Apple to Debut 'HD+' 1080p iTunes Movie Services Later This Year?

[brianus]

If anything, HD+ should be 1440p. I hate when Apple tricks the public with terms like this. 1080p is nothing new or special.

I don't understand why everyone's complaining about the name. They have to call it something, if only to distinguish the 720p and 1080p offerings that will certainly coexist for awhile in the iTunes store.

You have to remember that Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and that's where these distinctions are most important to them. When you buy a 720p show or movie currently, it shows up in iTunes as "HD-SD", meaning there's a 480p version included solely for compatibility with non-HD Apple devices like older iPods and iPhones. When "HD+" is available, they'll still have to support current 720p-only devices like the iPad 1, iPhone 4 and Apple TV 2. So presumably in iTunes a 1080p movie would be marked "HD+HD-SD" or something like that to indicate all three formats are available, depending on which Apple device is syncing or streaming it. If they just call it "HD" the distinction would be lost which to me would indicate that they won't support 720p-only devices anymore (even though they're still selling them even now?) -- not a good thing. So, as an owner of an Apple TV v1, iPhone 4, and (hopefully) a soon-to-come Retina iPad 2, I'm glad to hear it's not just being folded into the "HD" category.

 

[brianus]

I question more the people that claim 720p looks worse than DVDs or looks horrible who have 48" sets and are watching over 12 feet away. Those are BOGUS claims.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html
...
There's always a comparison. If I move back another 8 feet from my screen, I'm seeing the maximum the eye can resolve with 20/20 vision (full limit of 720p under ANY circumstance or bit-rate). That's a mere 17 feet away from the screen (A shorter distance than many living rooms watch a 48" set). I don't give a crap how great you think 1080p may be, you WON'T SEE IT at 17 feet from a 93" screen, Blu-Ray or not. To see the FULL benefit of 1080p, I can sit NO MORE than 9 feet from my 93" screen. Everything in-between is a gradual loss of visible resolution between 9 and 17 feet away and that's with perfect 1080p quality. To see full 1080p quality at 17 feet, I'd need a screen over 150" in size! So yes, that's impressive for a very large screen. But it's also NOT what most people have access to. My 93" screen at 9 feet is barely at full 1080p capable distance and some have commented I'm already sitting too close to the screen, but that's how close you HAVE to be in order to see the full resolution of 1080p.

Again, this chart explains it all in terms of distance versus size versus how much resolution your eye can see. If your tv is x size and you are not in the 1080p region (let alone the ideal line of max resolution), you CANNOT make BS claims about 1080p trumping 720p if you aren't even seeing it. And I see a LOT of those posts on these forums in these kinds of threads. No, it doesn't make 720p equal or better to 1080p in any sense, but it does flush out a lot of pure stupid bullcrap nonsense.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

..

Yet again: http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

Unless you sit less than 5 feet from a 48" screen (even less for smaller screens), you aren't seeing 1080p dude. People hold retina displays right up to their faces. That's what you can see it. But unless you actually sit 5 feet or less away from a 48" set, you are NOT seeing 1080p.

Um, are we looking at the same chart? According to your link, for your 93" TV, (roughly):

12' = 1080p maximum benefit [not 9' as you claim]
17' = 720p maximum benefit

So 1080p will be ideal at any distance between 12 and 17 feet, and certainly noticeably better than 720 at anything closer than 14 or so. Similarly, for the 48" TV you cite later,

9' = 1080p maximum benefit [not 5' as you claim]
6' = 720p maximum benefit

So again, 1080p is ideal between 6' and 9' viewing distance. For my 60" TV, 1080p would be ideal between 8' and 11', which is about the maximum I ever sit from it.

Are you perhaps being confused by the fact that they included the fictional "1440p" resolution in the chart too?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Yeah, I don't know how I was looking at the chart wrong for the 9' and 5' comments offhand. My earlier examples are correct, though. If you're getting the full 1080p benefit, great. I personally doubt the majority of owners are, though.

 

[milo]

I'm not big on iTunes, I use Netflix, I think Apple would do much better if they had service similar to Netflix, the pricing on rentals on iTunes is still fairly expensive..

Netflix has an unsustainable business model. Recently they had major cuts in available content (basically everything from Sony) and they just announced a major price increase. Right now their streaming content selection is just pathetic, especially for movies.

 

[singlestick]

Netflix has an unsustainable business model. Recently they had major cuts in available content (basically everything from Sony) and they just announced a major price increase. Right now their streaming content selection is just pathetic, especially for movies.

The recent Netflix price increase appears to be angering quite a few of their customers. And some bloggers seem to think that ultimately Netflix wants to push streaming over DVDs. An interesting strategy if this is really their intention.

 

[cr2sh]

An interesting strategy if this is really their intention.

What do you mean IF? They named the company NETflix, not because they wanted to mail a dying medium to the customer.. they want to deliver movies over the NET.

The only reason they started with the physical medium is because thy wanted to beat others to market and the limitations in bandwidth when they started. There's no question what they're doing, they've been heading this direction since day 1.

And as far as milo's comment that their business model is unsustainable, tell me this.. how many of your friends and relatives have a netflix account? The answer for me is "all but one of them" and they mostly pay the $10 a month plan. Netflix gets $10 a month form me and there's no other company of the net that I do that for.. not google, not flickr, not facebook.. and no one would consider their business models unsustainable, right? Yet, netflix is the only one that's actually getting paid by me.

 

[MacNewsFix]

Deja vu?

For a minute I thought I stepped into the Blu-Ray thread, as I see a lot of the regulars. What, no invite? LOL!

