Apple HDTV Tuner?

[GregA]

I just pushed out some wedding photos in a QuickTime movie with a soundtrack. Just Ken Burns affect. Plenty of room for compression with each film having a static time.

3min 55 seconds at 720x 480 resolution and it was over 100MB.

I've found standard quicktime compression unimpressive - though the h264 stuff is really good (half the size and twice the quality). Which were you using?

What's typical size for a 30-60 minute TV show in HD? What would it take a typical DSL line to download that?

The h264 websites say that HD can be done in as little as 8Mbps. MPEG2 requires double.

So for a 42 minute TV show, that'd be 2.5GB - though remember that's 1080i or 720p (which are identical amounts of screen bits - though some say 720p compresses better).

h264 sites say that standard definition (480i?) can be done in 1Mbps (that's 300MB for a 42 min show). Apple currently does a lower definition (320) in around 170MB... which fits pretty neatly with those numbers.

 

[csimon2]

3min 55 seconds at 720x 480 resolution and it was over 100MB.

You should have easily been able to encode that clip in under 50MB at that resolution with H.264 and still have been happy with the quality.

You seriously want HD content on iTunes movie store? Are you kidding? seriously. I don't disagree Jobs is early to the party, but as far as Apple is concerned it was the year of HD. They moved their software lines AND their hardware lines to support HD. Everything is there if you want to work in HD.

I don't think that HD content delivered over iTunes is a reality at this point in time. Anyone who does think so is clearly off their rocker. But, I do believe it is reasonable to expect Apple to deliver on their promise of "the year of HD". Fact is, the new Powerbooks will not display every pixel of 1080p or 1080i without scaling. The mac mini and iBooks still can't play back 1080i or 720p HDTV without dropping some frames at the native resolution. Apple delivered on HD in the PowerMacs and QT7, but I don't think it was unreasonable to expect them to make all of their hardware PCs capable of at least 480p H.264 and full HDTV playback. And then we have the iPod severely hurt by the 320x240 limitation on H.264. Actually, you would be better suited to encode to MPEG-4 Part 2 (Popwire has an excellent MPEG-4 encoder) at maximum compatible resolution so it would still look good connected to a TV.

What's typical size for a 30-60 minute TV show in HD? What would it take a typical DSL line to download that?

The typical size of a hour long program on 720p (~42 minutes actual) is about 2.4GB. 720p as broadcast by ABC and FOX is encoded at about 8-9Mbps. 1080i varies, as I have seen CBS at 10-12Mbps and TNT at 16-18Mbps.

 

[csimon2]

I've found standard quicktime compression unimpressive - though the h264 stuff is really good (half the size and twice the quality). Which were you using?

The standard encoders Apple has included with QT have always been unimpressive. That is, until QT7 and their H.264 encoder. But, in the past, when QT4 introduced Sorenson Video 2, you needed the Pro encoder for optimal results. For QT5 and SV3, again the Pro encoder was needed. For QT6 and MPEG-4 (Actually, Apple almost single-handedly killed MPEG-4 Part 2 by hyping their encoder and then delivering a big pile of you know what), third party encoders were once again needed. For QT7, they have finally included a competitive encoder, although there are a few out there today that are better.

The h264 websites say that HD can be done in as little as 8Mbps. MPEG2 requires double.

Actually, this is very far from the truth and just hype at this time. In the early to mid nineties, the thought of compressing HD using MPEG-2 was laughable. MPEG-2 encoders at the time were far, far inferior to what thay are today. Today, with all of the advances made in MPEG-2 compression over the last decade, MPEG-2 can be delivered at 8-10Mbps for 720p and 10-12Mbps for 1080i at the same quality of H.264 or VC-1 at 6-7Mbps for 720p and 8-9Mbps for 1080i. However, because H.264 and VC-1 are both in their relative infancies, it is not unreasonable to expect both to be able to deliver 720p at 3-5Mbps and 1080i at 5-6Mbps within the next 3-5 years. The encoders for each format will improve over time as always.

 

[DavidCar]

Thanks csimon2 for the informative comments