I finally got around to renting some HD movies on my AppleTV. I've rented 2 movies so far: Bloody Sunday and Michael Clayton.

I have to say I am impressed. While the image is not nearly as crisp as Blu-Ray, it is certainly much better than SD DVD and about as good as HD PPV. Also, there are virtually none of the compression artifacts I am used to seeing from non-BD HD sources, such as OTA Networks and HD PPV from Cable or Satellite. Someone has obviously taken the time to do a very nice job optimizing the encoding on the AppleTV rentals given the relatively low bit-rate.

Given how often Blockbuster is out of the BDs I want to rent and DISH only offering 5 HD PPV channels, I expect I will be using the AppleTV about as often as those other 2 sources of HD rentals. Overall I would say Apple has done an admirable job on this product, but that really isn't too surprising to a lot of folks I imagine.

Ted

Oh boy, look out dude, your about to get piled on!:D

I finally got around to renting some HD movies on my AppleTV. I've rented 2 movies so far: Bloody Sunday and Michael Clayton.

I have to say I am impressed. While the image is not nearly as crisp as Blu-Ray, it is certainly much better than SD DVD and about as good as HD PPV. Also, there are virtually none of the compression artifacts I am used to seeing from non-BD HD sources, such as OTA Networks and HD PPV from Cable or Satellite. Someone has obviously taken the time to do a very nice job optimizing the encoding on the AppleTV rentals given the relatively low bit-rate.

Given how often Blockbuster is out of the BDs I want to rent and DISH only offering 5 HD PPV channels, I expect I will be using the AppleTV about as often as those other 2 sources of HD rentals. Overall I would say Apple has done an admirable job on this product, but that really isn't too surprising to a lot of folks I imagine.

Ted

My same experience here well worth the money spent and so far a few of
my friends got one after viewing mine,they would probably sell more if they
set up a display with an hd movie playing on an hd tv.

I would do it for movies I dont want to buy, or am unsure I want to buy, and for TV shows. The fiance is also an Itunes and photo nut, and likes all those goofy features.

I just dont like the netflix hassles, etc.

Interesting. Does the APPLE TV have any bit rate meter ? If so they need to immediately remove or fake add 10 Mpbs to avoid unwanted bashing.

Interesting. Does the APPLE TV have any bit rate meter ? If so they need to immediately remove or fake add 10 Mpbs more to avoid unwanted bashing.

Yea, I can just see all the PS3 boys wondering where the "display" button is on the Apple TV remote:rolleyes:

Cost way to much to rent a movie off of Apple or any download service.

I still love Netflix and don't think I will ever give it up. I bet they will be the first and only ones to have unlimited HD downloading with the box thats coming out for like $30 a month!

i think alot of people see the power of the netflix plan.... i bet ms does it (maybe even before netflix) because they like the subscription model (they have the zunepass thing now)

honestly i see digital downloads with the netflix subscription being netflix 2.0.... takes some advantages from both and makes an even better service.

Oh boy, look out dude, your about to get piled on!:D


Shouts Urza from the top!:D

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/8ee27b19.jpg

i think alot of people see the power of the netflix plan.... i bet ms does it (maybe even before netflix) because they like the subscription model (they have the zunepass thing now)

honestly i see digital downloads with the netflix subscription being netflix 2.0.... takes some advantages from both and makes an even better service.

Maybe, but digital downloads will never take off and out beat DVD or Blu-ray if people have to pay $4 or $5 a pop when you can get blockbuster or Netflix for $15 a month for 2 out at a time unlimited rentals.

I rent about 8 to 10 movies a month for like $15 in HD. Thats only about 3 movies from Apple or Xbox. Thats why its not worth it IMO.

Wonder if postal rates increasing if Netflix will absorb the cost or pass it along to the
customer,it may be more expensive but the sheer convenience of atv is one of the
things i like about it.

Maybe, but digital downloads will never take off and out beat DVD or Blu-ray if people have to pay $4 or $5 a pop when you can get blockbuster or Netflix for $15 a month for 2 out at a time unlimited rentals.

I rent about 8 to 10 movies a month for like $15 in HD. Thats only about 3 movies from Apple or Xbox. Thats why its not worth it IMO.
i agree... but if you can pay somebody 20-25 bucks a month and get hd in "real time" its even better than netflix now.

I imagine the download size is over 4GB for HD. Seeing as it would take over 36 hours for the whole thing to download on my connection, I think I'll pass.

Interesting. Does the APPLE TV have any bit rate meter ? If so they need to immediately remove or fake add 10 Mpbs to avoid unwanted bashing.

Sounds good- it worked to keep hdvd afloat as long as it did, after all. :p

I imagine the download size is over 4GB for HD. Seeing as it would take over 36 hours for the whole thing to download on my connection, I think I'll pass.

That sounds like dial-up and it would time-out before the movie loaded,
a little over an hour at 6mbps for an hd movie on mine.

That sounds like dial-up and it would time-out before the movie loaded,
a little over an hour at 6mbps for an hd movie on mine.

Not even close. It's 768K DSL. As it stands, I can download about 100MB per hour. I can close to double the download speed if everyone in the house didn't touch the internet for the entire time, but that's not really possible.

Audio?

For me the HD experience is 60% video and 40% Audio. I have yet to see any VOD or download service offer anything better then DD and "OK" video.

If apple TV cacthes up to BD in both audio and video I will buy in.untl then I dont see why I should pay for less.

Since it's MPEG4 they probably have the deblocking ramped up mega high. If you could turn it off, it would probably be macroblock city.

I think the point is that with what they're able to pull now with digital downloads it's 100% that Blu-ray will be the last "major" physical format ever.

If you're one of those "I must have a physical disc" types, enjoy it now because you have roughly a decade before you will no longer have a choice in the matter.

Yea, I can just see all the PS3 boys wondering where the "display" button is on the Apple TV remote:rolleyes:

I can just imagine _________ (fill in any AVS member bitrate whore :D) doing that.


Fine they can have their downloads but I still want my HD movies in a disc. And all the good stuff that comes along with it.

Audio?

For me the HD experience is 60% video and 40% Audio. I have yet to see any VOD or download service offer anything better then DD and "OK" video.

If apple TV cacthes up to BD in both audio and video I will buy in.untl then I dont see why I should pay for less.It's the first thing that comes to mind when people say BD or DVD will go the way of the CD. AUDIO is very important IMO as well. Just look at all the threads regarding "AUDIO" and DDTrue HD, LPCM & DTSHDMA.

I really think this IS going to happen in the future. At some point all media will be downloaded. it is happening now with software, music to a large extent, its only a matter of time before it is top quality HD video. Does everyone forget it was only 5-6 years ago we were all on dialup, now many have 3-6mb connections. Once we all have 10-20mb connections we will be able to download very large files in a couple of hours. Hard drives are getting much bigger every year. I am sure 1 TB drives will be the norm within 5 years. It not going to happen overnight and BD may make some inroads in the next couple of years, but for the general public I think in the end its going to be downloads that untimately win out.

