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Apple's iTunes HD (720p) offerings are more than twice the file size of SD movies. For instance, a 1.51GB SD movie might be 3.48GB in HD. Presumably 1080p (if and when offered, would double that number yet again.
I've got a 100/200GB a month plan @ 30Mbps, that's exactly what I want! 10GB movies!
 
I think that all of the iTunes SD movies are encoded at a maximum resolution of 640xN where "N" is 480 or less. However, the display or reported resolution can be higher than that because they will stretch the horizontal resolution to match the aspect ratio on the source video. It's similar to the anamorphic encoding that happens on DVDs.

Not all of the movies on iTunes will get this type of anamorphic treatment, so some widescreen content will actually be encoded at fairly low resolutions -- with vertical resolution below 300 pixels (so you might get something like 640x272 for a widescreen movie with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1). As you might expect those movies will look pretty soft, much worse than you would see on any newly released DVD. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any way to know prior to purchase whether a movie on iTunes will be encoded with a full 480 pixels of vertical resolution. However, it seems that most of the newer, widescreen releases on iTunes are prepared with an anamorphic-like stretch such that in the case of my prior example the encoding would be 640x362 and the display resolution would then be reported as something like 853x362 (thus preserving the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio).

In either case, I think you'll find that nearly all of the iTunes SD content will have lower resolutions than you will see on any recent generation DVD. They (the content providers -- not necessarily Apple) want to up-sell you to the iTunes HD content or have you stick to DVDs.
 
I'm sorry to say this but you are either

1.) downloading it wrong

2.) or wrongly assuming that current downloads are fit for purpose. They are not. A BR disc can hold tens of GBs of data, whereas a movie from iTunes is often around 1-2GB. That is even less than what you get on a DVD, an over a decade old technology.


The sad reality is that you pay more than you would for a DVD, when you download from iTunes, but in the meantime, you get worse quality. Check out the sound on a decent sound system and the difference is even more shocking.

Here's some info folks will find interesting. The format for a DVD is the VOB format. Simply put, this is a wrapper on a standard MPG2, regardless of whether it is widescreen or not. Typically, a 4:3 file will be approximately 3GB-4GB with all the extra folderoll removed from the VOB wrapper, like different angles and alternate audio tracks, etc. A widescreen version will be from 4GB-5GB depending on the same sorts of silliness.

The reason the file is 5GB to 9GB in the VOB format is, to put it quite simply, to make it impossible (so it was hoped) to copy onto a recordable DVD. They have even added additional empty data to pad the VOB files out.

In Blu-Ray (and the VHS-esque version of it, DVD-HD - seems the Betamax-esque format won this time), the files are insanely padded in the MD2 format. A true HD file is still an ordinary MPG2 format file. It will be 130% to 160% larger at 4GB-6GB for a 4:3 film and 6GB-8GB for a widescreen version.

Again, the format on a BD disc is intentionally padded to make it difficult to copy onto a recordable BD disc.

Most HD format files could easily fit onto a double layer DVD if they were converted (note: Not transcoded, left at the same bitrate) back into the basic MPG2 format they started in.
 
I can't tell if you're being serious with that post. The size of the video is determined by the picture complexity and average bitrate. A film with a lot of movement and decent amount of film grain will require much more space than a slower moving, 'cleaner' film that is longer. I've got some DVDs where the VOBs are only 4 GB and some where 8 GB of space is used. Alternate audio only takes up, at most a few hundred MB - Dolby Digital used about 96 kbps per channel - most 5.1 tracks are 384 kbps (some are 448 kbps and a rare handful are 640 kbps), so for a 2 h film a 5.1 track would take ~300 MB. Likewise, subtitles are really small in size.

