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All Things Apple TV

post #1 of 178
3/20/08 at 7:06am
Thread Starter 
Since downloads now have their own Forum I thought I'd start a Apple TV thread. As of 5/08/08 Apple TV offers 240 HD titles.

Not affiliated with them in any way but for a list of titles and other information you can visit here. Movies are encoded in 720p and most offer Dolby Digital 5.1.

Once downloaded (typically 3GB+ a movie) you have 30 days to view the movie and once it has started you have 24 hours before it expires. During the 24 hours you may view it as many times as you wish.

Currently there is a mixture of catalog titles ($3.99) and new releases ($4.99). Having viewed a half dozen or so titles in my opinion the image and audio quality is fairly good (based on a 1080 TV with a 55 inch image and 1080 projector with a 110 inch image). You won't see any motion artifacts or blocking and overall I think most viewers won't be disappointed.

Neither the video or audio quality is up to the level of Blu-ray however based on your display and the movie transfer itself you'll have to judge how happy you are with the experience.
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post #2 of 178
3/20/08 at 7:26am
Hi...

3GB? That does not seem like much in quality for an HD film or am I missing something?
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post #3 of 178
3/20/08 at 7:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bott View Post

3GB? That does not seem like much in quality for an HD film or am I missing something?

The best way I can answer that is to say...

I watched The Brave One in the my theater (1080 projector and 110 screen) and it didn't jump out at me as not being Blu-ray. Having seen well over a hundred HD movies in there I have seen many look worse and many look better.

Now if I A/B compared them I'm certain the Blu-ray version would look and sound better and all things being equal I'd pick Blu-ray. For casual rentals and content you can't get elsewhere I think it's a great alternative.
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post #4 of 178
3/20/08 at 8:04am
I think he meant that most movies will be 3GB+...not that 3GB is the limit. As far as Apple TV and similar services go, I think it will be a nice alternative to current methods of video rental. If you think about it, download services like this have the potential to be the BEST way to rent a movie.

The oldest method requires you to physically drive to a video store, fight crowds (especially Fridays/Saturdays) and take a chance that what you want to watch is available, and then you have to repeat the process to return the movies. The new hotness delivers movies straight to your mailbox, but the drawbacks are a 2-3 day waiting time and the same problems of availability you get with the B&M store.

Download services such as Apple TV have the potential (if properly implemented) to solve the availability problem while at the same time eliminating a trip to the store and/or cutting the wait time to a few hours instead of a few days.

I think that if download services are done the right way...and fiber optics reach more of the country...download services could make physical media a niche product just like cd's are rapidly becoming. There will always be people who want physical media for certain movies (myself included) but it may just require changing the way you think about it. A plastic disk is just a storage medium...just like a harddrive is a storage medium.
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post #5 of 178
3/20/08 at 8:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bott View Post

Hi...

3GB? That does not seem like much in quality for an HD film or am I missing something?

AppleTV and the iTunes store use a video codec called H.264 which is technically superior to many other HD codecs in terms of efficiency and consequently file-size.

If you want an idea for the quality of the initial HD rental offerings from iTunes and the AppleTV, and a comparision against Vudu, and Xbox 360 downloads, click here:

AppleTV vs. Vudu vs. XBox 360
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post #6 of 178
3/20/08 at 8:38am
of all the options the one with the most potential for me is appletv.

the connection to mobile playback is the key.

two things holding me back at this point...

- appletv native resolution in hardware needs to go to 1920x1080 to support possible future applications.

- i want a new version of the ipod that would have the features of the touch but with a large hdd like the classics.

i haven't invested in ipod yet. so, keeping an eye appletv and latest ipod news.
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post #7 of 178
3/20/08 at 10:22am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by joemama127 View Post

I think that if download services are done the right way...and fiber optics reach more of the country...download services could make physical media a niche product just like cd's are rapidly becoming. There will always be people who want physical media for certain movies (myself included) but it may just require changing the way you think about it. A plastic disk is just a storage medium...just like a harddrive is a storage medium.

CDs have been rapidly declining for years now or so they say yet they made up roughly 90% of music revenues last year. Last good estimate I saw was that in 2012 downloads will capture 50% of music revenues. Even at that point they are only halfway home.

Now with music being so much easier to download (and play) I don't see movies having nearly as much success. Especially if you are talking about purchases. However I think they have a good shot at the rental market.

A lot people feel bandwidth is an issue but I don't agree based on two factors. Downloads are only going to grow so fast regardless of the available bandwidth to a large degree. Those that would take advantage of the service already have or will have the enough bandwidth (geeks). The others aren't nearly ready and if and when they are the bandwidth will more than likely be available.

