[marcisikoff]

Kind of kills Airport Express with iTunes.
As I'll get an AppleTV then thru HDMI put it to my Receiver and off to my speakers and TV.
720 is fine as it will upscale to 1080 just fine.
And this way I can use iTunes to play music (via using AppleTV) or watch TV.
What I HATE is the Time Capsule $499 "solution" to Airport Extreme's inability to use a shared hard drive.

[randombob]

pairof9s said:

I can rent 1080p Blu-Ray w/ uncompressed 5.1 down the street for $3.99; why would I want to go and spend that same amount for half the quality? So I can say I streamed it from iTunes?

Because it's down the street! Isn't that the main selling point for download rentals? No driving, no returns, no DVD/Blu-Ray player.

Look, 720p is high definition (HD). It may not be the strongest but it's still high definition, especially compared to even 480 DVDs. Considering the large files sizes and being able to stream properly without hiccups or freezes, I'd say 720 will be more than sufficient for your movie viewing needs.

Then again, if it's Blu-Ray you want, then Blu-Ray is what you should get...don't expect an alternative, especially w/ such a new technology.

/

It's NOT Blu-Ray I want, it's CONTENT. And BD is top-o'-the-line CONTENT. When we talk about HD going into the future, we don't talk about 720p. 720p is dead, long live the king, you know?

I was hoping that ATV & the new offerings from iTunes would give me future-proofed CONTENT. it appears though, that instead they're going to string along their followers year-by-year... Next year maybe it'll be 1080i and they'll trumpet it as the new thing. Then maybe in 5 years they'll actually offer what's been available CONTENT-WISE for at least the last year or so now.

I don't want to spend hundreds now for less-than quality of content comparatively, then in another year have to pay hundreds more for what should have been released now.

I'm fully aware I'm free to go and rent BD titles down the street, and believe me I plan to. It's just that Apple had this great opportunity to leapfrog everyone and really kill the disc like everyone keeps predicting. I only watch one or two TV shows that are not available in HD where I just moved to, so I was hoping that I could get them in all their glory through iTunes in HD (FULL HD 1080p, etc). I'd pay per episode for those couple of shows. I was hoping they'd solve my cable/satellite dilemma by offering a product that was ahead of its time. But they did not is all I'm saying.

I'm sure that for some the ATV will be perfect. all three of them. But for everyone else? If you're getting into HD, then you're probably going to be getting 1080p as that's where everything's going (720p is all but being phased out for the 1080p sets). But Apple doesn't offer that. Honestly, as far as I can see, it offers nothing convincing.

You pay the same as you would pay for competing services, but you get: either lesser quality (compared to BD rentals), or more restrictive watching rules (as compared to netflix & the like), or both. Where Am I supposed to be drawn in by it?

ATV is 80% there. But it really needs to just go all the way on at least one spectrum: quality or price. It's too limited on both to really be of much value!

I just wanted them to pull it off is all... :-(

[Graphos]

The big news here is "Support from All the Movie Studios". This is the beginning of a new era.

[pairof9s]

You pay the same as you would pay for competing services, but you get: either lesser quality (compared to BD rentals), or more restrictive watching rules (as compared to netflix & the like), or both. Where Am I supposed to be drawn in by it?

I still think you're missing the point. We have instant movie rentals.... 6 hours ago, Mac users (and others) didn't have this. HD or not, we can now (or in 2 weeks) rent movies for instant viewing on our TVs via iTunes. Why overlook such a great new advancement for the meager issue of 720p vs. 1080p resolution? Netflix avoided us, Amazon avoided us, Microsoft avoided us. But now, thanks to Apple and the ALL the studios, we have instant online movie rentals...and 720 HD to boot!

Man, enjoy the sunshine and quit worrying about that little cloud over there!!

/

[flybynight]

Any word on if there will be the option to BUY movies through iTunes with HD? Sure, most of them I would want to just rent, but some movies, you really want to hold on to. It would be great if you could rent it, then buy it for the sale price, less what you paid for the rental.

[Polly]

I haven't had any experience with movie downloads at all and was wondering:
1: Are they loaded with commercials?
2: If so is it possible to (easily) skip them?
Thanks!

[sjmagy]

Randombob, consider that it might be a bandwidth limitation; the better the quality, the larger the file size (generally speaking) and thus the longer the download time; it might have been either cost or user-experience prohibitive to offer the movies at 1080p (think how many people / early adopters who have HD sets only capable of 720p?).

HD, for all it's greatness, is still fairly new and not exactly an entrenched consumer technology; I know more people who don't have HD-capable TVs than those who do.

[randombob]

pairof9s said:

Quote

I still think you're missing the point. We have instant movie rentals.... 6 hours ago, Mac users (and others) didn't have this. HD or not, we can now (or in 2 weeks) rent movies for instant viewing on our TVs via iTunes. Why overlook such a great new advancement for the meager issue of 720p vs. 1080p resolution? Netflix avoided us, Amazon avoided us, Microsoft avoided us. But now, thanks to Apple and the ALL the studios, we have instant online movie rentals...and 720 HD to boot!

Man, enjoy the sunshine and quit worrying about that little cloud over there!!

/

No I totally get that. But it's that cloud over there that's going to rain on the parade is what I'm saying. And I wouldn't mind seeing the model they're pushing succeed, but as I pointed out before.... you're essentially paying for the "coolness" of the content distribution model, as you're not getting offered anything of greater value than you current could get through other models. You can rent BD titles from Netflix CHEAPER and keep them longer, and get TWICE the quality. No it's not "online" movie rentals, but it's better in every.... other.... way.

