Contemplating Switch: AppleTV & iTunes

Hello, I had a previous topic about using Office on a Mac. Thank you for all of your help. I have a couple more questions about a few different aspects of Mac. I placed them in two separate topics as it seemed most appropriate since the subjects are so different. I hope this is not considered spamming.

I have also been looking at purchasing an AppleTV if I purchase a Mac as well. One of my concerns is downloading video content from iTunes. When you download movies and video to iTunes, what is the resolution? My concern with using AppleTV to play iTunes movies on a widescreen HDTV is that the video quality will be terrible when transferring a video for small screens to a larger one.

I know that pictures transferred to the iPod are adjusted to fit the resolution of the screen to save on memory. Is this also the case with the video? Do the videos come at a high resolution and then get converted to a smaller resolution and file size specifically for iPod, but keep the original size and resolution for incase you view your videos on the computer or a TV?

While I do have a discerning eye on video quality, I am not a graphics *****. I can notice subltle differences, like minor artifacting. I don't mind some artifacting, and the like. I do have a breaking point, however. I just don't want to pay $299 for AppleTV and realize that the videos look like streaming video from a dialup connection. (I have broadband, the dialup connection is primarily for a visual reference.)

TV shows are currently at 640x480 which is Standard Definition quality. I believe (Forget where I saw it and could be wrong) that apple will be offering HD content in the future in the store as well.

The quality of the shows/movies from the store is very good and I would imagine you would be able to find little difference between watching the shows through AppleTV and just watching a regular standard definition broadcast

You can go to the iTunes store and download some free tv shows (you should see them on the front page) to see what the quality looks like

Aactually, many broadcast (over-air) shows are in HD, much more than cable/satellite, unless you pay a premium. I don't buy TV/movies from iTunes because the quality is not as good as you get on you TV (for the most part) and certainly not as good as you get on DVD.

I think you will be disappointed spending a lot of money for an HD TV and AppleTV only to have low-quality content. You're probably better off using a DVR until Apple comes out with higher quality/HD content.

trpnmonkey41 said:

TV shows are currently at 640x480 which is Standard Definition quality. I believe (Forget where I saw it and could be wrong) that apple will be offering HD content in the future in the store as well.

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I don't remember if that was specifically mentioned, but the specs for the ?TV (and it was stated on the Keynote) show 720p, so one would presume that the iTMS will be selling content at that resolution in the near future.

The quality of the shows/movies from the store is very good and I would imagine you would be able to find little difference between watching the shows through AppleTV and just watching a regular standard definition broadcast

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I'm guessing you meant to say that one would find a difference between purchased shows and standard definition broadcast... Analog broadcast TV has around 300 lines of resolution -- just over half what the current iTunes content supports. Couple that with the fact that standard broadcast television is going to be full of artifacts, and I think that purchased content will be much clearer looking.

I've occasionally downloaded DivX-encoded broadcasts of shows I've missed, and there's a huge difference between these digital rips and the analog broadcasts I normally watch.

Also keep in mind, you won't get commercials!

You can go to the iTunes store and download some free tv shows (you should see them on the front page) to see what the quality looks like

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Yeah I'm not sure how many people are aware of this. I look forward to Tuesdays so I can download the new freebies from both the US and Japan iTunes stores. The Japan store doesn't have video content yet, but I do frequently download their discovery download, as I do with the US store, plus any interesting free video content from the US store.

Often the free stuff isn't exciting, but I have purchased several albums because of the discovery downloads.

djames42 said:

I'm guessing you meant to say that one would find a difference between purchased shows and standard definition broadcast... Analog broadcast TV has around 300 lines of resolution -- just over half what the current iTunes content supports. Couple that with the fact that standard broadcast television is going to be full of artifacts, and I think that purchased content will be much clearer looking.

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interesting. i had thought that standard television broadcasts were in 480i

trpnmonkey41 said:

interesting. i had thought that standard television broadcasts were in 480i

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Hmm... Checking wikipedia, it would seem I was mistaken:

A typical NTSC broadcast signal's visible portion has an equivalent resolution of about 640x480 pixels.

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I wonder if a SD tv is only capable of rendering a lower resolution image, or perhaps I’m completely off. I could have sworn that I'd read somewhere that it was only 280 pixels, but I must not be remembering correctly.

In any case, it’s still bound to look clearer than an analog broadcast, but not to the extent that I had thought... One could argue that 480p would be clearer than 480i (a standard TV broadcast most certainly would be interlaced, right?)