In my opinion, iTunes won't increase resolution until 2012 at the earliest. This is when the successor to h.264/AVC is expected to finish. This will allow a halving of bitrates so a 20 GB BluRay film could be reduced to 10 GB with the same picture quality. This would mean an Apple 720p encode could stay in the 3-4 GB size and double the bit rate and a 1080p of 6-8 GB would start getting close to Blu-Ray standard. Of course, we'd also have a further 2 years innovation in bandwidth and hard drive storage (5 TB drives, 2 TB laptop drives?)
 
In Blu-Ray (and the VHS-esque version of it, DVD-HD - seems the Betamax-esque format won this time), the files are insanely padded in the MD2 format. A true HD file is still an ordinary MPG2 format file. It will be 130% to 160% larger at 4GB-6GB for a 4:3 film and 6GB-8GB for a widescreen version.

There's so much wrong with this paragraph that I don't know where to start.
 
Again, the format on a BD disc is intentionally padded to make it difficult to copy onto a recordable BD disc.

Really? How come it's always worked for me without having to remove or compress any of the information?

Also, I just went through 8 DVD's. Only one of them used more than 4.2gb. That's small enough to fitt on a single layer disc.
 
In my opinion, iTunes won't increase resolution until 2012 at the earliest. This is when the successor to h.264/AVC is expected to finish.

What name does this format go under? Are you refearing to VC-2 (a.k.a. Dirac)? The information I've read say that the quality improvement isn't all that significant. Something like 10%. This could be the result of my lousy memory though :p.

[EDIT] Sorry for the double post.
 
Actually, the way around this is to open an Apple ID account with a US based postal address. Then buy from the US iTunes store.

......but I didnt tell you this.:rolleyes:

Haha, yea thanks, I'd prefer to avoid that tbh, I'd rather get Netflix I think =P
 
Confused yet?

My subjective impression is that iTunes has increasingly offered movies with the option of an HD version (720p). Objectively I can quantify this, as in counting I can report that just in Dramas they offer 221 titles. In total they still do not offer what is available elsewhere, but the HD segment of their library is growing fairly fast.

Unfortunately strangely so. Look at upcoming releases, for instance, and you'll discover many titles offered in SD or HD. If perhaps an audience for every movie, some of these titles will safely never win an Academy Award; others that actually might sometimes are offered in SD only. Whether Apple, the studios, or someone else, games are being played. It is disconcerting, but true, that the new title just released only in SD for $14.99 will eventually sell for less, perhaps rather soon if not popular. The standard for anything not brand new is $9.99. That might be expected, but more maddening when discovering the SD title purchased for $14.99 appears several months later in HD for $19.99. If liking the film, then the higher price for HD would have been worth it, but that supposedly wasn't an option. Only now it is, after you've already paid $14.99 for SD. One might wait. Which may work, or possibly find that seemingly iTunes never intends offering an HD version.

This guessing game extends into that discounted. Many older, and sometimes excellent, movies are discounted to $4.99, either permanently or only temporarily. There are many older titles offered at $5.99. HD versions will be discounted as well, but not as many offered, and not in the same fashion. Some newer HD titles are seemingly offered initially at $17.99 instead of the more normal $19.99. Some older and, presumably, less popular can be found at well less than $10. 'Zoolander' was recently temporarily offered at $9.99 in HD.

Anyone preferring HD may be nonplused to find their favorite movie offered only in SD, but then a brief mention that it can be had in HD via Apple TV? What? That would have been a better avenue when one could actually buy a movie from ATV.

One way of getting a quick idea of resolution in iTunes is when stopping a title. This used to be a one-stop process: close the movie and one was back to the list of movies. More recently doing the same leaves the movie, etc., in a pop-up window, which must itself be closed, so two steps. But other than puzzling, this can be revealing. The size of the pop-up reveals the media's resolution. Older TV programs and other media presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio will be in a pop-up of the same dimension, but smaller than when at full screen. Please also note I am referencing this from a 13" MacBook, so one's experience may vary. Widescreen movies are of course more rectangular. SD versions will reveal a small pop-up about half the width of this 13" screen. HD versions are appreciably larger, reaching from edge to edge. How tall they are depends on the aspect ratio filmed in, but in width always side to side for HD. For SD, some movie pop-ups appear larger or smaller, depending presumably on varying degrees of resolution.