Not quite the pile-on I expected. ;)

I only rent a couple of movies a month. I actually buy more than I rent, but when I rent, I want something to be there which NetFlix and Blockbuster both seem to be having issues with.

The DD 5.1 was just fine. Not nearly as good as DTS on BD, but fine for a $5 experience.

The downloads took about 3-4 hours on my 3Mb DSL.

Maximum bit-rate on the AppleTV is 5Mb for H.264.

I still prefer my content on BD, but this nicely fills in the gaps when that is not possible IMHO.

Ted

Not quite the pile-on I expected. ;)

I only rent a couple of movies a month. I actually buy more than I rent, but when I rent, I want something to be there which NetFlix and Blockbuster both seem to be having issues with.

The DD 5.1 was just fine. Not nearly as good as DTS on BD, but fine for a $5 experience.

The downloads took about 3-4 hours on my 3Mb DSL.

Maximum bit-rate on the AppleTV is 5Mb for H.264.

I still prefer my content on BD, but this nicely fills in the gaps when that is not possible IMHO.

Ted
Exactly its a supplement for movies i don't care to watch again and again
the disc will still exist in my collection for action movies and very musical
ones with advanced audio but for all the rest the atv has filled the void.

I was tempted to pull the trigger on a Apple TV this morning, free with Aeroplan miles like my PS3. mmmmmm, still contemplating.

One thing that bugs me about this whole HD generation. Why are so many BD fanboys against downloads? Should i not have an HD PVR as well? Im going to have them all, HD DVD, Blu-ray, my PVR and yes some form of downloadable HD media center such as my X360 or an apple TV.

Downloads and HDM can exist side by side, and will. Both have the potential to be a niche, both have potential to become mass adopted..... and hopefully this time consumers will be able to chose which become mainstream. Because honestly if the studios decide, i can see downloads being there preferred medium.

And i want all possible mediums to be available. I feel downloads are a great addition to physical media.

Why are so many BD fanboys against downloads? Should i not have an HD PVR as well?

What you don't seem to grasp is that ISP are rolling in download and bandwith cap. You may not have it now but you wil get it when they see this as a way to make a profit. Where I live the unlimited down/up is a thing of the past unless you are willing to pay for a commercial account. And even if the ISP is offering the movie download service they always have a crappy selection limited mostly to blockbuster or kiddy titles.

Yeah, but it's really not HD. In the video download thread sticky'ed in this forum it looks like Apple and Vudu max out at about 4-5Mbit/sec, and the file size for a whole movie is around 5Gbytes. Compare this to Bluray and the movie size would be about 15-20Gbytes (without extras), and the bit rates are up around 15-20Mbits/sec. So unless the H.264 codec being used is 3-4X better quality than the VC-1 codecs Bluray uses, then this is not really even close to HD quality.

jcg

i agree... but if you can pay somebody 20-25 bucks a month and get hd in "real time" its even better than netflix now.

I find digital download rentals from xBox Live Marketplace to be a great picture on my 47" set. Those chiming in about the video quality on their 100"+ front projection systems are not the target market for these movies. I sit pretty close to my set and I still don't see a difference between these downloaded rentals and my twenty Blu-Ray movies. Sure, I would like to buy "The Thomas Crowne Affair" and "Batman Begins" on Blu-Ray disc, but neither is available right now. So I paid about $4 per movie to download them on to my xBox over the weekend. It takes a while to download with my 1 mb cable, but it does it at night and when I am not home and now anytime in the next two weeks I have Batman Begins in 720p HD to enjoy (I already watched The Thomas Crowne Affair).

Yeah, but it's really not HD. In the video download thread sticky'ed in this forum it looks like Apple and Vudu max out at about 4-5Mbit/sec, and the file size for a whole movie is around 5Gbytes. Compare this to Bluray and the movie size would be about 15-20Gbytes (without extras), and the bit rates are up around 15-20Mbits/sec. So unless the H.264 codec being used is 3-4X better quality than the VC-1 codecs Bluray uses, then this is not really even close to HD quality.

jcg

How is it not HD? So if a format comes along that uses a higher bitrate than BD does that make BD no longer HD? Apple TV HD downloads (which I imagine are similar to the xBox Live Marketplace HD downloads I watch) are absolutely HD. The entire bitrate arguement nonsense needs to stop. People need to face the fact that the AVC or VC-1 codecs don't need a ridiculously high bitrate to produce VERY watchable HD video on the displays the majority of consumers have or will purchase.

How is it not HD? So if a format comes along that uses a higher bitrate than BD does that make BD no longer HD? Apple TV HD downloads (which I imagine are similar to the xBox Live Marketplace HD downloads I watch) are absolutely HD. The entire bitrate arguement nonsense needs to stop. People need to face the fact that the AVC or VC-1 codecs don't need a ridiculously high bitrate to produce VERY watchable HD video on the displays the majority of consumers have or will purchase.
agreed..... and fyi the xbox live downloads are 6.5 mbit avg (as has been confirmed by the ms folks here).

i'm continually amazed at the people that compare HD downloads to some sort of demon spawn that will ruin their life. It's a supplement to disc and other content delivery methods, that's it. I promise it won't break into your house at night and steal all your physical media.

Yeah, but it's really not HD.In my opinion this is a silly comment. I have a 1080 DLP projector with a 110 inch image and The Brave One via Apple TV looked better than many Blu-ray titles I have viewed.

It certainly isn't superior to the best transfers and I'm sure it looks worse than the Blu-ray version to some extent. However both audio and video wise the movie's "look" and transfer will probably have more influence on how you would "rate" the movie than whether it's from Apple TV or Blu-ray.

I think a lot of negativity comes from people that have not tried it so far none of my
friends and clients that have atv have been satisfied ,not as a replacement but rather
a supplement to their blu-ray.

...they would probably sell more if they
set up a display with an hd movie playing on an hd tv.

My local Apple store has the atv connected to a 42" 720P Plasma.

I finally got around to renting some HD movies on my AppleTV. I've rented 2 movies so far: Bloody Sunday and Michael Clayton.

Ted

Didn't Michael Clayton just come out last week on DVD and Blu-ray? I thought there was going to be a 30 day delay for new releases on AppleTV. What happened with this?

Didn't Michael Clayton just come out last week on DVD and Blu-ray? I thought there was going to be a 30 day delay for new releases on AppleTV. What happened with this?

I think that all changed i downloaded the same movie last week.

