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iTunes 7.1 (Apple TV Support) and Quicktime 7.1.5

Coverflow is beautiful, I'd like a few things to make coverflow really work for me...

1: Fix the 'volume' down bug on the iMac remote!
2: A preference to 'fade to visualiser' after 30 seconds of music playing. Switching back to coverflow when you click the remote. It'd be nice if it used the current album art as the 'kick off image' and swirl it off into the vortex and let visualiser mess with it for a while before blending into 'classic' visualiser. If the playlist comes across new artwork it should 'blenderise it into' the visualiser for a while - sort of just swirl it into the mix like coloured paint into a can of white for a moment.. just so you get the 'jist of the artwork'...
3: Remote 'menu' button to invoke 'track lists for current album' when music playing, and to invoke 'playlists' when stopped. Just step through and select.
4: A nice analog clock in the top left hand side would be nice.
5: An alternative to visualiser would be something incredibly trippy like weather effects moving across the face of your albums as they sit motionless in the full screen coverflow mode. Snow, wind, sunshine, rain, clouds and shadows of clouds, lightning, ..something to keep it interesting and increase the wow factor to a new level....could maybe even get the 'real weather' from online.
 
quadgirl said:
My source is virtually identical to yours, a Sony FX-7. I have also tried using our little HC3 we use for travelling with the same 720p result.

Source files are in a mov container using the Apple HDV 1080i50 codec and straight off the camera. Quicktime Info shows the Normal size AND Current size to be 1920 x 1080. There are 2 interlaced fields in the source but a single field with 25 fps in the Apple TV conversions.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are in a PAL environment (Oh if only all that was behind us with Digital HD!). Maybe this is the fly in the ointment comparing our results? Even if you are this seems pretty weird to me. Hopefully others may test and report in soon.

And yes folks we have our 1920 x 1080 at full size :)
 
quadgirl said:
Quicktime can support more than 2 channels of audio, but until the Apple TV is released, we're not going to know if it will support it.
Click to expand...
Quicktime support is only half of the equation. The :apple:TV will connect to home theater sound systems and not software-driven PC speakers, which means that audio output is limited to three kinds: PCM stereo, Dolby Digital, and DTS. Any multi-channel sound that is not DTS or Dolby will come out stereo, even if the :apple:TV faithfully reproduces the original encoding.
 
matticus008 said:
Quicktime support is only half of the equation. The :apple:TV will connect to home theater sound systems and not software-driven PC speakers, which means that audio output is limited to three kinds: PCM stereo, Dolby Digital, and DTS. Any multi-channel sound that is not DTS or Dolby will come out stereo, even if the :apple:TV faithfully reproduces the original encoding.
Click to expand...


Thats not true..

I connected my iMac mini/digital out toslink to my digital optical in stereo and it went from 5.1 to stereo.
 
Digitalclips said:
Sounds like you are in a PAL environment (Oh if only all that was behind us with Digital HD!). Maybe this is the fly in the ointment comparing our results? Even if you are this seems pretty weird to me. Hopefully others may test and report in soon.

And yes folks we have our 1920 x 1080 at full size :)
Click to expand...

Right, now this is bizarre. Tried encoding some of the raw HD footage that final cut pro dumped into my capture folder. Opened in Quicktime, Movie info this time shows 1888 x1062 as the size. Export to Apple TV is now 960x540. What ????? Previosly I had used Final Cut export to Quicktime files which displayed at 1920x1080. These will convert to 720p.

This seems like another annoying Apple bug to me.

:confused: Still scratching my head
 
Peace said:
Thats not true..

I connected my iMac mini/digital out toslink to my digital optical in stereo and it went from 5.1 to stereo.
Click to expand...
What is the source? Quicktime 5.1 will always degrade to stereo because it's neither DTS nor Dolby. I'm not getting where the contradiction is. Please elaborate.
 
