Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

720p or 1080p Apple TV on a 32" 1080i HDTV?

W

wlow3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
246
46
I have an 32" HDTV with the 2nd generation Apple TV hooked up to it. At that screen size, do you think I'd notice the better resolution of the 3rd gen Apple TV? Would it be worth buying or should I stick with the 2nd gen?

Thanks.
 
your asking if you can physically change your tv's resolution.... its a 1080i tv. so upgraded won't do you any good. If you had a 1080p tv then i would only upgrade if your tv is over 40". 32" you won't see a difference at all.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

No.
 
I have a 55" Samsung LED 3D TV and I stream 720p movies from my ATV2 and they look amazing, so I would think 720p on a 32" would look even better. :eek:
 
720p and 1080i offer basically the same experience, and i personally consider them on the same level as well as many people i know. Some people state that 720p is actually higher 'resolution' than 1080i.
 
I have a 60" tv and with atv2 and with how far back I sit from my tv, 720p looks great to me. I have played 720p and 1080p videos back to back and could not tell a difference so I am sticking with my atv2 for now, I will probably upgrade to the 3 when I get a projector though.
 
Stick with what you have. If you upgrade to a bigger/1080p TV in the future, upgrade to the latest Apple TV then.
 
The few 1080i TVs I have seen had a 1280x768 resolution screen, basically a 720p set, but capable of processing a 1080i input. You will not see any benefit from connecting a 1080p device to it compared to a 720p one.
 
ATV2 can now play 1080p content from HB without stuttering. Sure it will output it in 720p, but when you buy the ATV3 and your TV can play 1080p, you won't need to re-encode all over again with HB.
 
A word of warning, the new Apple TV will not work with a 1080i TV. All you'll get is a gibberish screen. I learned this when trying to replace my ATV2 that's hooked up to my 1080i Panasonic plasma. Fortunately I had another TV that needs and ATV that's 720P.

The new ATV only works on 720P/1080P.
 
Aragornii said:
A word of warning, the new Apple TV will not work with a 1080i TV. All you'll get is a gibberish screen. I learned this when trying to replace my ATV2 that's hooked up to my 1080i Panasonic plasma. Fortunately I had another TV that needs and ATV that's 720P.

The new ATV only works on 720P/1080P.
Click to expand...

Not true, until I get my living room entertainment center situated I put the new Apple TV in the bedroom hooked up to a Vizio 42" LCD 1080i TV. It automatically set to 720p and everything looked great. Can't wait to hook it up the Sharp 52" LED LCD 1080p TV!
 
b-rad g said:
Not true, until I get my living room entertainment center situated I put the new Apple TV in the bedroom hooked up to a Vizio 42" LCD 1080i TV. It automatically set to 720p and everything looked great. Can't wait to hook it up the Sharp 52" LED LCD 1080p TV!
Click to expand...

Strange. Not sure why my ATV3 gives me nothing but wavy lines on my 1080i plasma but works great on my 720P plasma. Apple specs say you need 720P or 1080P, so I took that at face value.

ps, is your screen name a reference to "Malibu's Most Wanted"?
 
wlow3 said:
I have an 32" HDTV with the 2nd generation Apple TV hooked up to it. At that screen size, do you think I'd notice the better resolution of the 3rd gen Apple TV? Would it be worth buying or should I stick with the 2nd gen?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Your TV does not support 1080 P, so it wouldn't make any difference if you bought the 1080 P Apple TV, it would just scale it down to 720 P.
 
Aragornii said:
A word of warning, the new Apple TV will not work with a 1080i TV. All you'll get is a gibberish screen. I learned this when trying to replace my ATV2 that's hooked up to my 1080i Panasonic plasma. Fortunately I had another TV that needs and ATV that's 720P.

The new ATV only works on 720P/1080P.
Click to expand...

The newest ATV is set to auto-detect the resolution. If you go in and manually change it, (mine defaulted to 720p but i bumped it to 1080p) it will try to boot into 1080p every time. So if you move it to a TV that doesn't support that resolution you'll see nothing. So make sure your resolution is set to automatic. Since there is still a limited amount of content available at 1080p, it makes sense to default to 720p and then just automatically bump it when you play something thats in 1080p.