Yeah, but it's really not HD. In the video download thread sticky'ed in this forum it looks like Apple and Vudu max out at about 4-5Mbit/sec, and the file size for a whole movie is around 5Gbytes. Compare this to Bluray and the movie size would be about 15-20Gbytes (without extras), and the bit rates are up around 15-20Mbits/sec. So unless the H.264 codec being used is 3-4X better quality than the VC-1 codecs Bluray uses, then this is not really even close to HD quality.

jcg

Wow, no idea what you talking about. Point me to the spec that says HD is defined by bitrate instead of resolution. I guess by your interpretation DirectTV and Dish aren't HD either since they slaughter the bitrate. And HD-DVD wasn't HD either since it had lower bitrates than Blu-Ray. I guess Sony was right all along. They have true HD!

I have rented a few movies from aTV and they look pretty good. Way better than the DVD and all you have to do is punch a few buttons and the movie starts in 10 minutes.

I finally got around to renting some HD movies on my AppleTV. I've rented 2 movies so far: Bloody Sunday and Michael Clayton.

I have to say I am impressed. While the image is not nearly as crisp as Blu-Ray, it is certainly much better than SD DVD and about as good as HD PPV. Also, there are virtually none of the compression artifacts I am used to seeing from non-BD HD sources, such as OTA Networks and HD PPV from Cable or Satellite. Someone has obviously taken the time to do a very nice job optimizing the encoding on the AppleTV rentals given the relatively low bit-rate.

Given how often Blockbuster is out of the BDs I want to rent and DISH only offering 5 HD PPV channels, I expect I will be using the AppleTV about as often as those other 2 sources of HD rentals. Overall I would say Apple has done an admirable job on this product, but that really isn't too surprising to a lot of folks I imagine.

Ted

When you say OTA networks, are you referring to a good rooftop mounted antenna or some feed from cable or satellite? My antenna derived OTA is very good. Better than my Panny 10 blu but not as good as the XA2 HD DVD.

Didn't Michael Clayton just come out last week on DVD and Blu-ray? I thought there was going to be a 30 day delay for new releases on AppleTV. What happened with this?They are up to a whopping 91 HD titles... added 10 in just the last few days.

perhaps some studios aren't doing the 30 day thing. I'm pretty sure I saw an ad for Michael Clayton on xbox live marketplace as well.

Wow, no idea what you talking about. Point me to the spec that says HD is defined by bitrate instead of resolution.

Resolution is the most well known indicator for the HD qualification, but it is not necessarily the sole indicator. Bitrate has a connection, as well. You can tell when someone is "cheating" if these 2 details are given, and they don't quite jive with each other. They can call it "HD" or even say it is 4k resolution, but if the bitrate is low enough, the performance in the pq may not be any better than typical sd resolution. So then you got to ask yourself, what is more important?...that the video is "called" hd or that the video actually exhibits hd caliber detail? That is the real difference between a given video simply existing at a technical resolution vs. containing detail performance that actually puts that technical resolution to work.

I guess by your interpretation DirectTV and Dish aren't HD either since they slaughter the bitrate.

Do some research in the broadcast-oriented areas of this discussion forum. You will find that those 2 examples are considered "hd-lite", by resolution, bitrate, and general performance. No one (except the respective companies) considers that "true" hd and keeps a straight face. It is barely hd, if not, a very poor example of what real hd is capable of.

And HD-DVD wasn't HD either since it had lower bitrates than Blu-Ray. I guess Sony was right all along. They have true HD!

It should be fairly apparent, by now, that it is not necessarily that the bitrate is simply lower, rather the bitrate is too low, when people begin to question (and rightly so) how "hd" it is.

I have rented a few movies from aTV and they look pretty good. Way better than the DVD and all you have to do is punch a few buttons and the movie starts in 10 minutes.

That's fine and all, but those aren't particularly concrete/quantifiable properties to determine the "hd"-ness of the material, are they?

When you say OTA networks, are you referring to a good rooftop mounted antenna or some feed from cable or satellite? My antenna derived OTA is very good. Better than my Panny 10 blu but not as good as the XA2 HD DVD.

I have a ChannelMaster 4228 antenna in my attic (thanks, WRAL!). Reception on both my DISH Network VIP 722 HD DVR and directly on my Samsung LN-S4696D is excellent, but all the channels bit-starve the HD broadcast with sub-channels, so I am not getting 18Mbps no matter what. All of the OTA channels exhibit macro-blocking during fast transitions and mosquito noise upon close inspection at other times. When WRAL first started broadcasting HD, I did not get these, so I am pretty sure they are bit-starving the signal these days. NBC, FOX, PBS, CW, and ABC all show the same artifacts these days. Some are just worse than others.

The AppleTV HD rentals did not exhibit the same, even on close inspection of the image. Michael Clayton didn't have many action sequences, but even the few it did have showed no significant compression artifacts. Bloody Sunday was filmed documentary style, so lots of camera movement. Not as bad as Cloverfield, but still, plenty of motion to induce macro-blocking which was not in evidence. The image was very clean in both. Coarse film grain was noticeable in Bloody Sunday, but it is supposed to be there. The image was just "soft" compared to BD.

Ted

i'm continually amazed at the people that compare HD downloads to some sort of demon spawn that will ruin their life. It's a supplement to disc and other content delivery methods, that's it. I promise it won't break into your house at night and steal all your physical media.

I agree. I use the itunes movie rentals all the time and i ALSO buy ton of blu rays. I actually bought the Michael Clayton and Assasination of Jesse James blu rays yesterdays after first renting them on itunes. Before that I had no desire to pick up either title.

Digital download movie rentals are not competing with physical media in any shape or form. If it was "would you pay money to own hd movies via downloads instead of buying physical media?" my answer would be a big NO.

I agree. I use the itunes movie rentals all the time and i ALSO buy ton of blu rays. I actually bought the Michael Clayton and Assasination of Jesse James blu rays yesterdays after first renting them on itunes. Before that I had no desire to pick up either title.

Digital download movie rentals are not competing with physical media in any shape or form. If it was "would you pay money to own hd movies via downloads instead of buying physical media?" my answer would be a big NO.

I hope I'm not de-railing this thread too much, but can the AppleTV owners comment on the ease of use for trailer downloads? I've always loved going to apple.com/trailers to watch all the newly released trailers and I want to know if AppleTV gives you access to every trailer I can find on the normal website. If so, what options do I have for downloading? Can I choose resolution like on the website? Does AppleTV store the trailers until I want to delete them?

That's fine and all, but those aren't particularly concrete/quantifiable properties to determine the "hd"-ness of the material, are they?Personally I don't think there is a better determination. After all it's about what you see and hear.

I don't think anyone is attempting to say at this point downloads are the equal of or greater than 1080p delivered on a disc. At the same time I don't think anyone is attempting to state that 720p can't look great.

Everything in between the has the opportunity to present a very nice image even with the most demanding equipment and as such I don't feel they should be dismissed... especially of not being HD.

I hope I'm not de-railing this thread too much, but can the AppleTV owners comment on the ease of use for trailer downloads?You can view trailers you downloaded via iTunes on Apple TV and they will display in their native resolution (of course they will be scaled to your display's setting). You can store them on the Apple TV (sync) or stream them via iTunes.

