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

I'd rather have BD support. It's better, it's cheaper and in the end more versatile.

BTW, it is amusing/tragic to see the kool-aid drinkers support this 1080p move by Apple, when before it was the worst or at least completely unnecessary (because that was BD! boo!! Steve does not like!)

Anyway, no BD support, more downloads being forced upon the market, cutting and/or dumbing down professional to prosumer... Apple can now be described as "insanely meh". :cool:
 
Doesn't matter at all to many apple customers as movie content is not in the itunes store in many countries. Except an old Beatles documentary. Wake up and smell the torrents Apple.
 
Subtitles

I don't even bother visiting the iTunes movie store any more. Very difficult to tell if any of the movies/shows have subtitles, if at all.

Therefore, I find this completely underwhelming.
 
Hate to throw cold water on this, but with Internet Service Providers in the USA (and in many other countries around the world) now imposing monthly download caps, that could put a quick kibosh to the idea of 1080p downloads through iTunes or 1080p streaming to the Apple TV. Indeed, these caps could end up being the downfall of Netflix itself.

People forget that even with VC-1 or AVC compression, you're talking a two-hour movie measured in the tens of gigabytes in size for full 1080p 24 frames per second video. That's gigantic, and with today's 150 to 250 GB per month cap limits, we could hit the download limit very quickly. :(

I think Apple will likely continue to keep the 720p limit, if only to keep the amount of data transferred down to help customers avoid hitting the ISP's download capacity limits.
 
Jerome Morrow said:
Since TV is not my penis extension to the internet i'm happy with 720p downloads from iTunes. I'm not gay for inches and bitrates. DVD quality and up is fine by me as long as content itself is worth watching.
Click to expand...

Well not everyone is content with less than the best when it comes to movie viewing at home. Many with HTs have spent thousands of dollars in equipment to get the best picture and sound into their homes and for HD that equates to 1080p and lossless sound at the highest bitrate--and only currently available on Blu Ray. 720p is certainly adequate for most HD viewing by most people but DVD quality is nowhere near that--if you have a good HDTV and view it at the recommended distance, most can't help but be disappointed with the PQ.

So Apple should at least try and keep up with the standards and roll out something in 1080p--but bandwidth is still a severe limitation. I don't have a 10mbps connection and don't really plan to get one. But I am content to watch PPV content on Amazon and iTunes and if I really like the movie, I will buy it on Blu Ray to experience the full sound and video quality of the movie.
 
I will stick with 720 for now. Why?

1. 1080 will suck the space out of my HDD ultra fast.
2. Limited bandwidth. And getting a plan with more in my are is as expensive as poison.
3. Compression. Less compressed 720 can look better at times than more compressed 1080. We'd have to know how compressed the 1080 is.
4. Cost. 720 would be cheaper.
5. I'm no videophile. I have no need to have that little bit of blood of the screen to be x% more crisper. I know others do care about this. But I and enough people do not.

So in short it's nice 1080 is coming. But this is really tech ahead of it's time. The bandwidth limits, HDD space and cost still make this prohibitive at the current point in time.
 
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LMAO @ people pretending that 1080p is actually offered to consumers in a realistic and usable way at the present.

"been doing it for years" -yea, without anyone being aware of it apparently.
 
chrono1081 said:
Blu-Ray vs a streaming service are completely different things. The closest competitor to this is Vudu but it has a fairly small library of titles.
Click to expand...

change careers into marketing, and then when you need to present your action plan to senior management for this type of streaming product. and when they get ***** off that you havent included a strategy for competing with physical media, tell them "they are completely different things" and then count how long until one of them tells you to pack your **** and get out.
 
bobr1952 said:
Well not everyone is content with less than the best when it comes to movie viewing at home. Many with HTs have spent thousands of dollars in equipment to get the best picture and sound into their homes and for HD that equates to 1080p and lossless sound at the highest bitrate--and only currently available on Blu Ray. 720p is certainly adequate for most HD viewing by most people but DVD quality is nowhere near that--if you have a good HDTV and view it at the recommended distance, most can't help but be disappointed with the PQ.

So Apple should at least try and keep up with the standards and roll out something in 1080p--but bandwidth is still a severe limitation. I don't have a 10mbps connection and don't really plan to get one. But I am content to watch PPV content on Amazon and iTunes and if I really like the movie, I will buy it on Blu Ray to experience the full sound and video quality of the movie.
Click to expand...

There are theaters for that, i'm pretty sure you can't beat that at home.


the8thark said:
I will stick with 720 for now. Why?

1. 1080 will suck the space out of my HDD ultra fast.
2. Limited bandwidth. And getting a plan with more in my are is as expensive as poison.
3. Compression. Less compressed 720 can look better at times than more compressed 1080. We'd have to know how compressed the 1080 is.
4. Cost. 720 would be cheaper.
5. I'm no videophile. I have no need to have that little bit of blood of the screen to be x% more crisper. I know others do care about this. But I and enough people do not.

So in short it's nice 1080 is coming. But this is really tech ahead of it's time. The bandwidth limits, HDD space and cost still make this prohibitive at the current point in time.
Click to expand...

