I rented Die Hard Live free or Die Hard, and I gotta say I was pretty impressed with the quality of the picture and sound. No artifact on fast moving scenes or anything I don't know how they accomplished that but a great job. I would definitely rent again if the selection was to get a bit better. As far as the movie itself goes the action was good and the plot ok, some of the scenes were just way too over the top for me, I mean at least make it a bit believable.
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First HD Rental Experience
- Thread starter nando2323
- Start date
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Yea the HD stuff looks great. More so from a person like me who hasn't made the plunge into the blue-ray/hd-dvd thing.
Oh come on what do you expect from John McClane
I agree. I have rented a few of the HD movies and they look great blown up on my 106" projection system. Pretty much on par with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray (I have both). No complaints at all.
I don't agree with some of the reviews saying that the HD titles look better than standard DVD but not as good as Blu-Ray. As far as on my calibrated home theater system, the rentals look every bit as good.
Just unboxed my new Take 2.
Initial impressions....I think Apple might want to do a BIT more 'hand holding' through the setup. If your average user didn't do much homework before purchasing, I can see where they might easily get confused between all the software nonsense. (for instance, iTunes didn't see my
TV because it was already running. Once I shut it down and restarted it, I was fine. Believe it or not, some people might not think about that.)
Display etc: great! (using HDMI cable)
Streaming from iMac: GREAT for movies, haven't tried anything else yet. Unbelievably fast!
Renting HD movies: Easy as pie. But my internet connection is SO slow that my first movie looks like it'll take around 12 hours to d/l!!! WAH!
Screensaver using MY photos: very cool
Possibilities for daily use, once I get it all figured out: 100%
Problems: My internet connection is WAYYYY too slow.
Question: Can I stream a movie from my iMac while downloading an HD rental from iTunes? It seems to stop the download if I stream a movie. I would think it would continue in the background....???
Initial impressions....I think Apple might want to do a BIT more 'hand holding' through the setup. If your average user didn't do much homework before purchasing, I can see where they might easily get confused between all the software nonsense. (for instance, iTunes didn't see my
TV because it was already running. Once I shut it down and restarted it, I was fine. Believe it or not, some people might not think about that.)Display etc: great! (using HDMI cable)
Streaming from iMac: GREAT for movies, haven't tried anything else yet. Unbelievably fast!
Renting HD movies: Easy as pie. But my internet connection is SO slow that my first movie looks like it'll take around 12 hours to d/l!!! WAH!
Screensaver using MY photos: very cool
Possibilities for daily use, once I get it all figured out: 100%
Problems: My internet connection is WAYYYY too slow.
Question: Can I stream a movie from my iMac while downloading an HD rental from iTunes? It seems to stop the download if I stream a movie. I would think it would continue in the background....???
I noticed this with an HD Podcast that was slow downloading as well. The reason Apple has this set up this way is because the video most likely would take all your wireless bandwidth causing the video you are viewing to stutter. Its a good move on Apple's part IMO - it takes the side of quality rather than stuttering video.
What... you've never seen anyone jump onto the wing of a jet airplane while it was flying?!?
Any idea how large these downloads are?
I was wondering the same thing about the file size. Well I can tell you how long it took to download the whole thing and my internet speed, then maybe someone can estimate the size of the file. I was halfway through the movie at 70 minutes and the movie was about 90% complete. My connection to the iTunes servers are usually around 1.1 Mbps it is pretty fast. So I would say it took around 1hr 30m to complete the download. Maybe we can come up with an estimate for a file size with these figures. My guess would be anywhere between 3GB and 4GB. The amazing thing to me is how the quality is so good with such small file sizes. I mean I rip regular DVD's at 2000 kbps and they come out to 1.5-2.1 GB in size. And the quality is not nearly as good as the HD rental one.
I've looked at my free space in iTunes as I delete the HD rental - it looks like roughly 1GB per 30 minutes.
Do you have 1080p projection system? Because on my home theater with 46" 1080p TV (ISF calibrated), Blu-Ray looks marginally better than Apple TV.
