Photos on an apple TV vs mini or laptop

[macjonny1]

I am interested in the apple TV, but was wondering if anyone knows how photos are displayed. I would like to have slideshows of my photos ala front row, but if the photos are on apple TV look like the low-res photos on my docked ipod, then that doesn't interest me. My only frame of reference is photos on my ipod here, and as everyone knows they are notched down in resolution. I have a 1080p display and having the photos in high res would be nice.

Also, since the apple TV only outputs to 720p max, does this mean that a mini or a laptop hooked up to the TV would show photos in better resolution than the apple TV? I realize the apple TV isn't out yet, so there may not be an answer here....I just don't want to buy one and have the photos look as poor as they do on the ipod.

 

[nagromme]

My understanding:

* iPods have analog TV out--and thus only about 640x480 pixels of photo detail. (And on their own little screen, 320x240.)

* AppleTV has component TV out--with up to 1280x720 pixels of detail. (I don't think any higher than that.)

* Mac Minis have more kinds of output (with the right adapters): analog TV, analog VGA and digital DVI; and they support higher resolutions than AppleTV, so they can go up to 1920x1200. (High-end HDTVs are 1920x1080 which isn't quite the same.)

* MacBooks also can output up to 1920x1200.

* MacBook Pros have better video boards, and can go up to 2560x1600.

* But a given TV set may not have enough pixels (or the right inputs) to take best advantage of those higher resolutions. 1366 x 768 is very common for HDTVs, and not so common for computers. That means their max quality is just slightly better than an AppleTV would output, but nowhere near as good as a Mac Mini or MacBook.

* But any of them are better than an iPod!

 

[ftaok]

* AppleTV has component TV out--with up to 1280x720 pixels of detail. (I don't think any higher than that.)

Apple's spec for the TV state that it can output 1080i. This is separate from the 1280x720/24p video format limitation.

I would expect that the 1280x720 video would be scaled up to 1920x1080 when output to a 1080i/p TV. I would also expect that photos would be scaled to 1920x1080 on 1080i/p TV's and 1280x720 on 720p TVs.

ft