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itv(apple tv) only for widescreens?

A

ankushpatel

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 27, 2005
118
0
i have a 4 year old sony and it has composite and svideo imput on the back the tv is not that old. On apple website, the way they say it on the website it says that itv is kind of only works with widescreen tvs is this true?

are all my hopes for itv gone?


Ankush
 
ankushpatel said:
i have a 4 year old sony and it has composite and svideo imput on the back the tv is not that old. On apple website, the way they say it on the website it says that itv is kind of only works with widescreen tvs is this true?

are all my hopes for itv gone?


Ankush
Click to expand...

If you don't have a component or HDMI hookup in the back then yes, you're hopes are gone.
 
i do have component

my tv does have component (those are the white,red,yellow cables right imput>) ye i have those but i just dont have a widescreen or hd tv

will it still work?

on the apple site they mention all about hd and widescreen tvs they dont mention anything about people without them

i have the component on the back of my sony
 
ankushpatel said:
my tv does have component (those are the white,red,yellow cables right imput>) ye i have those but i just dont have a widescreen or hd tv

will it still work?

on the apple site they mention all about hd and widescreen tvs they dont mention anything about people without them

i have the component on the back of my sony
Click to expand...

No, the red, white and yellow is composite connections, not component which are red, green, and blue. If you don't have component, you won't be able to use the AppleTV
 
i have component green,blue,red

i have component connection (1) at the back of the tv it goes up -down green blue red. is it right?

it doesnt matter if i dont have a widescreen or hd tv does it?
will the quality be the same?


Thanks again

Ankush Patel
 
ankushpatel said:
i have component connection (1) at the back of the tv it goes up -down green blue red. is it right?

it doesnt matter if i dont have a widescreen or hd tv does it?
will the quality be the same?


Thanks again

Ankush Patel
Click to expand...


No the quality won't be the same as 720p or 1080i. Best you'll get is 480p (dvd quality). It won't look BAD just not great. Actually, Dvds look BETTER on a CRT tv than on a HD set, where you get all the artifacts. I'd imagine most content will be DVD quality or less so you should be fine.

A lot of 720p 1080i Tvs are dropping rapidly in price, most likely for the 1080p sets coming this year. You can find some deals if you're in the market for a set.
 
so let me just get this right and final

if i buy this itv it will work on my slightly old sony(non widescreen or hd) that has component video connection on the back? the quality will be not best but good enough.


is this correct then i can go ahead and pre order it?
 
ankushpatel said:
if i buy this itv it will work on my slightly old sony(non widescreen or hd) that has component video connection on the back? the quality will be not best but good enough.


is this correct then i can go ahead and pre order it?
Click to expand...

I would ASSUME it would simply letterbox the image (bar on top and bottom) on a 4:3 set. However, their site on the specs have limited information and lists a small number of "compatible" tvs. The problem here is their information is LIMITED.

I would say yes, it will work because it if didn't, they'd seriously be limiting their product reach because there are other customers like you with 4:3 sets.
 
any more imput

thanks for the reply, ye so alot of people are saying different things on different forums.


if anyone has a correct answer or any opinions plz let me know

thanks ankush
 
UrsaMajor said:
No the quality won't be the same as 720p or 1080i. Best you'll get is 480p (dvd quality). It won't look BAD just not great. Actually, Dvds look BETTER on a CRT tv than on a HD set, where you get all the artifacts. I'd imagine most content will be DVD quality or less so you should be fine.
Click to expand...

Thats news to me, some of my DVDs do have artifacts, but others are purely flawless on my LCD widescreen.

To OP, it has to work. Just like a DVD player will output a picture at a certain resolution, e.g., a widescreen movie, and your TV copes by displaying black bars on the top and bottom. It should do the same for the AppleTV. However, that brings up the question, what happens when you try to watch a 4:3 video feed? On your DVD player you can adjust the output so that it knows its displaying to a 4:3 TV, but I am guessing the AppleTV doesn't so you could have a 4:3 video feed playing back in a minuscule size.

Either way, I would wait until the reviews come rolling in, as I am sure there will be plenty of people trying this.
 
Perhaps when he said it was built for Widescreens, it will only stream the content in a 16:9 aspect ratio, and that if you run it on a fullscreen tv (4:3) it will still play but will have the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. But he did seem to emphasize that it only worked on widescreen tvs...
 
dvd s on itv

if i play a dvd my laptop will i be able to stream it to my tv ?? that is the most important factor in my opinion .. if its only from itunes that would be very dissapointing !!
 
The specs are very clear, very clear. I don't know why people are saying they're limited. And I quote:

"Enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen TVs capable of 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz"

The widescreen bit is safely ignorable - it just means it would be distorted (anamorphic widescreen [all it sounds like this can produce] is distorted not letterboxed on a normal TV - set your DVD player to widescreen TV mode to see). But it would work and many TVs can be set to letterbox the content internally.

The bigger issue - 1080i, 720p, 576p, or 480p. No 480i. 480i is what most of your older TVs support. Not 480p (aka progressive scan or enhanced definition TV). There is a HUGE difference. 480i is 60 fields per second each containing 240 lines with two different sets of lines. 480p is 60 fields of the same 480 lines a second. They are not even remotely compatible.

As long as the Apple TV only outputs 480p and higher it doesn't matter if your TV has the same physical connectors.

