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Mr Dobey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2008
345
108
Slightly off subject but, do you know the refresh rate of MacBook Pro screens? is it 60Hz, 72Hz?
 

Mr Dobey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2008
345
108
Just curious because the 120fps got me thinking of 120Hz TV screens and how it would be nice to see how 120fps vs 60fps would look on my MacBook Pro if it could support it.

Off topic yes, but on the topic of high fps and stuff:

There are TV's now that physically refresh at 120Hz right? I know there's some phonies out there that only refresh at 60Hz and use interpolation to make it look smooth for advertising '120Hz, 240Hz etc...'
 

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
Just curious because the 120fps got me thinking of 120Hz TV screens and how it would be nice to see how 120fps vs 60fps would look on my MacBook Pro if it could support it.

Off topic yes, but on the topic of high fps and stuff:

There are TV's now that physically refresh at 120Hz right? I know there's some phonies out there that only refresh at 60Hz and use interpolation to make it look smooth for advertising '120Hz, 240Hz etc...'

Yup, a lot of 3D-with-glasses screens are truly 120 Hz (without interpolation) so that each eye could see its part of the broadcast at 60 fps:

"When LCD shutter glasses are used for stereo 3D displays, the effective refresh rate is halved, because each eye needs a separate picture. For this reason, it is usually recommended to use a display capable of at least 120 Hz, because divided in half this rate is again 60 Hz. Higher refresh rates result in greater image stability, for example 72 Hz non-stereo is 144 Hz stereo, and 90 Hz non-stereo is 180 Hz stereo. Unfortunately most computer graphics cards and monitors cannot handle these high refresh rates, especially at higher resolutions."

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate )
 
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Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
Nerdly addendum, but to compare computer screens with my TV, help:

I have a 120Hz HDTV and a standard iMac display. So is what I'm reading from you guys that 120Hz=120fps and 60Hz=60fps?
 

jvpython

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2011
284
0
New Zealand
Could someone explain to me the point of playing videos at more than 30fps? It will appear smooth to the human eye at around 25fps anyway...
 

cloventt

macrumors newbie
Not to resurrect an old thread, but I've noticed that the Apple TV must be technically capable of playing 60fps. When you take a 30fps show and speed it up by hitting forward on the remote, the playback appears to be at 60fps.

The Apple TV doesn't drop frames to speed up the playback. Instead it plays the 30fps at 60fps, meaning it must be capable of 60fps playback, so apple could theoretically enable 60fps playback with a software update.

Food for thought.
 

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
Not to resurrect an old thread, but I've noticed that the Apple TV must be technically capable of playing 60fps. When you take a 30fps show and speed it up by hitting forward on the remote, the playback appears to be at 60fps.

The Apple TV doesn't drop frames to speed up the playback. Instead it plays the 30fps at 60fps, meaning it must be capable of 60fps playback, so apple could theoretically enable 60fps playback with a software update.

Food for thought.

Nevertheless, it's incapable of decoding a true 60p h.264 stream. Computationally, it's much harder to do than just playing back a 24p/30p stream with double the framerate as the CPU / GPU in the ATV3 is pretty underpowered.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Isn't this interesting relative to this thread topic:

During Monday's WWDC keynote, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, mentioned that iOS 7 would add 1,500 new APIs to Apple's SDK, including iBeacons, MFi game controllers, and new multitasking options.

60-fps Video Capture - iOS 7 will allow apps to capture video at up to 60 frames per second.

Why allow it to be shot at 60fps if not played back at 60fps? Maybe we'll see something here at or after the iOS 7 launch?

:apple:TV4? Or does the "3" have the horses if the software was evolved? I bet the former.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Isn't this interesting relative to this thread topic:



Why allow it to be shot at 60fps if not played back at 60fps? Maybe we'll see something here at or after the iOS 7 launch?

:apple:TV4? Or does the "3" have the horses if the software was evolved? I bet the former.
I predict an aTV4, maybe beefed up a bit but definitely with "ac" capability, so you can stream all those 4k movies, tv feeds and play those new games using some new controllers developed using the new API's. ;)
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
There's also that push for 4K at Apple. I find it so hard to dream about that leap given how long Apple stuck with 720p but I guess one should throw that into the mix too. There are consumer 4K TVs available now. There is no mainstream distribution medium for much 4K media now. And while I can imagine thousands of posts of "crashing the internet", "until everyone has sufficient bandwidth", "the chart", "I can't see the difference", etc (all of the same old arguments pro-720p until Apple went with 1080p), I wonder if there could be some play with that too?

:apple:TV4: 4K, 60fps, wifi ac, maybe H.265? Wow THAT would be hottt! Jump right over the BD argument of superior video quality and hopefully address the audio side of things too (something better than 1992's Dolby Digital). Hottt!

Can I have an app store too? Sings "Like a good neighbor... State Farm is there"

Now back to probable reality: :apple:TV4, thinner & lighter (neither of which matters for a device that pretty much never goes anywhere), wifi ac, another year of hoping the "hobby" gets some dedicated attention.

I think I'll just prefer the bigger dream.
 