DigitalClips, please try this:

Capture some HDV using Final Cut @ 1080i. Export to Quicktime Movie (don't use 'Quicktime Conversion' or Compressor). This will do a quick export using the same as the source. You will now have the footage with a Final cut icon. Now ctrl click and open this in Quicktime, instead of Final Cut, and choose the export to Apple TV as usual. Do you now get a 720p video?
 
surferfromuk said:
Coverflow is beautiful, I'd like a few things to make coverflow really work for me...

1: Fix the 'volume' down bug on the iMac remote!
2: A preference to 'fade to visualiser' after 30 seconds of music playing. Switching back to coverflow when you click the remote. It'd be nice if it used the current album art as the 'kick off image' and swirl it off into the vortex and let visualiser mess with it for a while before blending into 'classic' visualiser. If the playlist comes across new artwork it should 'blenderise it into' the visualiser for a while - sort of just swirl it into the mix like coloured paint into a can of white for a moment.. just so you get the 'jist of the artwork'...
3: Remote 'menu' button to invoke 'track lists for current album' when music playing, and to invoke 'playlists' when stopped. Just step through and select.
4: A nice analog clock in the top left hand side would be nice.
5: An alternative to visualiser would be something incredibly trippy like weather effects moving across the face of your albums as they sit motionless in the full screen coverflow mode. Snow, wind, sunshine, rain, clouds and shadows of clouds, lightning, ..something to keep it interesting and increase the wow factor to a new level....could maybe even get the 'real weather' from online.
Click to expand...
How about clicking on the albums in full screen mode to get a list of songs like on the iPhone. I would really like that.
 
Digitalclips said:
In my tests using only QT Player Pro I always had my 1920 x 1080 HD source media open full size and the default export to Apple TV produces 960 x 540 interlaced at 29.97 f.p.s. every time.

I have not managed to repeat the results reported here of obtaining 720p from 1080i using the default export.

Any one else been able to determine the default nature of the beast - Obviously with QT Player at full size.
Click to expand...

At 29.97 fps, you will only ever get 960x540. 720p for the Apple TV is only supported to 24fps... to get 30fps, you have to drop down to 540p. At 25fps, you can get 1024*576, I believe.
 
quadgirl said:
Right, now this is bizarre. Tried encoding some of the raw HD footage that final cut pro dumped into my capture folder. Opened in Quicktime, Movie info this time shows 1888 x1062 as the size. Export to Apple TV is now 960x540. What ????? Previosly I had used Final Cut export to Quicktime files which displayed at 1920x1080. These will convert to 720p.

This seems like another annoying Apple bug to me.

:confused: Still scratching my head
Click to expand...

Well your latest result of 960 x 540 is consistent with mine. I have never once seen it auto de-interlace and it produce 720p yet... I have to suspect your source first go a round rather than a bug. But not placing bets ...

Not sure what the 1888 x 1062 is though! :confused: Battle dates maybe ...;)
 
quadgirl said:
DigitalClips, please try this:

Capture some HDV using Final Cut @ 1080i. Export to Quicktime Movie (don't use 'Quicktime Conversion' or Compressor). This will do a quick export using the same as the source. You will now have the footage with a Final cut icon. Now ctrl click and open this in Quicktime, instead of Final Cut, and choose the export to Apple TV as usual. Do you now get a 720p video?
Click to expand...

OK I will try ... but the frame rate as suggested might be the answer ... but here goes.
 
quadgirl said:
DigitalClips, please try this:

Capture some HDV using Final Cut @ 1080i. Export to Quicktime Movie (don't use 'Quicktime Conversion' or Compressor). This will do a quick export using the same as the source. You will now have the footage with a Final cut icon. Now ctrl click and open this in Quicktime, instead of Final Cut, and choose the export to Apple TV as usual. Do you now get a 720p video?
Click to expand...

Same 960 x 540 interlaced result. :(

Maybe your camera can record in 24 fps and that is what you tested when you got 720p? I don't think the FX1 can, I am stuck at 29.97.
 