Then the issue of quality. Subjectively, it seems to be improving, or at least with far fewer of the egregious errors previously present. Meaning that even standard SD versions appear as their DVD cousins. There remains some variance. The HD version of 'Zoolander' is okay but obviously not the clarity of other HD offerings. This could be the film itself, in how filmed, or perhaps the transfer. Someone that knows more about this than myself tells me that even in BlueRay all is not equal, some movies transferred from film to a digital medium with more care and better results. On the iTunes front, however, I can tell you that the SD version of 'Sleepy Hollow' from iTunes was decidedly inferior to the same thing on DVD. Whether iTunes has rectified such an oversight I have no idea, but would caution you against buying 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' from them. Only instance I have seen, but the quality of this SD offering was okay, BUT it was delivered in the wrong aspect ratio. I mean seriously wrong, as in everything was stretched out. The entire movie that way. Apple easily refunded the price when informed of this, and I deleted it from the drive on my own accord. But some months later, since this film is expensive to purchase on DVD, I tried iTunes again. With the same exact result!

This brings us to the question of what one is going to be happiest with. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just stick with HD, but a good movie in SD at $4.99 is often tempting. When it comes to HD, I also wonder why I am even settling for the iTunes version of it at 720p when the BlueRay version at 1080p can be had at the same price.

Maybe less. It pays to shop around. Anymore there is less rhyme and reason to this, and one might rent 'A Christmas Carol' from iTunes for $3.99, or rent the same thing from Amazon Video on Demand for .99¢ (it is now back up to $3.99 on VOD). One will discover that releases and prices on iTunes and VOD mirror one another. But on any given occasion one or the other may offer the same title for several dollars less. Then also, if one is willing to put up with a disc, then one should check beyond iTunes to what may be available on DVD or BlueRay. In example, some BlueRay titles (being twice the quality of Apple's HD) can at times be offered at the same approximate price as what Apple asks for an SD version.

Speaking of Amazon VOD, this service is a surprisingly good competitor to iTunes. In fact, with several advantages. For one, everything is instant: one can wait for a rental movie to download (or at least buffer sufficiently, particularly with a slow connection), or watch it now streaming from VOD. Then also, since this media is retained on Amazon's servers, one does not have to concern themselves with their own in managing and storing media. They also offer the option of downloading media, but since this has been historically a PC only option, I cannot speak to it. If allowing Amazon to hold your media, as it can be rented or purchased, then there can be downsides as well. If working quite easily and well, this service is dependent on your broadband connection. If without one, traveling, etc., you will not be watching anything. If, God forbid, Amazon ever went belly up then presumably say goodbye to all your movies stored with them. That possibility aside, what one will experience more often is how good your internet provider is. One advantage with iTunes, if potentially slower, is that once you've downloaded something you've really got it, seemingly in perpetuity. Assuming one's computer works, then, whether rented or bought, any movie should play fine from start to finish. However, since presently with a pitiful 1.5Mps (more like 1.3Mps max) connection, I can report that the standard SD movie from iTunes will download in about 3 hours. But it is possible to use VOD on even such a connection. They use a good algorithm which not only returns a good quality picture, but will adjust it as needed to suit the connection. If something like mine (cough), one may witness a crisp picture revert to something less, depending on the vagaries of the incoming signal. Generally quite good, although anyone else considering this might consider 1.5Mps more of a bare minimum. If, at times, the signal drops low enough then VOD will pause the film while it buffers. Even in my case, this is seldom. Presumably anyone in a city with appreciably better broadband would never notice this. But even SD offerings can look near iTunes HD with some movies, and generally good and acceptable otherwise. VOD also offers HD versions of some titles, but this requires something other than a computer, such as a newer internet HDTV.