Ok...that makes sense. But when I went back to check on the HD download, it was labeled "waiting to start download" and then after a second, reverted back to the "Download 2% complete" label. Seems to stop the download completely if you're streaming something else. I would think my 820.11n network would handle both with no problems....maybe I didn't let the streaming video buffer enough to see if the HD iTunes download would resume on it's own.
WOW, just WOW.
I watched "Transformers" last night. I never figured that my AppleTV was capable of 720p DDS5.1 like that.
It was absolutely nice on my 55" front projection system. I use a Sony 6.1 capable receiver with Bose surround speakers.
I can see why someone in another thread asked "why not just make regular DVD's out of these" as it took up only 5Gig (DVD's can hold just over 9).
I guess they had that - it was 1080 instead and called HD DVD.
Well, back on track - my DSL is way too slow to download such large files, but I'm REALLY impressed with what Apple is dowing with HD downloads.
"Transformers" was okay - I guess I'll end up with the HD DVD version when it's on closeout.
I watched "Transformers" last night. I never figured that my AppleTV was capable of 720p DDS5.1 like that.
It was absolutely nice on my 55" front projection system. I use a Sony 6.1 capable receiver with Bose surround speakers.
I can see why someone in another thread asked "why not just make regular DVD's out of these" as it took up only 5Gig (DVD's can hold just over 9).
I guess they had that - it was 1080 instead and called HD DVD.
Well, back on track - my DSL is way too slow to download such large files, but I'm REALLY impressed with what Apple is dowing with HD downloads.
"Transformers" was okay - I guess I'll end up with the HD DVD version when it's on closeout.
I know what you mean. I watched my first HD rental last night (Ratatouilli), and was really surprised at the clarity. I know, it's HD and all, but from some of the comments here, I guess I expected something less than GREAT. Very impressed.....who cares if it's only 720p instead of 1080i. I was impressed.
I hated my DSL so much that I switched to cable modem yesterday. DSL was giving me 350 kb/s down, cable is 19-20,000 kb/s!! For the premium internet speeds, I'm paying about $25 more a month. Worth it, IMHO. Having that kind of speed makes my
TV a joy to use!
I hated my DSL so much that I switched to cable modem yesterday. DSL was giving me 350 kb/s down, cable is 19-20,000 kb/s!! For the premium internet speeds, I'm paying about $25 more a month. Worth it, IMHO. Having that kind of speed makes my
I splurged, instead, on paying $20/month extra for my T-Mobile data plan....
I have a dsl 768kbs/3.5Mbps connection and i had to wait roughly 10 mins for my download to be playable, as it turns out this is less time than it takes to round up the rye and coke and make some popcorn and settle down on the couch, and then find the little remote haha!
I was also impressed with the video quality on my 140in projector at 720P it looks great! enough better than dvd to pay the extra dollar! The movie was transformers However i also rented an older movie and i can only assume it was upconverted to get the HD label cause it was not worth the extra dollar.
So that being said i would only rent the HD movies in HD that were actually produced for HD. everything else will be sd ...
The atv worked great sounded great an was a great experience, much better than some posts would have led me to believe. After seeing the results for myself i thought it was great, I don't know what some people expect? I cant honestly believe they were at all disappointed!!
just as a side note i thought i would mention you can use the atv for airtunes, I didnt know that until i happened to see the option!
I was also impressed with the video quality on my 140in projector at 720P it looks great! enough better than dvd to pay the extra dollar! The movie was transformers
However i also rented an older movie and i can only assume it was upconverted to get the HD label cause it was not worth the extra dollar.So that being said i would only rent the HD movies in HD that were actually produced for HD. everything else will be sd ...
The atv worked great sounded great an was a great experience, much better than some posts would have led me to believe. After seeing the results for myself i thought it was great, I don't know what some people expect? I cant honestly believe they were at all disappointed!!
just as a side note i thought i would mention you can use the atv for airtunes, I didnt know that until i happened to see the option!