You can also view trailers from Apple TV for every movie listed and they are streamed from the iTunes store. However I believe they are buffered to some extent as if I viewed one previously it typically displays the next time without any delay.

From Apple TV the trailers are SD and you can only view them (stream) without any options of storing them locally. Again if you wanted to keep them you would download them using iTunes and then view them via Apple TV.

I have a ChannelMaster 4228 antenna in my attic (thanks, WRAL!). Reception on both my DISH Network VIP 722 HD DVR and directly on my Samsung LN-S4696D is excellent, but all the channels bit-starve the HD broadcast with sub-channels, so I am not getting 18Mbps no matter what. All of the OTA channels exhibit macro-blocking during fast transitions and mosquito noise upon close inspection at other times. When WRAL first started broadcasting HD, I did not get these, so I am pretty sure they are bit-starving the signal these days. NBC, FOX, PBS, CW, and ABC all show the same artifacts these days. Some are just worse than others.

The AppleTV HD rentals did not exhibit the same, even on close inspection of the image. Michael Clayton didn't have many action sequences, but even the few it did have showed no significant compression artifacts. Bloody Sunday was filmed documentary style, so lots of camera movement. Not as bad as Cloverfield, but still, plenty of motion to induce macro-blocking which was not in evidence. The image was very clean in both. Coarse film grain was noticeable in Bloody Sunday, but it is supposed to be there. The image was just "soft" compared to BD.

Ted

That's a shame, my Baltimore and Washington stations are very good. Sometimes on the Today show which my wife records on TiVo, they "shrink" the sides of the picture, and every time they are about to transition to the "local" news or weather they go to low res which is very visible. Prime time they don't mess around like that. Probably get too many complaints if they did.

Do note trailers you download from Apple's trailer site & iTunes must not exceed the HD specifications supported by Apple TV... or they will not play.

I hope I'm not de-railing this thread too much, but can the AppleTV owners comment on the ease of use for trailer downloads?
You also don't have the selection on AppleTV that you have on the Quicktime trailers site.

Resolution is the most well known indicator for the HD qualification, but it is not necessarily the sole indicator. Bitrate has a connection, as well. You can tell when someone is "cheating" if these 2 details are given, and they don't quite jive with each other. They can call it "HD" or even say it is 4k resolution, but if the bitrate is low enough, the performance in the pq may not be any better than typical sd resolution. So then you got to ask yourself, what is more important?...that the video is "called" hd or that the video actually exhibits hd caliber detail? That is the real difference between a given video simply existing at a technical resolution vs. containing detail performance that actually puts that technical resolution to work.



Do some research in the broadcast-oriented areas of this discussion forum. You will find that those 2 examples are considered "hd-lite", by resolution, bitrate, and general performance. No one (except the respective companies) considers that "true" hd and keeps a straight face. It is barely hd, if not, a very poor example of what real hd is capable of.



It should be fairly apparent, by now, that it is not necessarily that the bitrate is simply lower, rather the bitrate is too low, when people begin to question (and rightly so) how "hd" it is.



That's fine and all, but those aren't particularly concrete/quantifiable properties to determine the "hd"-ness of the material, are they?

You are confused. "HD" is defined by very specific factors. Namely, a vertical resolution of 720 or 1080. Yes, quality of picture is determined by a plethora of factors, including codec choice and bitrate, but even a poor blocky image qualifies as "HD" if the resolution is 720p, 1080i or 1080p. That doesn't mean it's good HD, but it is HD.

A lot of people that seem otherwise well-schooled in video are confused by this. I've read people complaining that certain Blu-rays were "upconverts" because the transfer wasn't pristine. Get the terminology right. HD is 720 or 1080. Sunglasses and Lasic do not give you "HD vision" (in fact if they do, you should get your money back), and "Digital Quality" means absolutely nothing- it's a non-phrase.

For me the big problem so far with digital downloads of video, particularly HD video, is I want to own it, forever, trouble-free, and use it on demand without additional payment. I have had an HD-DVR for several years now, and a non-HD DVR for over 8 years. But I still end up having to buy the DVD’s (or Blu-ray’s) of my favorite shows because I can’t transfer them easily from my DVR and I don’t have HD capacity to store them all indefinitely. Even with my DVR now allowing attached storage, it just isn’t practical or enough. I have 300GB now and it still gets used up in about 2-3 months of content programming (and that is including all the shows I am watching and deleting as I go and the fact that a majority of them are not in HD). So if I was keeping a lot of the stuff I would need a server room before long to maintain all the attached storage. Even with the HDD camcorder I still end up having to convert movies to DVD eventually for storage and easy access for playback on my TV.

In addition to lots more, higher res (1080p) and better content on HD downloads, before I would prefer it over BD, they will need to:

-- Perfect and proliferate “digital copies” where I can easily click a few buttons and move copies to portable storage like some inexpensive (like a $1) flash-memory based cards or something that allows me to keep it indefinitely and also play it on my laptop or transfer it to my iPod, etc. And the studios have to get over their piracy concerns to make this possible.

-- Change the model so I own the content forever. I’d rather pay $15-20 (highest I have ever had to pay per BD title) once than $4-5 bucks per use personally. I don’t care that I may not use it 5 times. Or if they change the per-use to something like a buck, I’ll change my tune. I tend to view pieces of things over very sporadic time periods.

-- OR, truly perfect the model where I pay a flat fee per month for unlimited content access and can recall anything (not just a cycling “current” content) and start watching it within a couple minutes or less. I would still want to transfer a digital copy on demand for remote viewing, but this would at least make needing a physical one in local storage a non-issue.

I’m sure this can all happen, but the question is how long will it take? Not to mention that half of US households still don’t even have broadband and incremental penetration has slowed.

You can view trailers you downloaded via iTunes on Apple TV and they will display in their native resolution (of course they will be scaled to your display's setting). You can store them on the Apple TV (sync) or stream them via iTunes.

You can also view trailers from Apple TV for every movie listed and they are streamed from the iTunes store. However I believe they are buffered to some extent as if I viewed one previously it typically displays the next time without any delay.

From Apple TV the trailers are SD and you can only view them (stream) without any options of storing them locally. Again if you wanted to keep them you would download them using iTunes and then view them via Apple TV.

Thanks for the response. I'm disappointed that you can't just download them in HD directly from AppleTV.

Do note trailers you download from Apple's trailer site & iTunes must not exceed the HD specifications supported by Apple TV... or they will not play.

Damn! (Although that obviously makes sense)

You also don't have the selection on AppleTV that you have on the Quicktime trailers site.

%#$*!!!!!

You are confused. "HD" is defined by very specific factors. Namely, a vertical resolution of 720 or 1080.