Then there are other providers, such as Vudu, which in their case offer streaming 1080p (or nearly so), but in that case a connection of more like 5Mps required. It can all seem a bit much, all the more as everything is changing so fast. SD titles I purchased from iTunes, and thought to favor forever, may in time get replaced with HD versions from someone. Or maybe not. Particularly with some older movies, there are no HD versions available, seemingly anywhere, and may never be. But sometimes older movies are finally released in an HD version. Which makes all the more sense as even those only available in SD were captured on film which as master is better than even digitally downscaled BlueRay.

Never before as many options in this, all possibly different tomorrow.
 

Interesting stuff. I was not aware of this work. Thanks for the link :). When you mentioned half the bitrate for comparable quality I thought you were overdoing it a bit, but I see that this is actually a clame made by the mpeg group. The fact that this would require computational work that is 2x - 10x that of h.264 makes me think it will be quite a bit more than a couple of years before we see this on iTunes though. I'm not sure most consumer macs would be capable of that. I hope I'm wrong though :).
 
Someone that knows more about this than myself tells me that even in BlueRay all is not equal, some movies transferred from film to a digital medium with more care and better results.

This is very true. Very many factors come into play when moving a movie from film to digital. The original release of Predator for blu-ray was, acording to what I've read on blu-ray.com, based on the files that were created for use with the DVD versions. Several Blu-Ray use mpeg-2. Reason for this is usually that they are reusing the masters that were used for the DVD.

If you browse blu-ray.com (which by the way is a site that I highly recommend to blu-ray users) you'll find that the quality of the transfers varies greatly. Criterion for example spend a huge amount of time on the restoration prosess for their releases. I never thought Videodrome could look as good as it does on their blu-ray transfer. An example of bad transfers could for example be ITV, the british TV Channel. A lot of their blu-rays look practically the same as their dvd edition. But that is of course my own personal opinion.

Which makes all the more sense as even those only available in SD were captured on film which as master is better than even digitally downscaled BlueRay.
Many of Criterions restorations are made as 4k masters and then downscaled to 1080p. Would be interesting to see what the quality difference is.
 
There's so much wrong with this paragraph that I don't know where to start.

Do start. Here's a hint:

Dragon Wars (D-Wars)

M2TS file on Blu-Ray disc: 18.53GB (with all other files included, 26.2GB).
MPG2 HD file it contains: 7.87GB

VOB file on DVD disc: 7.93GB (already larger than standard recordable DVD, but total is 8.8GB).
MPG2 file it contains: 3.08GB

Both are exactly the same movie, both of the same vintage, both widescreen.

Blu-Ray is superior because it is optically superior to the older format which uses a red laser (most DVDs use an Infrared) and has a relaxed optical aperture compared to the HD-DVD format. This means it does not need to be as stringent in manufacturing to get a similar level of data. This also means it is less likely to degrade over time as the HD-DVD format is. This was very much like the VHS/Betamax format wars. The difference is, in this case, the superior format, specification wise, won out.
 
Really? How come it's always worked for me without having to remove or compress any of the information?

Also, I just went through 8 DVD's. Only one of them used more than 4.2gb. That's small enough to fitt on a single layer disc.

A question was asked why the M2TS file (and, by extension, the VOB) was so much larger. The padding I have found, once you take out the main MP2 video file, AAC and other audio formats and the "extras", like alternate camera angles, is zero padding (binary zeros). Why have nearly 8GB of no data in a file? What possible purpose could upwards of 50% of a file being blank possible serve? Removed, the file still plays perfectly on a bog standard DVD player, all extras and other features included (I have a VOB stream editor).

They may not do the oversize padding on many movies now because Double-Layer DVDs exist, but I have seen many a disc in the past with more than 4.7GB files (when you add all the VOBs that make up a movie). In fact, nearly all of my DVDs were that way. What were the vintage and which files are you referring to? The original VOBs (which are always 1GB or less for each segment) or the ripped MPG? And were these widescreen? Many of my DVDs are widescreen (NOT the abortion called "Letterbox" :p).