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mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
There's also that push for 4K at Apple. I find it so hard to dream about that leap given how long Apple stuck with 720p but I guess one should throw that into the mix too. There are consumer 4K TVs available now. There is no mainstream distribution medium for much 4K media now. And while I can imagine thousands of posts of "crashing the internet", "until everyone has sufficient bandwidth", "the chart", "I can't see the difference", etc (all of the same old arguments pro-720p until Apple went with 1080p), I wonder if there could be some play with that too?

:apple:TV4: 4K, 60fps, wifi ac, maybe H.265? Wow THAT would be hottt! Jump right over the BD argument of superior video quality and hopefully address the audio side of things too (something better than 1992's Dolby Digital). Hottt!

Can I have an app store too? Sings "Like a good neighbor... State Farm is there"

Now back to probable reality: :apple:TV4, thinner & lighter (neither of which matters for a device that pretty much never goes anywhere), wifi ac, another year of hoping the "hobby" gets some dedicated attention.

I think I'll just prefer the bigger dream.
Ok...so maybe I was being a little optimistic. :D
 

oviano

macrumors newbie
Jan 1, 2015
2
0
I like the smooth look of 29.97fps 1080i De-interlaced and frame rate doubled (Bob, Yadif, Yadif 2X) to 59.94fps 1080p.

But, AppleTV 3 only supports 1080p@30 on their website.

So I took a 29.97fps 1080i Blu-Ray source and encoded it in Handbrake using the AppleTV3 preset and turning on De-interlace (Bob) and selecting 59.94fps and Peak Framerate (VFR) for the framerate.

I added the resulting video to my iTunes library and shared it via Home Sharing to my AppleTV and voila, it plays all frames smoothly and does not down sample to 30fps.


Hope this helps anyone who enjoys the smooth look of 59.94! (like from an HD Cable box)

Digging up an old thread here, but I have been trying to get my ATV3 to display a smooth framerate in this manner from a similar source. As above it's a 1080i 29.97fps source.

I have had mixed results though - if I just encode a 2 minute chapter of the Blu-Ray then it kind of works. By "kind of" I mean it plays smoothly for a few seconds, then freezes, then smoothly, then freezes, but if I then restart the file from the beginning it seems to play smoothly all the way through.

However, I encoded a 2 hour Blu-Ray with the same settings and it never settles down, i.e. it is always smooth for a couple of seconds, then freezes, then smooth again, then freezes, etc. Restarting the playback from the beginning makes no difference in this case.

I've tried various different profiles, levels, settings etc to try and reduce the load on the ATV3 when decoding but I suspect that while there is nothing in iTunes or the Apple TV to prevent *attempting* to play these videos it's obviously a little hit and miss as to whether it actually works, presumably the processing power just isn't quite there for it to be officially supported and working 100% of the time for all encodes. I'd be interested if the OP had success with longer encodes than the 2 minute sample?

However, I've just found that my 2 minute sample will play smoothly all the way through first time if I downscale it to 720p as part of the Handbrake encode (with all other settings unchanged). I will try the full 2 hours next to see if this also works. In this case (a ballet Blu-Ray for my daughter), the increased smoothness in the performance of the dancers more than outweighs any slight decrease in resolution going from 1080 to 720.

By the way, one final thing I tried was to disable the de-interlacing but as I kind of expected it won't even let me copy it to iTunes. I had a hope that it would let me and then the Apple TV would be able to decode it.

Anyway, here's hoping the any ATV4 adds the necessary power to properly support 50/60fps progressive decoding!
 

Mr Dobey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2008
345
108
Now that the iPhone 6 officially shoots 1080p60 you can bet the next release of Apple TV will support it. If the iPhone 6S gets a camera sensor with a larger pixel count that supports 4K recording than one could probably expect 4K support from the ATV4. But my guess is that Apple may wait until HDMI 2.0 is more common so 4K60p could also be implemented.
 

oviano

macrumors newbie
Jan 1, 2015
2
0
Now that the iPhone 6 officially shoots 1080p60 you can bet the next release of Apple TV will support it. If the iPhone 6S gets a camera sensor with a larger pixel count that supports 4K recording than one could probably expect 4K support from the ATV4. But my guess is that Apple may wait until HDMI 2.0 is more common so 4K60p could also be implemented.

Yeah that would make sense.

By the way, in case anyone is interested, and further to my post above, I discovered that the ATV3 will play my 2 hour 720p59.94 rip with no issues. I used the exact same settings other than reducing the size, ie the ATV 3 Handbrake preset, Bob de-interlacing and framerate set to 59.94 and it's silky smooth.

I've got a real issue with being forced to watch something with 50/60fps source (or interlaced 50/60 fields) at half the framerate. I can tell it a mile away!

Mr Dobey did you ever run into the issue I described above with the motion freezing every few seconds or have you been able to rip to 1080p59.94 from your 1080i sources and have it work every time? I'm curious as to whether my settings are different somehow. I'm no doubt using a later version of Handbrake since you started this thread and the ATV3 firmware has been revised a few times since then I think too.
 
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