I think space is the smallest problem here. Internet speed and the condition of that 1080p content is the biggest problem.
 
Even More Waiting To Watch...

I rented "Season of The Witch" via Apple TV2 and it took 3 hours before the movie was ready to view. Standard format takes about a hour (ISP is CLEAR). So would HD plus take 4/5 hours? :eek:

Can ATV2 even buffer larger movies?

I hope for every movie they offer all resolutions and price accordingly.
 
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Finally

I have been waiting for this for a while... I really don't care about the whole streaming jargon, I'm just excited to have a cheap alternative to a media center being 1080p capable. I have many uncompressed 1080p videos on my iMac at the moment, and they don't get used often...untill september. i will be buying a 1080p apple TV.

yeah yeah most people say that no one can tell the difference between 720 and 1080 and whatnot, but seriously... when your job consists of install and management of media in the commercial scale and you see it every day... there is a HUGE difference. 720 just starts bugging me, and with a 10gbps Ethernet switch, and a capable device the data transfer does not bother me at all, nor should i see a slowdown or whatnot.

especially with Blu-Ray prices at Wal-mart and Amazon, a lot of times I have been able to find them cheaper than DVDs.

OH thats another thing. buying movies in itunes sucks. they are compressed and aren't quite there (720p). with the ripping capabilities, its usually cheaper to buy and rip them (I love this because i have a hard and digital copy for my library) and you get an uncompressed, full quality lossless movie.

So excited for september
 
z4n3 said:
Found this program yesterday Mac Blue-Ray player I am not in anyway giving them publicity but the program is amazing! all I need to find now is a external Blue-Ray player and can retire my aging PS3 which runs way to hot to use during summer :D

Even without a BR player the program opens almost anything even .MKV files which even though I have DIVX pro I always seem to have trouble with the sound or video sync issues, so people looking for true 1080 today on a Mac can finally have it with this program, take note :apple:
Click to expand...

Yeah it is nice, at least the first workaround to this dumb attitude by Apple.

However, the catch is that this requires an internet connection to remove the DRM each time one plays a BD movie and I can only hope this doesn't infringe any BD licensing by doing so.

Either way, it works as advertised, as long as one has an active internet connection.

http://lifehacker.com/5818809/the-m...-finally-brings-blu+ray-disc-playback-to-os-x
 
Xtremehkr said:
Bye bye Blu Ray, this is pretty much the nail in the coffin for Blu Ray and Apple.

It should be the beginning of the end for Blu Ray as a whole since the price of a new release in 1080P on iTunes should be substantially cheaper than any Blu Ray disks I've seen for sale.
Click to expand...

lol i hope u r kidding ...

iTunes: 720p BS without any special features and crappy DRM

2e3d7ww.png


Blu-Ray 1080p + special features, multiple languages and subtitles AND FREE digital copy for iTunes
xavpes.png
 
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Jerome Morrow said:
I think space is the smallest problem here. Internet speed and the condition of that 1080p content is the biggest problem.
Click to expand...
I agree totally. I just mentioned all the issues I saw. The big ones and the little ones too. The little issues like going to the store and purchasing more HDD space is not a big problem at all but it's still there.
 
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res1233 said:
Eidorian said:
Goodbye hard drive space.
Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion that movies should be streamed. Personally, I tend to watch a movie once, then maybe watch it again a few months later. It doesn't seem so advantageous to have a local copy, and like you said, we'd run out of space since movies can easily be gigabytes each at 1080p. Then there's the issue of downloading over 3G... One movie per month?...
Click to expand...

You must not have kids.
 
z4n3 said:
Hope this does not mean they will be bringing out another AppleTV :eek: Apples "HOBBY" is getting expensive as I already have the ATV 1 & 2, at this rate I will have to change apartment to be able to connect a third one :eek:
Click to expand...

If I recall the Apple TV 2 has the ability to add a external hard drive. It just needs to be enabled in software.
So this would solve some of the storage issues.
 
If we can't get Flash on IOS what makes you think we will ever get Blue Ray?
Its never going to happen.
 
the8thark said:
I will stick with 720 for now. Why?

1. 1080 will suck the space out of my HDD ultra fast.
2. Limited bandwidth. And getting a plan with more in my are is as expensive as poison.
3. Compression. Less compressed 720 can look better at times than more compressed 1080. We'd have to know how compressed the 1080 is.
4. Cost. 720 would be cheaper.
5. I'm no videophile. I have no need to have that little bit of blood of the screen to be x% more crisper. I know others do care about this. But I and enough people do not.

So in short it's nice 1080 is coming. But this is really tech ahead of it's time. The bandwidth limits, HDD space and cost still make this prohibitive at the current point in time.
Click to expand...

I agree with you on this, especially with respect to bandwidth issues. I understand those who want the ultimate in video experience, but 720 is perfectly acceptable to me. If I want more than this at current cost levels, I would rather just go to the movies.
 
studios still don't get it. they wonder why people illegally download when they charge redic sums for downloads that costs them basically nothing once its uploaded or slap stupid piracy warnings all over discs. HELLO I PAID FOR THE DISC so leave me alone
 
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