Another reason that just (re)occurred to me is to make bit torrenting the VOBs more of a hassle.
 
Your arguments still make no sense and I'm not sure you made any points. Fact of matter is that the space required to store a video has very little to do with trying to use more than one layer and more to do with the quality of the original recording, resolution, type of file and the amount of action. A modern romantic comedy will use much less space than an action flick. Fact is modern encodings only use data when a pixel changes. You really don't understand how video files work. Please don't confuse those who are trying to learn by posting incorrect information
 
Also, I just went through 8 DVD's. Only one of them used more than 4.2gb. That's small enough to fitt on a single layer disc.

Oh, sorry: Numbers

D-Wars, widescreen, double layer DVD

Total on disc: 8.83GB
Movie Section: 7.83GB (Main Movie 5x 1GB files plus one 583MB Others: 2x 1GB files, two <200MB files)

Contents of file: MP2-2.93GB, AAC-0.18GB, Alternate Angle 1-1GB, Other Audio-0.48GB, Zero Padding 1.2GB)
 
Your arguments still make no sense and I'm not sure you made any points. Fact of matter is that the space required to store a video has very little to do with trying to use more than one layer and more to do with the quality of the original recording, resolution, type of file and the amount of action. A modern romantic comedy will use much less space than an action flick. Fact is modern encodings only use data when a pixel changes. You really don't understand how video files work. Please don't confuse those who are trying to learn by posting incorrect information

Software programmer. Edit videos. Have nonlinear editing tools and video diagnostic tools. File sizes of files on disc padded. Facts. Sorry. It is even called "Padding". Explain padding if your such an expert. Explain padding when its removal does not affect file playback one whit on bog standard old fashioned and new DVD players.

You're right on one point. The size of the file doesn't have as much to do with its quality as the encoding methodology used. Just tyring to explain why DVD and Blu-Ray formatted files are so large. HD is a prime example. Most HD files would easily fit on a DVD if not for the padding.

My main point was the hardware requirements have all to do with DRM and not quality as some claim. Listed those. Apple is in fact no longer offerring HD for download (the buttons are greyed out) if you don't have HDCP harware all the way. Listed those (the button will also explain this if you click on it in iTunes).

The drop in resolution appears to happen in iTunes alone. Quicktime Player will still play movies not in HD format just fine. HD movies via iTunes have become black screen or very low resolution on my machine since the last update.

If you were not addressing me, my apologies.
 
In Blu-Ray (and the VHS-esque version of it, DVD-HD - seems the Betamax-esque format won this time), the files are insanely padded in the MD2 format. A true HD file is still an ordinary MPG2 format file. It will be 130% to 160% larger at 4GB-6GB for a 4:3 film and 6GB-8GB for a widescreen version.

No, it isn't. The DVD specification was for video encoded in MPEG-2. Blu-ray can have MPEG2, but most of those are the old movies that were already encoded in MPEG2 before Blu-ray was available. Since then, nearly all movies are encoded with h.264 or VC-1 for Blu-ray.

Again, the format on a BD disc is intentionally padded to make it difficult to copy onto a recordable BD disc.

This simply isn't true. It's about the frame size (1080p for Blu-ray vs. 480p for DVD), compression algorithm (MPEG2 only for DVD, MPEG2, VC-1 or H.264 for Blu-ray) and bit-rate, and audio (AC3, DTS, True-HD or DTS-MA for Blu-ray, AC3 and optional DTS for DVD).

Most HD format files could easily fit onto a double layer DVD if they were converted (note: Not transcoded, left at the same bitrate) back into the basic MPG2 format they started in.

Not with MPEG-2 at 1080p they couldn't. It's conceivable that many encoded in h.264 and only with AC3 or DTS *might* fit on a dual-layer DVD, but that would really be pushing it. Certainly Avatar Extended Edition wouldn't fit on a DVD without having crappy results. Its DTS-MA English audio track is 5 gb itself.
 
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