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I know I am going to get flamed for saying this...

L

levitynyc

macrumors 65816
Original poster
I am a proud Apple guy. I am typing this on a 24" iMac with my Ipod playing music.

WIth that said, I was kind of bored tonight and thinking about buying a movie to watch from iTunes. I was looking at the selection and was a little disappointed. I decided to play some Xbox Live on my 360 instead.

I was just scrolling through and remembered that you can rent movies from Xbox live. The selection was pretty good.

What I didnt know was that the movies were in a higher resolution than the Itunes movies are in...but in FULL HD 720P!!!

Even the TV shows were being shown at a higher resolution.

Who wouldnt rather watch an HD movie on their big HD TV with a surround sound system rather than buying a movie on iTunes and watching it in less than DVD quality???

I know you are thinking the iTV is coming out, but unless Apple doubles the resolution, I can't think of a single reason to buy one. Who would want to put a less than 480P quality video on a TV that will display 1080P!

The 360 has all you need for movie downloads. I am not praising MS, but questioning why Apple (with their ACD displays and HD ready iMacs,) is not offering movies in HD. The movies on iTunes are not even at DVD quality!!!

Anyone have some answers?
 
I'm kind of new to Apple products myself, but aren't the movies sold in iTunes more or less targeted at the video iPod?
 
thegrifman said:
I'm kind of new to Apple products myself, but aren't the movies sold in iTunes more or less targeted at the video iPod?
Click to expand...

Yes, but they also are proud that you can play them on you mac and with iTV, send em over to your TV.

Its just kinds of silly when we know that the Itv will have HDMI, which is really only necessary when showing HD images and video, so who knows....they may upgrade the iTunes video soon enough...but they should have done it already
 
clevin said:
exactly, anyway, who would download a huge file through web? just run for blockbuster.
Click to expand...

Blockbuster is DONE. 2 Blockbusters near my house have closed in the last 6 months. They were killed by Netflix.

And besides, neither of them rent HD movies!!!

Plus who wants to worry about late fees, driving to the store only to find out the movie you wanted is not in stock, skipping movies due to scratched discs.

I would rather just download the movie, go in another room for 20 minutes and start watching the movie.
 
we don't know exactly what the iTV will feature. we don't know that Apple isn't going to upgrade the quality of their movies when the iTV is released. for now, they are optimized for playing on your iPod. that said, if you pay for Xbox live, enjoy the selection and quality of movies there. are those rentals or do you pay to own them, anyway?

i think Apple has a long way to go before it can compete with DVDs from the store (which can cost as little as $5) and other services like Xbox live.
 
levitynyc said:
Yes, but they also are proud that you can play them on you mac and with iTV, send em over to your TV.
Click to expand...

Yeah well, at this point in time, you can't do that as you can't buy an iTV as they aren't available...

Perhaps at the time when they do come on the market Apple will use their smarts to appease you.
 
levitynyc said:
Blockbuster is DONE. 2 Blockbusters near my house have closed in the last 6 months. They were killed by Netflix.

And besides, neither of them rent HD movies!!!

Plus who wants to worry about late fees, driving to the store only to find out the movie you wanted is not in stock, skipping movies due to scratched discs.

I would rather just download the movie, go in another room for 20 minutes and start watching the movie.
Click to expand...
oh, boy, the higher the resolution, the bigger the file is, cant possibly imagine anybody download a 4 G file from itunes store,
plus, if u like that so much, as u said, xbox360 is always there, i just dont think apple would make good business out of this.
 
pianoman said:
we don't know exactly what the iTV will feature. we don't know that Apple isn't going to upgrade the quality of their movies when the iTV is released. for now, they are optimized for playing on your iPod. that said, if you pay for Xbox live, enjoy the selection and quality of movies there. are those rentals or do you pay to own them, anyway?

i think Apple has a long way to go before it can compete with DVDs from the store (which can cost as little as $5) and other services like Xbox live.
Click to expand...

They are rentals.

Around 5 bucks for 14 days, or 24 hours from when you press play.
 
clevin said:
exactly, anyway, who would download a huge file through web? just run for blockbuster.
Click to expand...

That's the biggest problem I've run into. There has got to be a sweet spot between quality and file size. HD is great, but the files are massive. I do wish iTunes had HD movies but that were rentable. I've only bought one movie and now I'm not sure what to do with it. I paid a lot of money for it to just delete it, but it is so big at the same time. So you burn it to a DVD and you can't play it on your DVD player... It's all not very well connected yet. I'm hoping that with iTV you'll be able to browse for movies to rent from iTunes from your couch. Now that would be cool. I hardly buy any movies anymore. They aren't worth the money for how much I watch them. I do buy my favorite movies, but I've gotten more picky over the years. I'm kind of hoping that Apple will offer a way to subscribe to TV shows for a yearly amount (around the same as cable) and it will download you favorite TV shows as they become available. I can't figure out how they would do the news though... If anyone can figure out how to make it easy, it will be Apple. The only one in their way are the studios...
 