Digitalclips said:
OK I will try ... but the frame rate as suggested might be the answer ... but here goes.
Click to expand...

OK solved ... If I take 1080i HDV and export at full size but simply change to 24 f.p.s. the new file when re opened in QT Player Pro and exported as Apple TV Default is 720p - as earlier suggested, it is the frame rate that messes with the export. This is a shame since I have TeraBytes of 1080i 29.97 material. :(
 
Nope, this new version of iTunes doesn't work with my Apple TV. . .











. . . oh yeah, that's because my Apple TV's still not bloody here yet!
 
Digitalclips said:
OK solved ... If I take 1080i HDV and export at full size but simply change to 24 f.p.s. the new file when re opened in QT Player Pro and exported as Apple TV Default is 720p - as earlier suggested, it is the frame rate that messes with the export. This is a shame since I have TeraBytes of 1080i 29.97 material. :(
Click to expand...

But it isn't exactly unexpected... the specs (while a geek-speak soup) have been posted on Apple's website since early Jan.
 
MCE remote vs. Apple remote

Just as an aside, and in response to a comment a few pages back where it was said that it's a shame that the apple remote can't control coverflow (scrolling between albums that is, not play, pause, next, vol etc. which it can do very nicely).... I just tried iTunes 7.1 on XP using the standard MS Media Centre remote control and it works really well. The left and right arrows on the remote scroll through the album artwork and the next/prev track controls work as one would expect. Guessing it'll work fine on XP under BootCamp too.
 
Krevnik said:
But it isn't exactly unexpected... the specs (while a geek-speak soup) have been posted on Apple's website since early Jan.
Click to expand...

Too busy working to read all the posts... sorry for being repetitive, I wasn't aware the 'Export to Apple TV' default option in the new release of QT had been known since Jan. I assume Apple had actually stated exactly what this export option would do with 1080i footage from a camera if i understand you correctly.
 
Digitalclips said:
Too busy working to read all the posts... sorry for being repetitive, I wasn't aware the 'Export to Apple TV' default option in the new release of QT had been known since Jan. I assume Apple had actually stated exactly what this export option would do with 1080i footage from a camera if i understand you correctly.
Click to expand...

The option was just added in 7.1.5, but what the Apple TV can support has been known since January... so seeing that this new preset shrinks 29.97fps footage to something smaller than 720p is not entirely unexpected, as the Apple TV doesn't support 720p at 29.97fps.
 
Krevnik said:
The option was just added in 7.1.5, but what the Apple TV can support has been known since January... so seeing that this new preset shrinks 29.97fps footage to something smaller than 720p is not entirely unexpected, as the Apple TV doesn't support 720p at 29.97fps.
Click to expand...

That I understand, I had however hoped the new QT would convert 1080i HDV to 24 f.p.s. and 720p all in one step... It is easy enough to do manually.
 
album art in cover flow

how does album art work for you guys? lets say if you have all the songs of one album, do you add the album art to each and every one of the files? or just one of them so they appear in cover flow?
 
shiunn said:
how does album art work for you guys? lets say if you have all the songs of one album, do you add the album art to each and every one of the files? or just one of them so they appear in cover flow?
Click to expand...

There's lots of ways - here are the common ones..

1: Any album that itunes store has will just automatically get the artwork
2: Tracks that Itunes doesn't recognise and so don't get artwork ;

Assuming you've gone to albumart.org and copied the image into the clipboard....

Go back to itunes ;

i) select the album tracks ( ie select multiple tracks) - right click & get info -then paste 'image' into artwork box - all tracks are updated with the artwork
ii) single tracks - get info - past image into artwork box.

Simple as that.



Yes, Chef - I agree - the iphone 'widget style' flip over for album tracks would be better!..I see this 'style' eventually displacing frontrow which now suddenly seems very dull!
 
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