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iPod iPod Video Output to TV Quality????

manosira

manosira

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 22, 2004
68
0
SOMA - S.F. - Cali
Does anyone know the quality of the video being output to the TV via the a/v or s video cables? I know it's not HD quality but is it stilll watchable? Videos that you create or the ones that you download from iTunes.
 
i just bought the AV cabels (until the dock comes available) and hooked it to my flat pannel tv. played batman begins that i ripped and super troopers, both looked real good. the AV cabels are a little funky...if you bump them or anything you get a static and jumbeled picture. not bad....but could be better...just waiting to see how the s-video looks. hope this helps.

Pete
 
pseybold said:
i just bought the AV cabels (until the dock comes available) and hooked it to my flat pannel tv. played batman begins that i ripped and super troopers, both looked real good. the AV cabels are a little funky...if you bump them or anything you get a static and jumbeled picture. not bad....but could be better...just waiting to see how the s-video looks. hope this helps.

Pete
Click to expand...

is that full screen?
if so what is the resolution?

thanks
 
manosira said:
Does anyone know the quality of the video being output to the TV via the a/v or s video cables? I know it's not HD quality but is it stilll watchable? Videos that you create or the ones that you download from iTunes.
Click to expand...
Files downloaded from iTunes are 320x240 (similar to VHS resolution). There's a new export setting in QT 7.0.3 for creating video iPod files which is set at 320x240 as well. I don't know whether or not the video chip is capable of delivering higher resolution files to your TV or not.
 
The iLounge.com review mentioned being able to play back 720 x 360 MPEG4 on the iPod (!!)

If that is the case, then MPEG4 would be the idea format for TV playback. 2-Pass recording will give pretty good results. Even if not 720 wide, 480 or 640 should give excellent TV results on an analog screen...especially with the dock (s-video).
 
clayj and I were able to do 640x360... I have NOT heard anything about larger at this point... if anyone has success, please post a link or settings so that others can get a feel for what works and what does not.

If anyone HAS an iPod + AV cable and are willing to do some testing... please get in contact with me because I have a number of test files that I would love to get a feeling for how they playback both on screen and on TV.
 
Sky Blue said:
anyone know if you have to use the apple av cables, or will any do?
Click to expand...

I bought av cables from radioshack yesterday and they work perfectly! :)
 
snowmoon said:
clayj and I were able to do 640x360... I have NOT heard anything about larger at this point... if anyone has success, please post a link or settings so that others can get a feel for what works and what does not.
Click to expand...


How did you do 640 wide? You used handbrake, and it played on iPod?

Why does Apple say 480x480 max, if you can do 640? Maybe you can do up to 480x480 pixels (so like 240,000 pixels)?
 
powerbook911 said:
How did you do 640 wide? You used handbrake, and it played on iPod?

Why does Apple say 480x480 max, if you can do 640? Maybe you can do up to 480x480 pixels (so like 240,000 pixels)?
Click to expand...

That's probably about right. 480 x 480 is an odd resolution to list.

That's excellent news, because most all movies then can be compressed in MPEG4 at 640 x XXX, which should output even better to a TV. Maximum bitrate is a factor though, don't know if 768 is enough to get really good quality. Maybe with 2-pass...

480 x XXX might end up giving better results, since there is less resolution but also less compression artifacts.
 
MPEG4 Testing Results-

I don't have a video out cable yet, so this is just to see what the iPod can handle. I will test output to a TV later.

I can play back 1Mbps 640 x 360 MPEG4 video on my iPod. It looks great on the iPod, with no noticeable scaling artifacts. This should output great on an analog TV! There were no skipped frames or anything like that either.

Since I only used 1-pass encoding, the compression quality is iffy. But 2-pass encoding should give pretty good results at 1 Mbps if I'm not mistaken. EDIT- I just realized max bitrate is 2.5 Mbps for MPEG4, that means the sky is the limit and we can get great quality VGA-level video on iPod!

For most videos, 320 x 240 will be sufficient. But this gives us another great option for ripping certain DVD movies, etc. intended primarily for TV playback. It also looks great on the iPod screen, the only drawback is that file size is much larger (around 1 GB per movie.) On PDA's and the PSP, that is a significant drawback due to cost of flash memory. On a 60GB 1GB is nothing- ;)
 
snowmoon said:
It should be noted that the increase in file size will decrease battery life when playing movies off the battery.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. Although the difference may not be that great, since the hard drive is likely spinning almost the entire time (whether 320 x 240, or 640 x 480.) MPEG4 is much less processor-intensive, so a 640 x 360 1.2 Mbps video clip probably requires less CPU effort than the TV shows at iTMS.

One good thing is that TV output apparently take less battery according to various tests people have done. So if you have encoded a lot of MPEG4 for TV viewing, you may still get pretty good battery life.

I guess a proper test is in order... :)
 
So if I want decent quality for TV output, what should I set bitrate at? With MPEG 4, does it really have to be as high as some are suggesting?

BTW - I want to keep all these files on my computer!! I guess I'm going to have to get an external hard drive to keep them all on. It is neat having a movie or TV show a click away.
 
Judging from those pictures in that link, the video output looks MUCH better than I had anticipated! :eek: Man I really need one of these...
 
It looks ok...not too bad.

Still, I want wireless headphones for my iPod, so since Steve said they cant do them because of sound quality and battery life, I expect them early next year and so will wait for them.
 
madmaxmedia said:
That's probably about right. 480 x 480 is an odd resolution to list.
Click to expand...
480x480 is a fairly typical SVCD resolution.

One reason it might give "better" results on an outboard TV than say 640xXXX is that the analog NTSC signals have 480 visible scanlines while the resolution signal along each scanline is not explicitly defined. This makes it "easy" to scale a 480x480 video onto an NTSC screen with no loss of vertical resolution. Not sure how it might look on the iPod's screen.

I don't see any reason to go for any higher resolution than 320x240 if the video will only be displayed on the iPod screen, right?

I intend to start trying some of the options now that I have my 5G and I have an AV cable that might work from my Sony camcorder.

B
 
Judging by the pix in the link the image quality on a normal SD TV is adequate. Nothing to write home about, but certainly do able.


Lethal
 
The picture of the TV screen looks okay. Keep in mind that you can actually get better results-

1. The dock has a s-video jack, which is much better than regular composite RCA video.
2. MPEG4 will give better resolution, and makes a difference in TV output (others have tested this.)
 
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