I'm well aware of that, thank you. The problem is that the real essence of what "HD" can do with those specs, is not adequately captured by simply those specs. Naturally, that leads people to believe that some level of performance is inherently guaranteed just because it meets the "technical resolution" of 720/1080, when such performance is entirely "fudge-able" to give performance that falls far short of the potential, while still qualifying as "HD". The temptation is too great amongst marketing types to abuse that ambiguity to sell you something that is less than the name moniker belies.

Take an extreme example- what if the encoding was "720p", but the actual encoding is a really oddball 200x720p scaled to 16:9 aspect? Do you think that will still look "hd"? It still has 720 points on the vertical, right? The property of being "hd" should entail more than one number referencing vertical resolution, even though there is no explicit requirement to go beyond that distinction. Not everyone will be able to understand additional specs, but holding to a more distinct spec will certainly benefit the collective "everyone".

I'm not "against" aTV, per se, or the programming it offers. I'm just maintaining the observation that we still shouldn't just presume all is well just because marketing slaps the "hd" qualifier on it. The bar for the "hd" impact should not simply be, "it looks pretty good to me, better than dvd".

You are confused. "HD" is defined by very specific factors. Namely, a vertical resolution of 720 or 1080. Yes, quality of picture is determined by a plethora of factors, including codec choice and bitrate, but even a poor blocky image qualifies as "HD" if the resolution is 720p, 1080i or 1080p. That doesn't mean it's good HD, but it is HD.

A lot of people that seem otherwise well-schooled in video are confused by this. I've read people complaining that certain Blu-rays were "upconverts" because the transfer wasn't pristine. Get the terminology right. HD is 720 or 1080. Sunglasses and Lasic do not give you "HD vision" (in fact if they do, you should get your money back), and "Digital Quality" means absolutely nothing- it's a non-phrase.

Unfortunately, aside from the actual resolution, it's tends to come down to the subjective opinion of the viewer. There were numerous episodes of "Journeyman" on NBC that looked awful. Regardless of the fact that NBC was broadcasting in 1080i, there were many scenes where you couldn't see the detail because it was obscured by macroblocking and other compression artifacts. So even though it technically "qualified" as HD, I would rather have watched it in 16:9 SD quality (like you get from a DVD, not broadcast SD). And as far as bitrates go, I've noticed that the BR discs running at bitrates of 25-35mbits tend to look better than some of the Fox or Warner discs (for example) running at 20mbits or less. I just watched Oceans 13 and it was VC-1 encoded running at an average of 16-18mbits and it didn't look as good as Pirates 1 for example. Now I realize that the transfers are playing a significant role in the difference in quality, but I imagine that the bitrate has something to do with it as well.

I'm well aware of that, thank you. The problem is that the real essence of what "HD" can do with those specs, is not adequately captured by simply those specs. Naturally, that leads people to believe that some level of performance is inherently guaranteed just because it meets the "technical resolution" of 720/1080, when such performance is entirely "fudge-able" to give performance that falls far short of the potential, while still qualifying as "HD". The temptation is too great amongst marketing types to abuse that ambiguity to sell you something that is less than the name moniker belies.

Take an extreme example- what if the encoding was "720p", but the actual encoding is a really oddball 200x720p scaled to 16:9 aspect? Do you think that will still look "hd"? It still has 720 points on the vertical, right? The property of being "hd" should entail more than one number referencing vertical resolution, even though there is no explicit requirement to go beyond that distinction. Not everyone will be able to understand additional specs, but holding to a more distinct spec will certainly benefit the collective "everyone".

I'm not "against" aTV, per se, or the programming it offers. I'm just maintaining the observation that we still shouldn't just presume all is well just because marketing slaps the "hd" qualifier on it. The bar for the "hd" impact should not simply be, "it looks pretty good to me, better than dvd".

I'll second that.

Personally I don't think there is a better determination. After all it's about what you see and hear.

It also leaves it up to entirely subjective impressions to the viewer. If that is all it takes to be "hd", then anything could qualify as hd. Somebody's cellphone video could be considered hd if it looks "good enough".

I'm not saying to utterly eschew what you see and hear...just to balance them with something quantifiable if you are going to associate it with some qualifier term such as "hd". Otherwise, the term becomes meaningless. Naturally, the marketing types want to avoid doing that, but we, the consumer, should at least be willing to demand more than that.

In addition to lots more, higher res (1080p) and better content on HD downloads, before I would prefer it over BD, they will need to:Regarding your points...

1. They let you transfer content to various devices for display (outside of HD downloads for now).

2. I doubt they will ever let you own the content. But like I believe Microsoft does they will probably track what you have purchased and you will be able to download it whenever you wish.

3. Monthly rental fee will probably happen but I don't think it will be as cheap as Netflix is right now. Netflix has already stated they will more than likely raise rates once one platform is decided on. Since that just happened look for a rate increase. :)

4. I don't see half of the population buying Blu-ray in the near term so I don't see half of the population not having broadband hurting downloads near term either.

I think for the foreseeable future downloads have the potential to cut into rentals but will have very little effect on sales. I know for a fact my local Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have lost five rentals to my Apple TV over the last two weeks. I also know if I really like a movie I'll go out and purchase it just like I always have in the past.

It may not be profitable to publish some content via Blu-Ray due to AACS licensing fees, etc. If enough consumers adopt atv, its economic advantage should provide a "long tail" effect. This has already manifested itself with the YouTube content available on atv.

It will be interesting to see whether Blu-ray or atv has more "HD" content available by the end of the year.

I'm not saying to utterly eschew what you see and hear...just to balance them with something quantifiable if you are going to associate it with some qualifier term such as "hd". Otherwise, the term becomes meaningless. Naturally, the marketing types want to avoid doing that, but we, the consumer, should at least be willing to demand more than that.I understand what you are saying but unfortunately it isn't black or white. You are suggesting an image needs to hit some "user defined" level before it is HD. Everyone has their own level based on their personal preferences, display device and any number of other factors (which is why I said there is no better judgement then what they see and hear).

Every transfer is a shade of gray for a number of reasons and to me it seems rather unfair to draw a line in the sand. Just like movies a few are a whole lot better than most but the others are still movies. :)

What you don't seem to grasp is that ISP are rolling in download and bandwith cap. You may not have it now but you wil get it when they see this as a way to make a profit. Where I live the unlimited down/up is a thing of the past unless you are willing to pay for a commercial account. And even if the ISP is offering the movie download service they always have a crappy selection limited mostly to blockbuster or kiddy titles.


I grasp all those concept quite well, this isn't rocket science.

Again, why would Downloads threaten blu-ray fanboys, you can have your blu-ray only. Ill enjoy Blu-ray, HD DVD, Apple TV, Xbox market place etc. This wasn't hard to grasp from my initial post.

Actually, the "downloads threaten blu-ray fanboys" idea came from the "scorched-earth" remnants of the red-camp.

For persons interested in high-definition home video, they very well should be concerned when the term "hd" is hijacked to describe just "any" digital format coming down the line. One would think that this would be a premiere concern for the residents at a audio and video enthusiast site. Evidently, these ideals must have changed in recent times...