While I know much has been made about the future of Netflix here, I believe the reports of Netflix' death are greatly exaggerated. The whole hullabaloo over Sony films is due to a tiff between Sony and Starz sparked by........wait for it.....Netflix' incredible growth:

But Netflix, which has grown faster than partners expected in the last 18 months triggered a deal clause last quarter when it announced that it now has more than 22.8 million subscribers in the U.S. of which nearly two-thirds were streaming videos, according to one source familiar the situation.

The source said under terms of the original contract the trigger allows Sony to ask Starz for better financial terms.

Netflix has considered physical media on the way to being dwarfed by streaming. Look no further than the (some would say) infamous chart below:

And as for how many of its total subscribers, whose number is are on par with the number Comcast currently enjoys, stream films as of June of 2010:

To illustrate how incredible is their growth, you can see they were at about 15 million last summer. As of April 2011, they reported 23.6 million. Truly staggering.

Many of the contracts Netflix has with studios are coming up for renegotiations, and the studios are hinting they'll want more this time due to Netflix' growing popularity. Either Netflix is hedging its bets that streaming is the future and confident that enough subscribers just don't want physical media, are building their kitty for the upcoming negotiations, or just trying to discourage people from renting discs (not near as profitable as streaming at $1 versus $0.05).

Considering not long ago, I'd have been paying $21.99 for the 3-disk-out-at-once monthly rental and no streaming, I'm fine with the new plans. As for now, I'll continue to use Netflix for the the nearly 50,000 titles in their all-you-can-eat catalog and rent individual new movies not available from Netflix from one of the other services (sometimes before it is available in, gasp , physical form).

Peace.

-MacNewsFix

P.S. Cue "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana.

 

[linux2mac]

Netflix has considered physical media on the way to being dwarfed by streaming.

Streaming has already dwarfed physical media in linux2mac's environment.

Considering not long ago, I'd have been paying $21.99 for the 3-disk-out-at-once monthly rental and no streaming, I'm fine with the new plans. As for now, I'll continue to use Netflix for the the nearly 50,000 titles in their all-you-can-eat catalog and rent individual new movies not available from Netflix from one of the other services (sometimes before it is available in, gasp , physical form).

Makes sense to me.

 

[SirHaakon]

I don't understand why everyone's complaining about the name. They have to call it something, if only to distinguish the 720p and 1080p offerings that will certainly coexist for awhile in the iTunes store.

How about "720p" and "1080p?"

 

[cmaier]

How about "720p" and "1080p?"

Horrible marketing names.

 

[AidenShaw]

No need for "HD+", a name is already defined.

Horrible marketing names.

"FullHD" is already in use for 1080p.

Of course, it would be a travesty to call horribly over-compressed 1080p downloads "FullHD", but Apple doesn't have a good record on quality content.

 

[Lyris]

TEN mbps? Yikes... I don't think Apple is quite aware how bad its AVC/H.264 encoder really is - that's assuming they use their own solution and not a third party one.

Just give us a BD drive already, Apple. This is getting silly - some of your customers care about image and sound quality.

 

[Chaos215bar2]

TEN mbps? Yikes... I don't think Apple is quite aware how bad its AVC/H.264 encoder really is - that's assuming they use their own solution and not a third party one.

Just give us a BD drive already, Apple. This is getting silly - some of your customers care about image and sound quality.

Bad? What codec would you suggest that's better? You do know that H.264 is actually what Blu-ray uses, right? I know they're more than 10 Mb/s, but have you ever actually watches Apple's 720p offerings. Unlike Netflix and Hulu, I've notice almost zero encoding artifacts. (The fact that Netflix and Hulu's highest quality service is 720p is little more than a technicality, since the bitrate is so low that it rarely resolves the full resolution.)

I would be very surprised if 1080p content from Apple was any different than their 720p content. That's the advantage of being able to download before you watch, rather than buffering only a few minutes, like Netflix or Hulu. It may be inconvenient to do via the Apple TV with a slow connection, but at least you can. I would certainly like to have the option.

As for the BD drive? It would certainly be nice, but for the laptops, at least, I'd just assume get rid of the optical drive all together. For desktops, external is always an option.

 

[Lyris]

Bad? What codec would you suggest that's better? You do know that H.264 is actually what Blu-ray uses, right?

As a Blu-ray Disc author and video compressionist, yes, I'm aware of that

Advanced Video Coding / h.264 is the best block-based codec around today. But Apple's encoder is not good quality. The open-source x264 encoder runs circles around it.

but have you ever actually watches Apple's 720p offerings.

Yes.

 

[elwaylite]

I wonder if these would be able to be downloaded/buffered to an ATV2 or something. Im pretty interested, but in now way have a HSI speed that could stream that. I have the same problem with Vudu now. I love Vudu HDX, but I cannot stream it with the DSL I have.

If they would allow downloading or properly buffering for these flicks, Id be very interested. Also wonder if it has better audio like Vudu HDX (DD+).

 

[littlesmegger]

I'd like to think Apple will go down this route sooner rather than later. Especially with more and more people choosing iMac and Mac Pro setups going for the 27" option. Even 720p looks quite poor on a screen with the resolution they now have, let alone 1080p... it's still not going to be perfect, but it's better than nothing.

I'm tempted soon to get a USB bluray drive for my new 2011 iMac i7, seeing Samsung are making them for around £79 now, just so I can try and take advantage of my screen size/resolution. But surely when Apple are making screens this size themselves, they should be thinking of the content they provide to view on these screens.