What I'm afraid will happen now is what happened with ATV version 1. It's not quite there, so people don't buy, and it will die. Then when someone wises up and says "well what if we offered 1080p full-HD content via the d/l model?" people will shoot that idea down, saying "we tried the d/l model before and it didn't. We're NEVER going down that road again...."

So, in conclusion, what I'm getting at is that since they are not future-proofing it, there's a chance it won't take off. ALL the other tech is going forward, ATV & such is offering quality that is, well, a decade old about. And not many people when looking to invest want to throw money into something that won't be "current" in a year or two. And if it doesn't take off, they won't blame their lack of foresight on the HD front, they'll blame the consumer for being stupid. And we'll NEVER get what we really want.

[DisabledTrucker]

Still not enough storage, though they did increase the top unit to 160GB, now you can rent videos from iTunes on it, big whoop! Still no Tuner or DVD player in it, still not worthy of $300 let alone $330 for the upper end unit! Oh, HD is only limited to 720p video? What a rip off!

[randombob]

sjmagy said:

Randombob, consider that it might be a bandwidth limitation; the better the quality, the larger the file size (generally speaking) and thus the longer the download time; it might have been either cost or user-experience prohibitive to offer the movies at 1080p (think how many people / early adopters who have HD sets only capable of 720p?).

HD, for all it's greatness, is still fairly new and not exactly an entrenched consumer technology; I know more people who don't have HD-capable TVs than those who do.

Completely true. BUT those same people don't watch steve's keynote nor care. They rely on US to guide their next purchasing decision. Are YOU going to recommend a dying tech to your friends? Or are you going to say, oh something like "well if you're in the market for a new TV, I'd recommend 1080p sets. Everything's moving that direction, so you want to make sure it has at least one or two HDMI ports for WHEN YOU GET a next-gen player, etc..."

Shit most people don't know what an HDMI port is. But we do, and those people will ask us. And we'll make that recommendation. So this sort of stuff? It's being sold to US, not "them." We're the ones who are going to do the hard selling.

Well, not me, because I can't with a clear conscience recommend it because it's half-dead already.

PS:
I currently HAVE a 720p 52" tv. But like I said, I'm looking to the future. which will be something along the lines of 65" 1080p. So even though I currently could get away with the quality offerings, I know that it'd be a waste of my money in the not-to-distant future. Future-proofing, this is what I'm talking about. I'm not dumping money into something that's decade-old tech when the future is here. And I'm sure as hell not going to recommend to my less tech-savvy friends that they do that, either.

[henryhbk]

Just as a point of comparison*: The latest Narnia trailer in HD (the latest Dark night bears similar numbers) on the apple website (just the first I clicked on randomly) which is 2:31min long:

480p: 41mb (i.e. DVD quality)

720p: 77mb (33MB/min - 90min move = 2.97gb)

1080p: 184mb (79MB/min - 90min move = 7.2gb)

That's more than double, and hard to distinguish in real life on most sets (I have a 100" 1080p projector, so can see the difference, but for most people watching across the room on a 42" set, they can't, and you more than double the download time...)

*yes I realize the compression numbers may be different for a full length movie, but this is just for a comparison of the 2 rates

[wolfneuralnet]

Does anyone know if the Apple TV version of FrontRow will now be able to play VIDEO_TS files? This was the one thing keeping me using a Mac for this rather than buying an AppleTV - I have ripped DVDs that I want to be able to throw into the Movies folder and watch later. With FrontRow I can do this...

Anyone have any idea whether we can do this on the new AppleTV?

Also, it seems as if there is a lot of confusion about whether this is a new piece of hardware or not. Does anyone know whether there is actually new hardware out there or coming? It would be good to know, since I wouldn't want to buy the old one if there is a faster chip in the "new" one for example...

[daneb]

I believe it was indeed mentioned in the keynote that existing Apple TV users would be able to update their software to the new software. Nothing has changed but the software. The HD movies will be in 720P as most people don't have a 1080P TV.

[pairof9s]

No I totally get that. But it's that cloud over there that's going to rain on the parade is what I'm saying. And I wouldn't mind seeing the model they're pushing succeed, but as I pointed out before.... you're essentially paying for the "coolness" of the content distribution model, as you're not getting offered anything of greater value than you current could get through other models. You can rent BD titles from Netflix CHEAPER and keep them longer, and get TWICE the quality. No it's not "online" movie rentals, but it's better in every.... other.... way.

Have you seen 720p movies compared to 1080p movies? Where and how? I know I've seen broadcasts/trailers of 1080p and 720p, and I'd be hard pressed to see the difference, especially 8-10 feet away in my living room. I definitely would not say it's half the quality. I'm really at a loss to see how you can place so much emphasis on what is minute to the naked human eye.

As far as the "coolness" factor, if you mean it's cooler to sit in my house and order a HD movie than get into a car and go see if BlockBuster has it in Blu-Ray, yeah, I'm all for that kind of coolness. Netflix doesn't offer Mac support, only vaporware, so that's a non-entity in this discussion...unless you're a Windows user. And are their instant rentals in 1080p HD? If you're speaking of the mail-delivered movies instead, then that means I need either a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player (which is a debate unto itself!) to view. You don't even want to go down that road in comparing the features of BD/HD-DVD players to Apple TV...ATV offers a lot more beyond movies!

Listen, like every other "new" Apple announcement, this will get played out in the next few months as to whether it is a success or not. I side w/ the success of this initiative...I hope so, because I just bought an Apple TV!!

/