I'm not "against" aTV, per se, or the programming it offers. I'm just maintaining the observation that we still shouldn't just presume all is well just because marketing slaps the "hd" qualifier on it. The bar for the "hd" impact should not simply be, "it looks pretty good to me, better than dvd".

It's generally a valid point you're making... However, It looks as if early reports indicate Apple is making strong encoding efforts to deliver a good HD quality over what has to be (for now) a limited bandwidth delivery. My own experience matches what most have observed as a surprisingly good quality HD picture that matches broadcast - exceeds cable HD, but falls a bit short of Disk based.

Since you agree one characteristic like 720p can't define HD, then I assume you agree one like bandwidth is equally unrepresentative. How would you suggest it be clearly defined ?

ken

Sounds like some reds and blues haven't let bygones be bygones quite yet.

I don't agree it can be clearly defined down to the last T, but I suggest it should have more description beyond the typical one-number vertical resolution. I fully grant that there is no one "right" bitrate, because it certainly can vary drastically based on various other conditions in a given scenario. That is certainly behind the realization that a good value for bitrate is an elusive parameter to pin down out of complexity, rather than unreliability/irrelevance.

I certainly would tend to be skeptical when bitrates have dipped below "10", let alone beyond the lower half mark of that range for a product that is to be marketed at an "hd" tier. I'm not saying others should be skeptical, either. I would encourage them to be (inviting further investigation, rather than stonewall it with flat doubt). I also don't think people should be labeled a "bitrate whore" as a knee-jerk reaction when the subject of bitrate is brought up. These sound like reasonable gestures to me. I can understand how the sensibilities of others may lie elsewhere at this forum, in recent times.

You also don't have the selection on AppleTV that you have on the Quicktime trailers site.

They seem to have added many more since the 2.0 update. Perhaps one day everything will be available both places.

Ted

From Apple TV the trailers are SD and you can only view them (stream) without any options of storing them locally. Again if you wanted to keep them you would download them using iTunes and then view them via Apple TV.

They now offer HD trailers on ATV.

Ted

For me the big problem so far with digital downloads of video, particularly HD video, is I want to own it, forever, trouble-free, and use it on demand without additional payment. I have had an HD-DVR for several years now, and a non-HD DVR for over 8 years. But I still end up having to buy the DVD’s (or Blu-ray’s) of my favorite shows because I can’t transfer them easily from my DVR and I don’t have HD capacity to store them all indefinitely. Even with my DVR now allowing attached storage, it just isn’t practical or enough. I have 300GB now and it still gets used up in about 2-3 months of content programming (and that is including all the shows I am watching and deleting as I go and the fact that a majority of them are not in HD). So if I was keeping a lot of the stuff I would need a server room before long to maintain all the attached storage. Even with the HDD camcorder I still end up having to convert movies to DVD eventually for storage and easy access for playback on my TV.

In addition to lots more, higher res (1080p) and better content on HD downloads, before I would prefer it over BD, they will need to:

-- Perfect and proliferate “digital copies” where I can easily click a few buttons and move copies to portable storage like some inexpensive (like a $1) flash-memory based cards or something that allows me to keep it indefinitely and also play it on my laptop or transfer it to my iPod, etc. And the studios have to get over their piracy concerns to make this possible.

-- Change the model so I own the content forever. I’d rather pay $15-20 (highest I have ever had to pay per BD title) once than $4-5 bucks per use personally. I don’t care that I may not use it 5 times. Or if they change the per-use to something like a buck, I’ll change my tune. I tend to view pieces of things over very sporadic time periods.

-- OR, truly perfect the model where I pay a flat fee per month for unlimited content access and can recall anything (not just a cycling “current” content) and start watching it within a couple minutes or less. I would still want to transfer a digital copy on demand for remote viewing, but this would at least make needing a physical one in local storage a non-issue.

I’m sure this can all happen, but the question is how long will it take? Not to mention that half of US households still don’t even have broadband and incremental penetration has slowed.

For my DVRs (Tivo) I have allocated 6T and that allows me to keep what I want. Programming only. Movies are on HD DVD and Blu Ray.

I don't agree it can be clearly defined down to the last T, but I suggest it should have more description beyond the typical one-number vertical resolution. I fully grant that there is no one "right" bitrate, because it certainly can vary drastically based on various other conditions in a given scenario. That is certainly behind the realization that a good value for bitrate is an elusive parameter to pin down out of complexity, rather than unreliability/irrelevance.

I certainly would tend to be skeptical when bitrates have dipped below "10", let alone beyond the lower half mark of that range for a product that is to be marketed at an "hd" tier. I'm not saying others should be skeptical, either. I would encourage them to be (inviting further investigation, rather than stonewall it with flat doubt). I also don't think people should be labeled a "bitrate whore" as a knee-jerk reaction when the subject of bitrate is brought up. These sound like reasonable gestures to me. I can understand how the sensibilities of others may lie elsewhere at this forum, in recent times.

a reasonable position.. thanks
ken

For my DVRs (Tivo) I have allocated 6T and that allows me to keep what I want. Programming only. Movies are on HD DVD and Blu Ray.

Damn, how did you do that! Is it easy to do?

I want convenience...I would rather scroll through a library of every movie ever made and pay to rent it then having to buy the disc...unless it is a have to have....m ost films aren't that way......I dont need to hold the disc in my hand and really dont understand that logic.....

Not even close. It's 768K DSL. As it stands, I can download about 100MB per hour. I can close to double the download speed if everyone in the house didn't touch the internet for the entire time, but that's not really possible.

I got 1.5 Mbps DSL and can get 1 Mbps when alone. Schedule the downloads for 10 p.m. or later to maximize performance.

I still want to go to cable modem before AppleTV route.

Did you know you can also do DirecTV HD DVR's for the same as AppleTV? THey pump out new releases every 1/2 hour. Simply program to record and watch later. I think the DVR holds 8 HD movies.

Sounds like some reds and blues haven't let bygones be bygones quite yet.

Early adopters have moved on from HD DVD and blu-ray. These technologies are almost 2 years old now. 2 years in April for HD DVD. Imagine the technology in 5 years time ....

I think there may be a fine line between "early adopters" and "fad-chasers". I wouldn't think the former have "moved-on" to anything. They are still here. They are typically early on the scene to pick a product that they believe has some legs for the longterm (sometimes it works out and sometimes not, naturally).

The latter, otoh, is on an eternal scramble to pick-up whatever is "new", regardless of its technical relevance in the larger scope of things. They just want to be the first on the block to have xyz. That, in of itself, is the reward to them- "to be first on the scene, ahead of the lame masses".

That is a bit different from the "early adopter" connoisseur, who is there to savor the technology, itself/adopt a new standard, imo.

The former is interested in the technology and its longterm impact, while the latter is interested in the social image of being "cutting edge". I certainly did not adopt and advocate br just to appear trendy and project an image of coolness.

