New 1080p content looks amazing on ATV2

[chris8535]

So I'm not sure what exactly is going on but episodes marked 1080p look very nice when played through the cloud on an ATV2.

I bought Game of Thrones last night and pulled if out of the cloud on my ATV2. I have always noticed the 720p content on ATV looked less then stellar -- in fact disappointingly blurry. Watch Planet Earth and you can barely tell the difference between the HD and SD versions.

Anyways, I immediately noticed that the first episode of Game of Thrones looked distinctly better than any other content I had seen before from iTunes. Wanting to do a blind test of a few episodes before I ruined my perception by checking, I pulled down Downtown Abby, Planet Earth, and a few others and marked down if they looked improved. Four for Four, I was able to tells which ones looked far better, and they all correlated to the new 1080p availability on iTunes.

Is anyone else noticing a distinct improvement in quality of video on their ATV2?

BTW, my TV is a Samsung 46" 6900 and I'm a former photographer with pretty sharp eyes.

 

[GarrettL1979]

So just making sure I understand-- you bought 1080p content from iTunes, and it looks great on your ATV2?

I only ask because I was confused by this line in the Ars Technica article:

"Also, the 720p version will sync to the iPhone 4 as well as the older iPads and it will play on the second generation AppleTV. The 1080p version only plays on third-generation iPad and AppleTV, and the iPhone 4S."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...ooks-good-through-better-h264-compression.ars

 

[chris8535]

So just making sure I understand-- you bought 1080p content from iTunes, and it looks great on your ATV2?

I only ask because I was confused by this line in the Ars Technica article:

"Also, the 720p version will sync to the iPhone 4 as well as the older iPads and it will play on the second generation AppleTV. The 1080p version only plays on third-generation iPad and AppleTV, and the iPhone 4S."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...ooks-good-through-better-h264-compression.ars

Yes that line would confuse me to.

I did by Game of Thrones on iTunes, but I did not sync that version. I then used my ATV2 to pull down a version from the cloud (not the version on my computer).

I have yet to check if you can stream the 1080p version from a computer to the ATV2.

 

[steve-p]

So just making sure I understand-- you bought 1080p content from iTunes, and it looks great on your ATV2?

I only ask because I was confused by this line in the Ars Technica article:

"Also, the 720p version will sync to the iPhone 4 as well as the older iPads and it will play on the second generation AppleTV. The 1080p version only plays on third-generation iPad and AppleTV, and the iPhone 4S."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...ooks-good-through-better-h264-compression.ars

That quote is badly worded. It may well only output 1080p on ATV3, but it will most likely play on ATV2, just downscaled to 720p.

 

[GarrettL1979]

thanks! i was hoping to avoid needing two files of each movie (one for bedroom ATV2; one for living room ATV3)

 

[atandon]

That quote is badly worded. It may well only output 1080p on ATV3, but it will most likely play on ATV2, just downscaled to 720p.

Um! How do u know that apple is streaming the 1080p version to you from the cloud. The way I look at it, the cloud would know that it is "serving" an atv2 device and would accordingly stream the 720p version to the device.

Though with that said, I have confirmed that full bit rate mp4 can be streamed smoothly now to the atv2 from a computer

 

[chris8535]

Um! How do u know that apple is streaming the 1080p version to you from the cloud. The way I look at it, the cloud would know that it is "serving" an atv2 device and would accordingly stream the 720p version to the device.

Though with that said, I have confirmed that full bit rate mp4 can be streamed smoothly now to the atv2 from a computer

I'm not sure, thus the blind testing. I can, subjectively, see a difference though.

 

[BlackMangoTree]

Since the last update the AppleTV2 has no issue playing back 1080p

 

[hafr]

I'm not sure, thus the blind testing. I can, subjectively, see a difference though.

I'm a bit confused. Have you bought/rented the 720p and the 1080 version of the same episode and compared them side by side or not? Can you choose which one to play on the ATV2?

----------

Since the last update the AppleTV2 has no issue playing back 1080p

The ATV2 didn't have any issues playing back 1080p before the last update either.

 

[foodog]

Um! How do u know that apple is streaming the 1080p version to you from the cloud. The way I look at it, the cloud would know that it is "serving" an atv2 device and would accordingly stream the 720p version to the device.

Though with that said, I have confirmed that full bit rate mp4 can be streamed smoothly now to the atv2 from a computer

I have 1080p encoded video stored in iTunes and it plays fine on the ATV2 and ATV3.

 

[osohardy]

Um! How do u know that apple is streaming the 1080p version to you from the cloud. The way I look at it, the cloud would know that it is "serving" an atv2 device and would accordingly stream the 720p version to the device.

Though with that said, I have confirmed that full bit rate mp4 can be streamed smoothly now to the atv2 from a computer

In my experience, that is the exactly right. On the ATV2 it will not let you rent 1080p version of the movies, and for my cloud purchases by my eye it streams the 720p version. It will however no problem stream the 1080 version by homeshare. I can't be 100% positive but since for the few movies I have purchased through iTunes the quality is distinctly better on the 1080p version, and I can quickly toggle between the cloud and homeshare AND see a distinct difference in quality, I am 99% sure the ATV2 is streaming only 720p version.

 

[martinm0]

The ATV2 didn't have any issues playing back 1080p before the last update either.

Actually, my ATV2 never could playback any of my 1080p content without horrendous frame dropping. Since the update, all my 1080p m4v files playback completely smooth at 720p.