You see this kind of thing with PS3's and 360's but they have a function to reset video settings (on the PS3 you hold down the power button for 10 seconds and it will boot into the lowest possible resolution).

pppppppp
 
heres my problem

i have a pioneer 1080i plasma with component cables running to it from an onkyo receiver.

i bought the new apple tv planning to use it on my entertainment system with this tv and surround sound setup.

i bought an hdmi converter from ebay and can not seem to get it to work.

i thought maybe my receiver was doing something wrong so i plugged the converter and apple tv setup into my samsung tv component video input and i still do not see anything.

my apple tv is working because i was able to setup on another tv with straight HDMI connections.

i can not run an hdmi wire to my pioneer because the wires are in a wall. so thats out of the question.

anyone have any ideas?
 
italy107 said:
i can not run an hdmi wire to my pioneer because the wires are in a wall. so thats out of the question.

anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...

Are you willing to connect the aTV directly to the Pioneer? If yes, and your Pioneer has an HDMI input, you could mount the aTV on the back of the Pioneer and use a short HDMI cable from the aTV to the Pioneer?

You might have to work on placement of the aTV to make sure the remote works, or you could use an iOS device and the Remote app to control the aTV.
 
Dustman said:
720p and 1080i offer basically the same experience, and i personally consider them on the same level as well as many people i know. Some people state that 720p is actually higher 'resolution' than 1080i.
Click to expand...

720p shows ALL 720 scan lines as the SAME time....

1080i only shows 540 scan lines at a time-- the key being the "i" with an interlaced signal, you see half of the stated lines... thus 1080 is actually 540 fields alternating--each on then off for 1/2 a frame... a frame being 1/30th of a second (in the US)

... therefore 720p is a better resolution than 1080i
 
It would be helpful if the OP indicated what TV model he has. To my knowledge, there are no 1080i HDTVs that have HDMI. I think the OP is confusing 1080i input signal with 1080p display.

ft

NOTE - I realize that there were a few HDTVs back in the day that did interlaced display. Namely all of the CRT HDTVs and the ALIS 1024i plasmas. Also a few Panasonics and Pioneers could only accept a 1080i input via their analog/digital ports but they all outputted 720p.
 
i will find out what model my pioneer is, but im 99% that their is no hdmi input. i bought the tv on sale right before they released the same model with hdmi
 
nep61 said:
therefore 720p is a better resolution than 1080i
Click to expand...

No it isn't. A 1080i picture is 1080 lines high. Yes, the fields are transmitted 540 lines at a time, but at any moment in time there are 1080 lines on the display - and that is what "resolution" is all about.

A.
 
italy107 said:
i will find out what model my pioneer is, but im 99% that their is no hdmi input. i bought the tv on sale right before they released the same model with hdmi
Click to expand...

If you don't have HDMI on your TV, then this won't work. You say that you've tried an HDMI/Component converter on both the Onkyo receiver and the Samsung TV, but it didn't work. At this point, I'd suspect that it's the converter.

Have you tried the one from Monoprice? Here's the link. The reviews have many happy users of aTV2. This is one of the few HDMI/Component converters that I've heard of working.
 
to the original OP - Stick with the ATV2 until you get a new TV, chances are at some point they will update the ATV again and you might as well get the latest one when you have a TV that can support it.

to the second poster regarding the HDMI/Component converter. Make sure you bought an 'Active' HDMI-Component converter and not just a passive cable.

For instance, if you bought something like this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/eForCit...HDTV/4668932.p?id=1218500988128&skuId=4668932

It won't work because it is relying on certain pins of the HDMI port on the source to already have component video on them. The ATV does not.

What you need is something like this:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10114&cs_id=1011410&p_id=8125&seq=1&format=2

This takes the HDMI signal and reprocesses it to component. Theoretically it should work with everything, but HDMI/HDCP is a funny animal and the handshakes between devices sometimes don't work well. But considering what you have told us, it may be your only hope.

If you provide specific model numbers for your TV and component adapter we could hep further.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back