apple_iBoy
macrumors 6502a
Is the 2nd generation Apple TV truly unsuitable for pushing 1080p Netflix, or is it being cut out of the party to drive new ATV sales?
Netflix Adds 'Super HD' Option for All Users and Additional Devices, Including 3rd Generation Apple TV
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chirpie
macrumors 6502a
The 2nd gen Apple TV has no capacity to output a 1080p signal at all. 720p is it's hardware ceiling.
apple_iBoy
macrumors 6502a
It seems from other discussions that the 2nd gen. hardware is in fact capable of 1080p, at least up to some threshold bit rate.
It would be interesting to know if Netflix Super HD actually exceeds the data processing power of the A4 in the 2G Apple TV. I don't hold my breath that any such testing will be possible (at least on a non jail-broken ATV).
That's what Visio will call it on their TVs.
TsMkLg068426
macrumors 68000
Good luck for that ever to happen, studios still want to make money and the price would not stay $7.99 a month the best they can do is bring back the old deal DVD+streaming for $9.99 or add Blu Ray for $11.99 and this was before they separated DVD and streaming.
Also many TV Networks have noticed that their TV Shows streaming on Netflix helped boost rating for next season such as Breaking Bad writer Vince who said this. So the only for this ever to happen stop buying DVDs or stop cable to hurt TV Networks and studios where they realize they need to move on to the future.
oldhifi
macrumors 65816
yea I know..I still have Netflix but got rid of the DVD option..it still a good deal..
SuperHD has been available for sometime on the ATV3. You just had to be on an ISP that had the Netflix OpenConnect caching hardware installed at the head end. Now you can get SuperHD without the OpenConnect device just by streaming Limelight/Level 3 CDNs, which Netflix uses.
TsMkLg068426
macrumors 68000
I must ask Super HD at moments looks terrible and I get weird tiling on the top I checked my HDMI and they are all connected perfectly so I really do not understand the cause of this. Not sure if it is from my Bose Lifestyle V35 receiver or Apple TV 3rd Gen, I hope not my Bose because that is going to be a huge pain in the ass to get replace.
seamer
macrumors 6502
You're confusing CDNs and servers hosted inside an ISPs borders to reduce bandwidth loads.
farleysmaster
macrumors 6502a
Have had this for some time, on Virgin Media in the UK, also seems to work fine through proxies.
I don't think calling it super HD is partciularly confusing. Netflix will give you the best quality that they provide and that your bitrate can support, all this tells you is that it's better quality than what they were labelling HD.
I don't think calling it super HD is partciularly confusing. Netflix will give you the best quality that they provide and that your bitrate can support, all this tells you is that it's better quality than what they were labelling HD.
You forgot to mention the advantage aTV and Roku have which is radically lower price compared to even the cheapest computer. Not to mention things like size and fan noise. I don't really care that a computer is "better" when the simple box does exactly what I need it to do.
My only complaint is lack of profile support on Roku, and they don't need to run via a browser window to do that, it's still an update from a server to make that happen.
The issue is that things like Netflix and Hulu are third parties that don't necessarily coordinate updates with Roku, and because of that, you may end up waiting a long time for features. If Netflix or Hulu released their own boxes, it would probably fix that issue, but then there'd be other issues as well, such as having to have multiple boxes. No matter how you look at it, website access is by far the most convenient method of streaming content, and since almost everyone has a computer which can be hooked up to an HDTV, it seems silly to go for two separate devices, when you can do more with a single device. That's the key issue here. There is no added cost, because most people need a computer anyway. Might as well turn it into your entertainment hub, even if it's just a laptop.
Lots of reasons not to do that. I don't have space to put a computer by the TV, it is needed elsewhere in the house, if the computer is streaming video it can't be used for something else at the same time. Nor does my computer have wireless that's as fast as in my Roku.
Yes, there are third parties involved but if both of those parties want to make it happen, they can. And it's in the interest of both parties to do it sooner rather than later. Even on Roku, each of the channels can be updated independently, so they don't have to coordinate everything into an update of the whole box. Plenty of other third party devices got the Netflix feature quickly. It just seems like Roku dropped the ball in this particular case, not sure what the problem is that is taking them so long.
Just because one feature is missing on one platform doesn't make streaming boxes an inferior solution.
chirpie
macrumors 6502a
Yeah, I was aware of that, but when you have to jailbreak something, hack the device, and only then in some cases it may work, I sort of put that in the category of 'no, you can't' as a quick basically correct response.
I totally get your meaning though.
