Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
No, and I don't have any other outdated technologies such as Super 8, cassette tapes or 8-Tracks.

Does anyone really still use physical media? Seriously?
As much as I love the ability to instantly stream movies and TV shows wirelessly over my home network or from the Internet, you can't argue that the image quality on most Blu-ray movies is sensibly better than streaming 1080p HD movies, particularly if your HDTV screen size is over 40'.
 
Only if you see the iPhone as primarily a video-consumption device. Those "wasted pixels" would have been quite useful for, oh i don't know, EMAIL, WEB BROWSING, GAMES, well, just about everything else. Instead, we have an awkward, long, skinny screen that gives us.......well, an extra row of icons? big whoop.

I was talking only about Netflix. However, making the device bigger in both dimensions would also not allow you to fit an extra row of icons and would instead force Apple to just make the icons bigger. But it would be more useful for email and web browsing.
 
They should re-release Serenity in theaters and add the tag "from the director of the Avengers" and let the profits flow. Plus I'd love to see it on the big screen again.
 
Firefly, seriously? The show was ok and the movie was what the show should have been.

Oh please. The first half of the movie felt rushed, like they had to cram a dozen episodes' worth of character development into one hour for the benefit of an audience who may not have seen the show—which I can understand, but it didn't have quite the same charm or flow of the original series. It was entertaining, and it got better towards the end, but still… It would have been even better had they been allowed to continue the series, and let the story unfold at a slower pace. A classic case of a great show cut short by a shortsighted TV network based on the commercial reality of ratings and advertising dollars.

Alls I'm sayin' is that something better could have been used for this news like I dunno..... one of the Marvel movies on Netflix to coincide with the home release of The Avengers. :rolleyes:

The Avengers on the other hand was 'okay'—fairly predictable Hollywood blockbuster fare, but not much more. I say that as a huge fan of Marvel comic characters when I was a kid.
 
<snip>
She's okay.

I believe the question was "who agrees?", not "who's ambivalent?". ;)

Go Netflix!

Now who's inventing the head gear to hang the phone at the appropriate distance from one's face while I try to get back to sleep in the middle of the night? I think it should have pontoons to keep one''s head from rolling from side to side.

Wait...no...here it is! Netflix iPhone Headgear! Thanks Mr. Prentice.
 
Last edited:
Absolute resolution is meaningless only when the picture is placed in the Apple reality distortion field. In real life that's the only thing that matters. Every pixel represents a bit of information. When you reduce resolution you lose bits of information thus degrading the quality of the picture. When viewing a movie one can move the screen closer or farther and change the perceptible pixel density (make it "retina" or "sub-retina" or whatever you want it to be) but you can't recover the lost bits of information. If your assumption was correct than 4x4 pixel screen with extremely high pixel density would be superior to HD TV. It is not. That's the reason iPhone screen is inferior to higher resolution Android phone screens when it comes to movie watching (not that I think phone is an appropriate deice for this kind of activity).

The only way your example works is by you using the ridiculous argument that distance from screen to eye is not relevant, because theoretically you can balance the screen directly on your eyeball. But whatevs. If you miss the "missing information" that your eye under actual viewing conditions can't possibly perceive, that's your cross to bear.
 
The Avengers on the other hand was 'okay'—fairly predictable Hollywood blockbuster fare, but not much more. I say that as a huge fan of Marvel comic characters when I was a kid.
Completely off-topic but even if it was predictable (heroes win, bad guy lose) it was a LOT of fun and everything fans of the mainstream Marvel comic characters could have hoped.
 
It's crazy how much bigger .5 inches makes something look.

On the 3.5" screen, Netflix has to waste pixels by letterboxing so the video fits on the non-16:9 screen. Not only is the screen bigger, but it's now using all of the pixels.

----------

Firefly, seriously? The show was ok and the movie was what the show should have been.

Firefly sucks, but most things do once you've seen Star Trek :D
 
Blu Ray is pointless and overpriced when there is Netflix and such.