I grasp all those concept quite well, this isn't rocket science.

Again, why would Downloads threaten blu-ray fanboys, you can have your blu-ray only. Ill enjoy Blu-ray, HD DVD, Apple TV, Xbox market place etc. This wasn't hard to grasp from my initial post.

First of all you should drop the fanboy bit. It's a tad childish. :rolleyes:
I have an A2 and a PS3. I'm a HDM fan not a format fan.

Second it's all about control of the source and choice for the consummer. If you make Download with all it's restriction and quirk a viable and easier way to make a buck then the studio will just drop the physical media and deliver it only via those services.

Third, you will loose the right to choose. Somebody else will do the movie selection for you. Like they do on PPV or TMC. Don't believe for a moment that all that is presently available will be on every single DL services out there. You'll have to register with many of those services to cover a wide spectrum of choice and most of those services won't be compatible between them (like they presently are anyway). Now the ISP will also wan't a piece of the pie so they'll probably "favor" one service over the other (read throttle the bandwith). If you think present day radio has a crappy selection of songs wait to see what happens with your DL services once the suit gets their hands in. Bandwith is a limited ressources they have to "rationnalize"


Fourth, you also lose the right to share. Those DRM filled file can't be share between computer. I can share my disk with anybody I want.

So finally, if all you want to do is rent subpar (they are not equal to BR or HD-DVD in quality, like ripped dvd to divx isn't on par with the original DVD even if it's good enough for most people) and intend to either watch only mainstream and less foreign or classic movies then be my guess go and download. But don't tell me it's the next marvell of the world.

And now for my final rant: For those who are always complaining about Sony and it's tactics, how come you are so willing to pay the apple or microsoft tax? Apple who won't let me copie back my music stored on my ipod after I reinstalled windows on my computer without the help of a third party (read hack) and microsoft who charges you a yearly fee to use a service that should be free (and is on the sony plateform oh the irony).

Ok now i'm done. I feel much better now. :D

For me the big problem so far with digital downloads of video, particularly HD video, is I want to own it, forever, trouble-free, and use it on demand without additional payment. I have had an HD-DVR for several years now, and a non-HD DVR for over 8 years. But I still end up having to buy the DVD’s (or Blu-ray’s) of my favorite shows because I can’t transfer them easily from my DVR and I don’t have HD capacity to store them all indefinitely. Even with my DVR now allowing attached storage, it just isn’t practical or enough. I have 300GB now and it still gets used up in about 2-3 months of content programming (and that is including all the shows I am watching and deleting as I go and the fact that a majority of them are not in HD). So if I was keeping a lot of the stuff I would need a server room before long to maintain all the attached storage. Even with the HDD camcorder I still end up having to convert movies to DVD eventually for storage and easy access for playback on my TV.


Get a TiVoHD. You can transfer via the ethernet connection to a computer. From there you can store it for future retrieval or convert it to work on portables.

My collection is about 35 SD movies and 10 HD movies and rising. I grab them off the movie channels. In addition to that the TiVo units can play a bunch of other movie formats. It is just a matter of putting them into the shared folder.

I've said this before, but as a custom integrator, I can tell you that the majority of my customers are clueless when it comes to their computers or A/V systems. If it goes beyond the VOD or PPV from their cable boxes (or SAT receivers), it becomes "too complicated" no matter how much we automate the process for them. And believe me when I tell you, most of these people have "1 touch to the end result" automation programmed into their controllers and they still think it's too hard. They all want it like it is in Star Trek. They want to walk into the room and say, "Watch CNN" and have everything happen for them without lifting a finger.
What I'm trying to say is internet-based VOD or PPV is still too "techie" for the average customer. The AppleTV and VuDu units have taken a step in the right direction, but you would be amazed at what the customer thinks is too complicated. You should hear them complain about using the menus and guides in their cable boxes.

Second it's all about control of the source and choice for the consummer. If you make Download with all it's restriction and quirk a viable and easier way to make a buck then the studio will just drop the physical media and deliver it only via those services.If I can rent every movie anytime I want I couldn't care less if they dropped physical media.
Third, you will loose the right to choose. Somebody else will do the movie selection for you. Like they do on PPV or TMC. Don't believe for a moment that all that is presently available will be on every single DL services out there. You'll have to register with many of those services to cover a wide spectrum of choice and most of those services won't be compatible between them (like they presently are anyway).Apple (among others) has the support of all major movie studios which should result in one stop shopping.

Fourth, you also lose the right to share. Those DRM filled file can't be share between computer. I can share my disk with anybody I want.You only get that right if you purchase the media and I have no interest in paying for that right.

So finally, if all you want to do is rent subpar (they are not equal to BR or HD-DVD in quality, like ripped dvd to divx isn't on par with the original DVD even if it's good enough for most people) and intend to either watch only mainstream and less foreign or classic movies then be my guess go and download. But don't tell me it's the next marvell of the world.Downloads have to first walk before they can run. Eventually the quality and selection will be determined by the consumer just like everything else.

I'm well aware of that, thank you. The problem is that the real essence of what "HD" can do with those specs, is not adequately captured by simply those specs. Naturally, that leads people to believe that some level of performance is inherently guaranteed just because it meets the "technical resolution" of 720/1080, when such performance is entirely "fudge-able" to give performance that falls far short of the potential, while still qualifying as "HD". The temptation is too great amongst marketing types to abuse that ambiguity to sell you something that is less than the name moniker belies.

Take an extreme example- what if the encoding was "720p", but the actual encoding is a really oddball 200x720p scaled to 16:9 aspect? Do you think that will still look "hd"? It still has 720 points on the vertical, right? The property of being "hd" should entail more than one number referencing vertical resolution, even though there is no explicit requirement to go beyond that distinction. Not everyone will be able to understand additional specs, but holding to a more distinct spec will certainly benefit the collective "everyone".

I'm not "against" aTV, per se, or the programming it offers. I'm just maintaining the observation that we still shouldn't just presume all is well just because marketing slaps the "hd" qualifier on it. The bar for the "hd" impact should not simply be, "it looks pretty good to me, better than dvd".

I wholly agree with your position that anything with the "HD" tag needs to be perceptively much better than SD, and that bitrate plays a huge role in that. I was just pointing out that "HD" was defined by the Grand Alliance in the mid 1990's, and that pushing for higher bandwidth and bitrate, though admirable and of course desirable by all of us, does not re-define what the Grand Alliance and the FCC have in their books. I'm not arguing for piss-poor quality video. Just correct terminology. I'm exacting when it comes to that. Sue me.

If I can rent every movie anytime I want I couldn't care less if they dropped physical media.
Apple (among others) has the support of all major movie studios which should result in one stop shopping..

The Apple service isn't available everywhere and having the MAJOR studion on board doesn't mean i'm gonna be able to buy the chinese or korean movie that I wan't in an uncut format.