adrianblaine said:
That's the biggest problem I've run into. There has got to be a sweet spot between quality and file size. HD is great, but the files are massive.
Click to expand...

best quality codec is H.264 right now, but they are by no means DVD quality, not to mention HD-DVD, and a 90 minutes movie probably need 700MB @ 600x300 pix/900kbps. still too big if u ask me.
 
clevin said:
best quality codec is H.264 right now, but they are by no means DVD quality, not to mention HD-DVD, and a 90 minutes movie probably need 700MB @ 600x300 pix/900kbps. still too big if u ask me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, which makes me wonder why they aren't even encoding in H.264 for their stuff. Are they worried about all the G4 users out there? I know my iBook always would get way bogged down watching H.264 stuff.
 
adrianblaine said:
Yeah, which makes me wonder why they aren't even encoding in H.264 for their stuff. Are they worried about all the G4 users out there? I know my iBook always would get way bogged down watching H.264 stuff.
Click to expand...

might be, another thing might be considered is that the H.264 encoding is 3 times slower than DivX/Xvid
 
levitynyc said:
I am a proud Apple guy. I am typing this on a 24" iMac with my Ipod playing music.

WIth that said, I was kind of bored tonight and thinking about buying a movie to watch from iTunes. I was looking at the selection and was a little disappointed. I decided to play some Xbox Live on my 360 instead.

I was just scrolling through and remembered that you can rent movies from Xbox live. The selection was pretty good.

What I didnt know was that the movies were in a higher resolution than the Itunes movies are in...but in FULL HD 720P!!!

Even the TV shows were being shown at a higher resolution.

Who wouldnt rather watch an HD movie on their big HD TV with a surround sound system rather than buying a movie on iTunes and watching it in less than DVD quality???

I know you are thinking the iTV is coming out, but unless Apple doubles the resolution, I can't think of a single reason to buy one. Who would want to put a less than 480P quality video on a TV that will display 1080P!

The 360 has all you need for movie downloads. I am not praising MS, but questioning why Apple (with their ACD displays and HD ready iMacs,) is not offering movies in HD. The movies on iTunes are not even at DVD quality!!!

Anyone have some answers?
Click to expand...

I have to say that I agree -- XBOX 360 is starting to look pretty sweet and Apple has some catching up to do with iTV/iTunes movies if it is going to compete. Especially since the HD-DVD and BluRay war is likely to stunt the growth of both formats, downloadable HD content is the way to go at the moment.

Then again, maybe in two months Apple completely blows XBOX Live away ... for now, MS is only competing with Sony and that's not a fair fight ... Sony can make boxes, but they're absolute idiots when it comes to digital content.
 
chicagdan said:
Then again, maybe in two months Apple completely blows XBOX Live away ... for now, MS is only competing with Sony and that's not a fair fight ... Sony can make boxes, but they're absolute idiots when it comes to digital content.
Click to expand...

sony isnt stupid, and game console is for gaming, thats why wii is far better than both ps3 and xbox360
 
clevin said:
sony isnt stupid, and game console is for gaming, thats why wii is far better than both ps3 and xbox360
Click to expand...

The PS3 is most definitely NOT for just gaming, why else include BluRay? I don't want to get into the whole Wii vs. PS3 vs. XBOX 360 pissing matching, my point is simply that PS3 and 360 both aspire to something beyond games and MS is a lot better at that than Sony. I own a PSP ... it's embarassing how poorly Sony supports that device for music and movie downloads. The device has so much more potential than Sony will ever realize.
 
zap2 said:
Well seeing how xBox cost 400 bucks, and I don't currently have I'd go with my free software app for movies(not that I watch tons of movies unless they are on TV)

But the fact MS has had a terrible time with getting the kinks worked out doesn't make me want to rush out and try this idea out....http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360/360-video-continues-to-suck-216978.php
Click to expand...

Yeah, that does sound like a disaster. Maybe these Swiss Army knife video game systems aren't such a great idea after all.
 
chicagdan said:
The PS3 is most definitely NOT for just gaming, why else include BluRay?
Click to expand...

I know this is crazy, but isn't it possible that someday in the near future games will be big enough to at least use half a BluRay? Right now they are limited as to how much CD's and DVD's can hold.

I think it is funny that the OP thought they'd get flamed for this subject. Maybe Apple users are more level headed than people think.
 
chicagdan said:
The PS3 is most definitely NOT for just gaming, why else include BluRay? I don't want to get into the whole Wii vs. PS3 vs. XBOX 360 pissing matching, my point is simply that PS3 and 360 both aspire to something beyond games and MS is a lot better at that than Sony. I own a PSP ... it's embarassing how poorly Sony supports that device for music and movie downloads. The device has so much more potential than Sony will ever realize.
Click to expand...

Have u ever tried the PS3 internet browser? ITS AWFUL!!! It downloads web pages like its 56K all over again.
 
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