Optical media is dead or dying. Digital media has been more reliable for me.
Blu Ray player sales and movie sales are higher than ever.
Optical media is dead or dying. Digital media has been more reliable for me.
iTunes is 1080p. What you're saying is similar to saying a 1.2L engine can never outperform a 1.6L engine, add superchargers and turbos and they do with the added benefit of increased fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Same with when people said AMD CPU's were slow simply because their clock rate was not over 3GHz like the Intel Pentium 4 at the time. People should grow out of "bigger is better", otherwise you'll just be a sucker to marketing.
Consider how long blu-ray has been around now and that even new movies have to maintain compatibility with really old players with limited AVC decoders in them.
Perhaps the original quote you referenced was slightly in error and should not have said simply 1080p but blu ray level 1080p. In that case (the latter correction), I would agree with that poster entirely.
Blu Ray movies are compressed files. Itunes are compressed files. ITunes gives up so much more due to the type of compression and final size of file. This is not opinion but fact. It is quantitative not qualitative.
Does Itunes offer and support HD Audio streams - NO.
Does Blu Ray offer and support HD Audio streams - YES.
Does Itunes files provide optimal blacks and shadow detail - NO.
Does Blu Ray (or rather can they) offer optimal blacks and shadow detail-YES.
There is far more to a movie than just the "1080p" facet. One could take a 480i file and upconvert it to 1080p. It would be vastly inferior to a native blu ray (or for that matter iTunes) level 1080p purchase. When any compression scheme is used there is trade offs and then there are what some call diminished returns. The diminished returns in this case is when compression produced a 'relative' and/or absolute downgrade from the original. Itunes certainly provides a nice image and fair sound but no where does it compare to what a blu ray can do and that simply is a FACT.
You sound like the sort of person who can't accept other peoples opinions on anything.Perhaps the original quote you referenced was slightly in error and should not have said simply 1080p but blu ray level 1080p. In that case (the latter correction), I would agree with that poster entirely.
I was correcting an error, end off.
Blu Ray movies are compressed files. Itunes are compressed files. ITunes gives up so much more due to the type of compression and final size of file. This is not opinion but fact. It is quantitative not qualitative.
File size isn't a measurement of picture quality, as you'e totally disregarded the codec in use and it's settings.
Does Itunes offer and support HD Audio streams - NO.
Does Blu Ray offer and support HD Audio streams - YES.
Yes because the human ear can't hear above 22kHz.
Does Itunes files provide optimal blacks and shadow detail - NO.
Does Blu Ray (or rather can they) offer optimal blacks and shadow detail-YES.
I found it the other way round, the black level and shadow detail on H.264 High 4.1 is fantastic.
There is far more to a movie than just the "1080p" facet. One could take a 480i file and upconvert it to 1080p. It would be vastly inferior to a native blu ray (or for that matter iTunes) level 1080p purchase.
Wasn't me who said 1080p was a factor of picture quality
When any compression scheme is used there is trade offs and then there are what some call diminished returns. The diminished returns in this case is when compression produced a 'relative' and/or absolute downgrade from the original. Itunes certainly provides a nice image and fair sound but no where does it compare to what a blu ray can do and that simply is a FACT.
iTunes is 1080p. What you're saying is similar to saying a 1.2L engine can never outperform a 1.6L engine, add superchargers and turbos and they do with the added benefit of increased fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Same with when people said AMD CPU's were slow simply because their clock rate was not over 3GHz like the Intel Pentium 4 at the time. People should grow out of "bigger is better", otherwise you'll just be a sucker to marketing.
Consider how long blu-ray has been around now and that even new movies have to maintain compatibility with really old players with limited AVC decoders in them.
Maybe a more efficient codec could maintain quality and reduce transmission rates by 10-20%. But >50%, no way. Mpeg is already pretty efficient.
Plus, you should start getting suspicious about iTunes 1080p quality when you realize the files are only about 20-25% bigger than the 720p iTunes files, even pixels have increased by >100%
You sound like the sort of person who can't accept other peoples opinions on anything.
P.S. there might twice as many pixels but the scene complexity, motion and contrast of the frames remains the same; don't forget MPEG-4 codec's encode macroblocks, not individual pixels. And then there is 10bit encoding...
Jonathan
I'm the same way, I rather have the convenience over the quality. I got a blu-ray player and used it 5-10 times if that. I wish I never got it.Personally, I favor convenience over technical quality. I still don't own any blu-ray player, and I don't even have a DVD player hooked up to my TV. With the newest handbrake versions, even DVD rips look really good to me, so I don't see a need to spend more money at this point.
Most DVDs I purchase are in the bargain bin or at least on sale, or they are Christmas gifts for my kids. Which brings up another point, digital media can't be scratched up by kids. That rip of Finding Nemo doesn't degrade over time. I never have to clean dirty fingerprints off of a disc or tell my kids they can't watch that movie because it's too badly scratched.
Both of my kids (and I assume many other kids) are smart enough to navigate the AppleTV interface to find Netflix, Youtube, and our library of ripped movies. With movie cover art, even my youngest, who can't yet read, can pick something he wants to watch.
So like I said, personally, convenience > quality.
I think AppleTV can only stream MP4s up to 720p, even if the source files are 1080p or higher so.... Apple ITunes still can't compete with the physical formats, although you can buy M4V versions of films and download them in 1080p if you play with the ITunes settings - but obviously only watch them at full size on your computer!