Also remember it doesn't have to be video on demand... the other day I ordered three movies and watched one the next night and the other two I haven't gotten to yet. For me the secret will be content and convenience with content being most important in the early geek stages. They need movies you can't acquire (in HD) anywhere else.
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post #8 of 178
3/20/08 at 10:40am
charles,

you nailed exactly my reason for interest in downloads.

i am wondering what the rate of growth is for the content library.

in theory, they should be able to add content a lot faster then for physical media.

it would be a big deal just to have access to a lot of hd content without waiting in a queue, waiting for the mail, waiting for a release date. downloading over night works for me for rental.
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post #9 of 178
3/20/08 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by oliverjg View Post

of all the options the one with the most potential for me is appletv.

- appletv native resolution in hardware needs to go to 1920x1080 to support possible future applications.

That would require a hardware upgrade at this point. Apple chose hardware that maxed out at 720p to keep costs down (to make it economical for buyers AND keep profit margins high). At least the new software upscales content to 1080p, the old software maxed out at 1080i.

Ted
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post #10 of 178
3/20/08 at 2:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncted View Post

That would require a hardware upgrade at this point. Apple chose hardware that maxed out at 720p to keep costs down (to make it economical for buyers AND keep profit margins high). At least the new software upscales content to 1080p, the old software maxed out at 1080i.

Ted

true. i can wait for a while..possibly until next hardware version.
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post #11 of 178
3/22/08 at 8:56pm
Thread Starter 
Looks like Apple has added another dozen HD titles in the last two days... total of 168 as of today.
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post #12 of 178
3/23/08 at 8:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles R View Post

Looks like Apple has added another dozen HD titles in the last two days... total of 168 as of today.

cool! they will have my full attention when they catch the number of titles on bd.
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post #13 of 178
3/23/08 at 3:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by oliverjg View Post

cool! they will have my full attention when they catch the number of titles on bd.

They will have my full attention when they have exclusive HD content. Although I will say I watched August Rush last night via Apple TV (on my 55 inch set) and it looked very nice. One thing I have noticed on several movie transfers is that they appear to have great dynamic range. On the surface I'd say more than a lot of Blu-ray transfers.

I'm not saying they look better all around however they have a great amount of pop. The ANSI contrast simply looks very high (as an example The Brave One was another I remember as well). I haven't noticed this on all the movies but I have seen it with enough of them to say it's differently a trend.
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post #14 of 178
3/23/08 at 7:03pm
Apple TV is an excellent offering and alternative IF movies were being offered on their ITune services in Canada.
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post #15 of 178
4/20/08 at 12:23pm
I just bought an Apple TV and am quite happy with it overall.

The selection is solid and will undoubtedly improve as time goes on. Renting couldn't have been easier and my HD movie was ready to view in a minute or two.

Do the 720p HD downloads look or sound as good as Blu-ray? Of course not. BUT, they look and sound every bit as good what what I get from DirecTV HD.

The standard def downloads look softer than their DVD counterparts, though they don't have the pixelation you get with SD cable or satellite.

The one knock I have against movie and TV download services is that many people like to OWN their movies. I can't justify paying $15 for a downloaded movie when I can buy the disc for roughly the same price (more in the case of Blu-ray, but it's worth it IMHO).
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post #16 of 178
4/20/08 at 12:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TotalDistinction View Post

Apple TV is an excellent offering and alternative IF movies were being offered on their ITune services in Canada.

You can't blame Apple for that one. Place blame on the studios and the Canadian government for making things tougher than they should be.

You see, the government protects local distributers and tries to force the studios to go through them. When that happens, Apple has to negotiate and you get an army of lawyers involved who deal with the legalities of distribution rights and royalties.

I understand the Canadian government's position here (and any government, for that matter). They are protecting workers and their economies. The down side is that legal proceedings move way slower than consumers would like.
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post #17 of 178
4/24/08 at 2:22pm
Thread Starter 
Having just received my latest batch of RewardZone Certificates I purchased another iTunes Gift Card. Typically I use the credit to purchase HD movie rentals via my Apple TV.

I hadn't checked lately but noticed they now have 212 titles. Perhaps not growing as fast as I had expected. Most of the new movies (released in 2007) appear to still be ones that are being released on Blu-ray too.

I could only find four I wanted to watch. Atonement, Into the Wild, American Ganster and Beowulf. There were a few other new releases but I have already seen them on Blu-ray.

I was hoping they would have available more titles than Blu-ray (since its selection is very limited) but so far it doesn't appear to be the case. I guess the demand for HD just isn't there yet for media or downloads.
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post #18 of 178
4/26/08 at 8:48pm
I don't think the AppleTV "5.1" is actual 5.1.

The brief amount of investigation I did seems to reveal that even the HD films aren't true 5.1. My subwoofer never activates. I don't think there is any LFE.