You only get that right if you purchase the media and I have no interest in paying for that right.

Good for you. Tell me how it's gonna go when you change your computer and try to re-authorize your media on your new plateform especially if iTunes isn't available on it. Unless you are willing to pay the Apple tax (which you do apparently).


Downloads have to first walk before they can run. Eventually the quality and selection will be determined by the consumer just like everything else.

You mean like music on radio or shows on tv?

The Apple service isn't available everywhere and having the MAJOR studion on board doesn't mean i'm gonna be able to buy the chinese or korean movie that I wan't in an uncut format.Again if the demand is there it will be met. There are already movies like Day Watch and Casshern included in the very limited 93 HD titles.

Good for you. Tell me how it's gonna go when you change your computer and try to re-authorize your media on your new plateform especially if iTunes isn't available on it. Unless you are willing to pay the Apple tax (which you do apparently).Apple TV doesn't require a computer nor do the other services. Since I'd be renting the movie I would certainly expect to pay for additional viewings.

You mean like music on radio or shows on tv?Yes we don't live in a vacuum.

Do people realize how bad it looks when they cut down a product by here say
without actually using said product, you can spec and chart something to death
what does your eyes and ears tell you.

It tells something different for each person you ask. You can find people who think digital satellite sd programming on an hdtv looks fine, and not even think to question if it represents the "hdtv experience" or not. Using your eyes and ears is fine, but they are not infallible, when it comes to deriving an objective recommendation for others. Consulting specs and charts, alone, is not infallible, either. That is why you use a balance of both. In its most basic form, it's why we post actual screen grabs so frequently here to convey something (so everybody can have an opportunity to see/evaluate "it"), instead of simply going by some anonymous person's interpretation of the scene. The specs/charts/pix/what have you are simply a vehicle to convey an objective sampling of xyz phenomenon.

Get a TiVoHD. You can transfer via the ethernet connection to a computer. From there you can store it for future retrieval or convert it to work on portables.

My collection is about 35 SD movies and 10 HD movies and rising. I grab them off the movie channels. In addition to that the TiVo units can play a bunch of other movie formats. It is just a matter of putting them into the shared folder.

It doesn't work with DirecTV, which is where most of the best HD content is, or I definitely would. As it is, I have the HR10-250 DirecTiVo and the DirecTV HR20 DVR's. Also, of lesser importance, I am still bitter that if I ever did switch to cable I would have to pay the monthly TiVo fees again, despite buying a "lifetime" membership back in 2000, but whatever. I also don't like the imperfect choices TiVo offers right now. I can either get the TiVoHD or Series 3, pay the monthly membership, and not have two-way communication with my cable provider to make pay-per-view or future VoD seamless. Or I can get the integrated TiVo Comcast box when it comes to my area, with the whimpy HD size, abridged feature set supposedly stability issues galore. What I want is a Series 3 that is as intergated as my DirecTV is with my service provider...

This is another great example of the "too many proprietary tech formats in contention" debacle. Similar to the br/hdvd dichotomy, you got numerous incompatible "formats" in the digital broadcast space. No one box will work for "everything", which further creates a virtual minefield for the unknowing consumer to wade through to get the programming they want.

On the surface, it really seems that before digital download/vod can really challenge dvd/br for mass adoption, they need to develop a standard format/hardware model amongst themselves. Otherwise, it is just a free-for-all amongst local districts/service providers, and an utter mess for the consumer.

This is another great example of the "too many proprietary tech formats in contention" debacle. Similar to the br/hdvd dichotomy, you got numerous incompatible "formats" in the digital broadcast space. No one box will work for "everything", which further creates a virtual minefield for the unknowing consumer to wade through to get the programming they want.

On the surface, it really seems that before digital download/vod can really challenge dvd/br for mass adoption, they need to develop a standard format/hardware model amongst themselves. Otherwise, it is just a free-for-all amongst local districts/service providers, and an utter mess for the consumer.

It is too late. The audience is already fragmented. Too many options mean everyone has to cater to all of them and hope that some will fail in order to reduce future investment. The nice thing is they are all digital, so you really don't lose much if you create a good digital master. The other up-side is you sell more hardware and software do to duplication of content. If I didn't know better, I would swear the content producers did it on purpose.

Ted

Again if the demand is there it will be met. There are already movies like Day Watch and Casshern included in the very limited 93 HD titles.

Apple TV doesn't require a computer nor do the other services. Since I'd be renting the movie I would certainly expect to pay for additional viewings.

Yes we don't live in a vacuum.

Wow 2 foreign title... are they in their original language or dub. Extended cut or theatral? And guess what, 2 action, teen oriented movie yeah!

And the thing still use my bandwith so for $50 per month I can watch a maximum of 4 movie if they are around 5 gig each. After that it's $7.00 per gig. And that if I only use my internet connection for this service.

Like I already said, the tendency of ISP to limit DL and UL is on the rise. We had unlimited connection before. It's gone now. For $50 I went from unlimited to 20/10g ratio. If I wan't more I have to shell $90 for 100g combined DL/UL or pay $$$ for a commercial account and this from the 2 biggest isp around here (the smaller one rent their line from those 2).

Wow 2 foreign title... are they in their original language or dub. Extended cut or theatral? And guess what, 2 action, teen oriented movie yeah!Hey that's over 2% of their current stock. :)

And the thing still use my bandwith so for $50 per month I can watch a maximum of 4 movie if they are around 5 gig each. After that it's $7.00 per gig. And that if I only use my internet connection for this service.I'm pretty sure they aren't relying on you to make downloads a success along with other broadband challenged consumers. They can only grow so fast and I think there are more potential customers than they could service for the foreseeable future.

I found a cool site that sends alerts when new HD titles are added -- http://www.appletvjunkie.com/appletvjunkie/Apple_TV_HD_Movies.html

I said from the get go that the HD rentals on my AppleTV would only compliment my BluRay/HD Cable/etc. I had the perfect example of this last week. I was sitting home by myself and wanted to watch a flick, but did not feel like going out. I flipped through the available HD rentals on my AppleTV and came across the movie "Sunshine." I had never even heard of it, so I watched the trailer. The trailer looked really good so I went ahead and rented it. I have a 10Mb/s cable connection and the movie was ready for me to start viewing in about 8 minutes...and it never hiccuped once as I watched the whole thing. The video quality was fantastic. Was it as good as BluRay? Of course not. Was it as good as watching a movie on HBO HD? Yep...and it didn't get the nasty macroblocking that I get a lot when watching action movies on digital cable. The audio quality was on par with a standard DVD. Better than cable in my opinion.

Now, did this rental of the movie keep me from a BluRay purchase? Nope. Exactly the opposite. A movie that I would not have risked the 25 bucks to purchase blind, I ended up buying the very next day from my local Best Buy. I loved the movie and couldn't wait to watch it again on BluRay with even better picture and audio.