And the anamorphic widescreen bit is also a major annoyance (though it would only result in distortion not not working).

Here's the good news - the anamorphic widescreen only bit is definitely a software limitation. I'm about 99% willing to bet (because I've never heard of a chipset that could output 480p but not 480i) that the resolution thing is a software limitation as well. Almost certainly limited so that people were matching the Apple TV with what Apple considered appropriate TV sets for it.

Here's the bit of hope - maybe Apple will see the error of their ways, and then it would just be a simple software upgrade to make it compatible with all the lower-resolution TVs on the market.
 
can i stream dvds WITHOUT ITUNES !!!!

markie ..
how about my question .. if i simply slip in a dvd into may laptop can i stream it to itv or can i only run movies from itunes ??
 
mnahawi said:
markie ..
how about my question .. if i simply slip in a dvd into may laptop can i stream it to itv or can i only run movies from itunes ??
Click to expand...

i don't have much of a basis for this but i think that goes against the reasoning for the whole device...

you have a DVD player for that... and if you don't then a fairly decent one can be picked up for $40... The idea is to have your content accessible without having to dig through a physical library, or worrying about scratched/lost discs...

just a hunch. but if that's all you want to do then you can save a lot of cash... unless of course you know something that I don't
 
true .. but it would be alot easier if u simply have all ur multimedia such as music pics and songs all playable through ur sound system and tv screen !! that also includes regular downloads of movie clips u make !
 
mnahawi said:
markie ..
how about my question .. if i simply slip in a dvd into may laptop can i stream it to itv or can i only run movies from itunes ??
Click to expand...

I remember seeing somewhere, in another thread or online, that the answer to that was a definitive no. As in, if iTunes can't play it then you can't use aTV for it.
 
will this tv i have work

Product Description
Let your home entertainment begin with Sony?s KV-27FS100 27-inch FD Trinitron WEGA TV. Watch our features in action and reap the benefits. Featuring a 3-Line Digital Comb Filter, Velocity Modulation? Scanning (Off/Low/High) Control, 16:9 Enhanced Mode (V-Compression), a Component Video(Y,PB,PR)Input, Dynamic Focus? Circuitry, Dynamic Picture? Processor Circuitry, and Magnetic Quadra Pole, this television brings home brilliant pictures. Additional features include our New Side Speaker Design (10 Watts), Audio Outpeakers On/Off, Auto Channel Program, a Basic Menu Option, Caption Vision (CC), Speed Surf? Channel Selection, a Clock/Timer (Two Event), Energy Star® Compliance, Favorite Channel, On Screen Display - (English, Spanish, French), and Program Palette Presets. The KV-27FS100 -- television so true it could only be Sony.

Features
Multi-channel Preview Without PIP
Speakers Stereo
2 x 10 Watt

Details
Image Aspect Ratio 16:9 Enhanced, 4:3
Front Input Connectors Composite x 1, S-Video x 1
Rear Input Connectors Component x 1, Composite x 2, RF x 1, S-Video x 1
Rear Output Connectors Audio (RCA) x 1
Digital Standard Analog TV
Dimensions (W X D X H) 30.25 in. x 19.63 in. x 23.25 in.
Weight 99.19 lb.
MPN kv-27fs100


will it work? above are the features
 
"will it work? above are the features"

Nope, it's not progressive scan. Sorry. 480p (progressive scan) is mandatory. The widescreen mode means that if it did work the picture wouldn't be distorted. But it won't work unless you failed to mention that it has progressive scan.
 
No 480i

so let me just conclude this question

my tv has 480i so the itv will not work with it for now until maybe apple sorts out the issue.


Ankush Patel
 
Correct, it won't per the specs send 480i. But I doubt it's an "issue." My guess is it's an intentional limitation of the device. They don't want people using these on 4:3 TVs or low-res 480i TVs.
 
Component to Composite Adapter

I seem to have found a component to composite/svideo adapter for $29 by doing a google search. What I'm curious about is will this enable me to hook an apple tv to my old ass crt tv, and will the picture simply be letterboxed? I've read through most of the thread and alot of people seem to think it would just letterbox if you already have the component inputs but what about with an adapter?
 
"I seem to have found a component to composite/svideo adapter for $29 by doing a google search. What I'm curious about is will this enable me to hook an apple tv to my old ass crt tv, and will the picture simply be letterboxed? I've read through most of the thread and alot of people seem to think it would just letterbox if you already have the component inputs but what about with an adapter?"

Most people on this forum, quite frankly, are wrong.

1. Widescren sources wouldn't naturally be letterboxed - they'd be distorted - stretched vertically. The letterboxing is done in the source usually (notice the difference between Letterboxed 4:3 and Widescreen modes on your DVD player). SOME, but very few TVs can do letterboxing internally.

2. Even more significantly - sorry, it won't work anyway. Even converting the cable type doesn't change the resolution. You're made problem is the Apple TV's lowest resolution is 480p and your TV's highest resolution is 480i (which is actually half the resolution - with different lines displayed in alternating (interlaced) frames).

Of course, these are both software design features in almost all liklihood. They're probably (almost certainly) not hardware limitations. I.E. There's no real reason the Apple TV couldn't put out 4:3 480i if they wanted it to. They just don't want it used on anything but progressive scan or better widescreen TVs.
 
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