.

For the record, I agree with earlier posters that 720p is the right choice for now.