I have my Apple TV connected directly to the receiver via HDMI. My TivoHD is connected similarly and I get true 5.1 from it.

Anyone else notice this?
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post #19 of 178
4/27/08 at 3:28pm
I just upgraded to the latest version of Handbrake and am pretty impressed with the results of good DVDS ripped with the AppleTV presets. Does anybody know what the maximum bitrate is that the AppleTV will take from iTunes?

One other thing. I've noticed that the AppleTV output for DVD sourced 480i files is 480p. The AppleTV does not seem to be the best scaler in the world. However, the 480p output is quite impressive. I was able to rip SW2 down to 3.1 GB and the PQ is quite good.
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post #20 of 178
4/27/08 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by miata View Post

I just upgraded to the latest version of Handbrake and am pretty impressed with the results of good DVDS ripped with the AppleTV presets. Does anybody know what the maximum bitrate is that the AppleTV will take from iTunes?

One other thing. I've noticed that the AppleTV output for DVD sourced 480i files is 480p. The AppleTV does not seem to be the best scaler in the world. However, the 480p output is quite impressive. I was able to rip SW2 down to 3.1 GB and the PQ is quite good.

I copied some settings from their forum from Dynaflash, who is a developer of Handbrake, I think. Max bitrate in those settings is 4900. Basically, if I did it correctly, it's constant quality 68% and the following pasted in the advanced option string on the advanced tab:

Quote:


bframes=6:ref=6:mixed-refs=1:subq=6:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:trellis=1:weightb=1:bime=1:brdo=1:direct=auto:vbv-maxrate=4900:vbv-bufsize=3500

These settings take longer than the default AppleTV setting, but the quality is supposed to be better. I've tried popping it up to 72%, but according to the Handbrake experts, beyond 68% yields significantly diminishing returns. YMMV.
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post #21 of 178
4/27/08 at 6:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jpco View Post

I copied some settings from their forum from Dynaflash, who is a developer of Handbrake, I think. Max bitrate in those settings is 4900. Basically, if I did it correctly, it's constant quality 68% and the following pasted in the advanced option string on the advanced tab:



These settings take longer than the default AppleTV setting, but the quality is supposed to be better. I've tried popping it up to 72%, but according to the Handbrake experts, beyond 68% yields significantly diminishing returns. YMMV.

Thanks jpco. I'll play with some of these. I'm the process of ripping SW2 at 5000 kbps with 2-pass, so it will make a while.
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post #22 of 178
4/28/08 at 7:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unix_Beard View Post

I don't think the AppleTV "5.1" is actual 5.1.

The brief amount of investigation I did seems to reveal that even the HD films aren't true 5.1. My subwoofer never activates. I don't think there is any LFE.

I have my Apple TV connected directly to the receiver via HDMI. My TivoHD is connected similarly and I get true 5.1 from it.

Anyone else notice this?

I guess your receiver would need to tell you that.
I have never rented a 5.1 source from Apple/iTunes but I have ripped some of my DVDs with Handbrake and I can assure you, 100%, I am getting Dolby Digital 5.1 sound from them on Apple TV.
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post #23 of 178
4/28/08 at 11:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unix_Beard View Post

I don't think the AppleTV "5.1" is actual 5.1.

The brief amount of investigation I did seems to reveal that even the HD films aren't true 5.1. My subwoofer never activates. I don't think there is any LFE.

I have my Apple TV connected directly to the receiver via HDMI. My TivoHD is connected similarly and I get true 5.1 from it.

Anyone else notice this?

I get true 5.1 from my DVD rips. All it's doing is passing through the AC3 track from the DVD and muxing it into the newly encoded video track.
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post #24 of 178
4/28/08 at 6:54pm
I was referring specifically to iTunes content, sorry.

I never knew about the ripping DVD's. I'd rather just watch the DVD itself but I'll rip one as a test.
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post #25 of 178
4/28/08 at 7:08pm
This article states what I'm noticing. iTunes HD 5.1 movies use Dolby Surround Pro Logic and not 6 discrete signals. There is no subwoofer. There is no discrete rear left and right.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM...5B4C2B75A.html
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post #26 of 178
4/28/08 at 7:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unix_Beard View Post

This article states what I'm noticing. iTunes HD 5.1 movies use Dolby Surround Pro Logic and not 6 discrete signals. There is no subwoofer. There is no discrete rear left and right.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM...5B4C2B75A.html

Some movies are Pro Logic and others are 5.1 as indicated on the rental screen.

