Quality of iTunes TV shows?

[Padraic]

Hi all, I'm seriously thinking of picking up an AppleTV to play some of the TV show seasons iTunes has, but I've heard some bad things about the quality of the TV shows they offer. Most of the reviews were from when the AppleTV was first released, and I'm hoping Apple has upped the quality between now and then. I'm specifically talking about Battlestar Galactica, Stargate (SG-1 and Atlantis) and maybe some others.

Does anyone have any experience with these? Is the quality similar to what I'd get if I bought the DVD version of the seasons?

I'd appreciate any input!

Patrick

 

[Cave Man]

Battlestar Galactica from iTMS was 640x360 - not quite DVD resolution. Plus, the DVDs will give you 5.1 surround if it's encoded on the DVD, or Dolby Pro Logic II 5-channel if you rip with Handbrake.

 

[rjboger]

Battlestar Galatica is no longer on iTunes because NBC is a ripoff.

 

[Padraic]

Battlestar Galatica is no longer on iTunes because NBC is a ripoff.

Oh, that sucks!!!


Thank you everyone for their replies. Appreciate it!

Patrick

 

[mkrishnan]

The "almost DVD" quality videos look passable on a 720p television, but the other problem is that whether or not you get 16:9 is kind of a crapshoot from television show to television show (e.g. shows broadcast in 16:9 HDTV would sometimes still come as 4:3 SD). It might have changed, but I don't even think there was an easy way to know what you'd get before you bought, short of forum searching for some post somewhere else from someone who bought the same show.

Yeah, little to no high-def, no digital multichannel audio, no rental model, and a slow pace of recruiting new content... Apple needs to figure out what they want to do with this quickly, or it's going to become a dead system ahead of its time....

 

[Techguy172]

Apple really needs to step up the quality on their shows at least 720P

 

[rjboger]

of course you could always use jaman

 

[balamw]

It might have changed, but I don't even think there was an easy way to know what you'd get before you bought

The 30 sec preview is usually a pretty good indicator (Though I recently bought a season where one episode (three episode movie actually) was 16:9 and the rest were 4:3 (Ben 10 Season 4).

iTunes has plenty of free video content each week which can be useful in gauging the quality.

FWIW The video looks better on my 40" 720p TV than the SD quality I get from DirectTV, but the bitrate doesn't handle fast motion well and pixellates easily in case of explosions, etc...

B