Overpriced, maybe. Not pointless though - nothing has quite the same picture or sound quality (in the consumer video space anyway)

----------

Firefly, seriously? The show was ok and the movie was what the show should have been.

The show probably would've ended up similar to the movie if it were given more than a half season
 
You're on crack. Absolute resolution is meaningless, pixel density at average viewing distance is what matters. Image scaling works well. Any 720p or 1080p content scaled down to fit on the new iPhone 5 display, at average viewing distances, will look infinitely sharper than the same content on your 1080p TV in your living room. Not even a question.

What he said is technically correct. The resolution is lower on the iPhone. I don't see how you can conclude him to be "on crack" based on that. Upping the resolution won't do anything on an already retina display, but "I wonder if Apple will add a 720p screen to the next iteration" does not mean "Apple's iPhone screen is too low res."
 
What he said is technically correct. The resolution is lower on the iPhone. I don't see how you can conclude him to be "on crack" based on that. Upping the resolution won't do anything on an already retina display, but "I wonder if Apple will add a 720p screen to the next iteration" does not mean "Apple's iPhone screen is too low res."

The point the poster was making was that users would fine the iPhone viewing experience to be superior, if they upped the resolution, and my argument was the one you yourself are acknowledging -- that on an already-retina display, upping the resolution and keeping the screen size the same, when the phone is held at the same distance, really won't make a difference.
 
Is it just me or does it seem like the app developers are WAY slower in updating their apps to iPhone 5 than they were when they had to update the resolution to the iPhone 4? I feel like many of the relevant apps were updated even before the 4 was released.

Get on it app developers!
 
As much as I love the ability to instantly stream movies and TV shows wirelessly over my home network or from the Internet, you can't argue that the image quality on most Blu-ray movies is sensibly better than streaming 1080p HD movies, particularly if your HDTV screen size is over 40'.

True. But even though I have a fairly high-end system with custom in-wall surround, etc, I ditched the Blu-Ray shortly after buying it (as an early adopter) because it just wasn't worth the hassle of storing and managing a physical disc library. I find that with streaming content, I am much more likely to watch various shows than if I have to hunt down a disc and wait for it to spin up. Just too much trouble. Although you are correct, the video quality is excellent. Just not a big enough deal for me.
 
What's you data charge to watch 10 low quality video and sound semi-HD movies a month?

Data charge? Netflix is $7.99/mo. Blu-Rays are $20 apiece. They don't exist on my phone. I can't pull them up on my AppleTV, TiVo, VizioTV with internet, iPhone, iPad, etc. The cloud is where it's all going. Especially for things like movies. You just can't keep a zillion DVD/Blu-Rays laying around the house.

Personally, I have unlimited cell data. But I'm watching Netflix on WiFi in bed or on the couch while the wife watches something else, etc. Rarely use it over 3G. I did recently though to watch Captain America in bed up in a cabin in the woods. We had great 3G, and there was nothing on satellite.
 
Geez, I watched the first five or so episodes of Firefly and thought it somewhat entertaining and somewhat mediocre. I had no idea there were so many fans of the show on here. I'll have to pick it back up.

And, yes, KayLee is good lookin'. Never underestimate the attractiveness of happy, nice people. :)
 
True. But even though I have a fairly high-end system with custom in-wall surround, etc, I ditched the Blu-Ray shortly after buying it (as an early adopter) because it just wasn't worth the hassle of storing and managing a physical disc library. I find that with streaming content, I am much more likely to watch various shows than if I have to hunt down a disc and wait for it to spin up. Just too much trouble. Although you are correct, the video quality is excellent. Just not a big enough deal for me.

Just depends on your connection. If you can get 15-25MB/sec broadband then you're getting pretty darn close to the data rate of Blu-Ray. Many HD video acquisition formats like HDV, DVCProHD, XDCam EX, and others are in the 25-50Mb/sec range originally. It's pretty easy to make an AVCHD DVD that looks amazing at 10-15Mb/sec, so there's no reason you can't get good quality from NetFlix if you have the connection. It scales to what you've got. That's why you hear some people say it sucks while others are amazed.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.