That article is from over a year ago, when it couldn't pass 5.1. I get plenty of low frequencies with rented HD 5.1 movies. Since my crossover is set for 80, I haven't tested to see if there is true .1 signal sent, but there is nothing lacking in the audio I have received from AppleTV HD rentals, and the receiver lights up all 6 channels.
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post #27 of 178
4/29/08 at 12:02am
I just bought apple tv and so far am quite impressed. I have downloaded three movies and i would say the quality of the HD movies are decent. I have it hooked up via HDMI, 110" 1080p projection system. As for the audio issues mentioned, i did notice on the movie Superbad in HD i was not getting 6 discrete channels, even though my receiver (Denon 4306) indicated it was receiving the signal correctly. My next HD download (feast of love) seemed to play the dolby digital correctly.

On another note, I am Canadian and the way to get around the content problem is to register an American itunes account. How? first you buy an itunes gift card from a us retailer, then you register with a U.S. address and redeem the gift card as your method of payment. Works great for me, can't wait to get more content.
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post #28 of 178
5/7/08 at 4:37pm
Haven't seen this posted here, but looks like AppleTV will be getting most movies day/date with the DVD release now. Might finally be time to buy one.

Link to original article at IGN

Quote:


Hollywood Studios Announce Major Digital Distribution Support
Will release movies via iTunes day and date with DVDs.

May 6, 2008 - For years, digital distribution has been thought of as the next big thing in media sales. The music side of the business has already been well established by the iTunes Music Store's $4-billion in music sales, yet the movie and television side of the digital distribution paradigm has been progressing very slowly. A number of factors have impeded the process, including bandwidth concerns regarding the speed at which multi-gigabyte files can be streamed to home users, the difficulty of convincing consumers to buy expensive semi-dedicated hardware to download movies, the disconnect between PCs and living room TVs, and the simple fact that people tend to like to own physical copies of video content they purchase.

Progress is being made in resolving many of these issues, as faster and faster broadband services roll out across the country and devices like the Xbox 360 and AppleTV offer value-added digital distribution hardware solutions that fit in the living room. Despite such technologic progress however, the major Hollywood studios have remained extremely cautious regarding digital distribution of movies, primarily, it is thought, due to their fear of allowing their products to be commoditized and controlled by a single sales outlet, in the way that Apple seems to have established a lock on digital music sales via iTunes. Though most studios eventually deigned to allow some movies to be rented and sold digitally, the majority of releases were undesirable back-catalog flicks, priced the same, if not more than, their physical counterparts. Worse still, the digital release of major movies lagged months behind the release of the DVD versions, further degrading the value of digital distribution solutions to consumers.

Shockingly, in the newest of a series of major and unexpected coups, it would seem as though Steve Jobs and the power of Apple have prevailed once again. Apple has announced that from this point onwards, the largest movie studies have agreed to release new movie titles on iTunes the same day the flicks hit stores on DVD. Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment, and First Look Studios are all in on the deal, which will mean consumers will be able to enjoy both brand new hits and an expanded selection of back-catalog titles on any of their Apple products, from iPods, to iPhones, to most notably in this situation, the AppleTV.

Also somewhat amazing concerning the issues of the studios' fears of media commoditization, Apple has apparently managed to assert its demand for a fixed pricing scheme similar to the $0.99 cap it places upon music tracks. New movie releases will all be priced at $14.99, and "most catalog" titles at $9.99. Though we'd still like to see bigger price breaks on digital movie purchases considering their lack of extra features and inability to be transferred to non-Apple devices, $14.99 is a lot better than the $19.99 most digital distribution services have previously attempted to push. Rental pricing will remain the same, with library titles running $2.99 ($3.99 in HD) and new titles $3.99 ($4.99 in HD).

With this deal complete, the AppleTV has certainly jumped into the lead among the digital distribution solutions currently available. For an overview of the competitors in the field (AppleTV, Xbox 360, and Vudu), peep our video special. Keep in mind however, we filmed this piece months ago when none of the services offered day and date releases coinciding with movies on DVD.
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post #29 of 178
5/8/08 at 9:53pm
... and I was about to buy a Squeezebox.

Can the Apple TV look at a folder/share/fileserver/ for content and media? Or does it all have to run out of iTunes?

It if does have to run via iTunes does it just sync with an existing iTunes library over the network for content you already own.

edit: seems like a really cool cheap terminal to use instead of attaching a full blown HTPC...
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post #30 of 178
5/8/08 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stealthlude View Post

... and I was about to buy a Squeezebox.

Can the Apple TV look at a folder/share/fileserver/ for content and media? Or does it all have to run out of iTunes?

It if does have to run via iTunes does it just sync with an existing iTunes library over the network for content you already own.

edit: seems like a really cool cheap terminal to use instead of attaching a full blown HTPC...

The Apple TV syncs with your iTunes library -- these can be iTunes Store purchases or ripped CDs. You can also play MPEG4/AVC files imported into iTunes. Also, if you have a Mac you can access iPhoto libraries.
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