What's with the wack iTunes movie resolutions??

[puma1552]

So I tried watching a movie i bought from iTunes on my classic last night just for kicks, when I realized it didn't fit on the screen.

Why?

Because the resolution, of a movie purchased on iTunes, was completely wack--853x354.

Looking at my other fine iTunes purchases, these are the resolutions, all over the board:

21--853 x 354
Wedding Crashers--853 x 362
Transsiberian--853 x 480
Star Trek X: Nemesis--640 x 272
Notorious--853 x 354
Gran Torino--853 x 354
Crimson Tide--640 x 264
The Big Lebowski--853 x 462

WTF???? At upwards of $15 a piece, I'm really, really not happy that they aren't even proper resolutions for Apple's own products.

 

[puma1552]

77 views and no replies??

If you have any of the same movies, I'd be curious to see what iTunes reports the resolution as.

 

[fpnc]

Well, these are among the expected resolutions given that all of this content is in one widescreen format or another. The 853 x Whatever resolution is anamorphic which gives better quality on widescreen TVs. The other 640 x Whatever movies are standard TV resolutions (but in letterbox format to allow other than 4:3 aspect ratios). I'm sure the movie studios decide which format they post to the iTunes Store.

...Star Trek X: Nemesis--640 x 272

That's pretty sad, apparently the content provider really wants you to buy the DVD or Blu-ray.

 

[jdl8422]

how many did u buy before you realized you wernt happy? Just spend the $15 on the DVD or Blu-ray and rip it.

 

[SpaceKitty]

I really don't care. As long as they play fine on my computers, then I'm good. I hate buying DVDs and I don't have a Blu-ray player and don't plan on buying one.

 

[dejo]

853 x 354 = 640 x 264 = 2.40:1 aspect ratio
853 x 362 = 640 x 272 = 2.35:1 aspect ratio
853 x 462 = 1.85:1 aspect ratio

These are all standard Hollywood movie aspect ratios, not letterboxed or pan-and-scanned. So, Apple's resolutions are preserving the aspect ratio of the original movie.

...really not happy that they aren't even proper resolutions for Apple's own products.

Define "proper resolution".

 

[Dustman]

Define "proper resolution".

Vesa. Or atleast thats what I assume he's refering to. And I agree, movies should fit Vesa standards so we don't have all this letterboxing ****.

 

[Julien]

Vesa. Or atleast thats what I assume he's refering to. And I agree, movies should fit Vesa standards so we don't have all this letterboxing ****.

So if you had the Mona Lisa and it didn't fit your frame you would just trim it to fit? Why not call Spielberg and tell him how he should frame his films. Not for the theater but for your computer.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

I doubt Apple is behind those resolutions. The movie studio that released those films are responsible. Like another poster said, those are anamorphic resolutions and are typical for Hollywood films.

 

[puma1552]

right i realize the aspect ratios are hollywood standards; i dont take issue with the aspect ratios so much as the fact they physically dont fit within the screen of the ipod...21 for example is way way too big on all sides so half the movie is cut off--i could care less about different aspect ratios and letterboxibg, so long as the movie is scaled down to fit within the confines of the ipods screen.

i literally cant watch some of these movies on my ipod short of reencoding in handbrake, and having to do that is kind of wack.

apple markets a video capable device, apple offers video, apple should be ensuring that the content they offer is compatible and viewable on the devices they market...if they need to work with the files to do so, then they should. buying a video and then having to all sorts of extra work to make it compatible is very un-apple.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Actually, these are great resolutions at a respectable size.

For 1.78:1 content, Apple encodes the video at a 640x480 resolution. When you right-click the file in iTunes, it shows at its display resolution of 853x480. iTunes takes the 640x480 and stretches it horizontally to display at 853x480. This way you get more quality than the old way iTunes used to do it, which is to simply encode at 640x352 (which is what the Star Trek movie is... how long ago did you purchase it?)

For 1.33:1 content, the video is encoded and displayed at 640x480.

For 2.35:1 content (or "wide" widescreen), I believe iTunes encodes them at 640:352 and they display at 853:352, but I am not 100% sure of that.. I'd have to have iTunes in front of me and open up a file.

But the point is, this is a very efficient tradeoff between filesize and quality. You get something very close to DVD resolution in a small size.

For the true dimensions the video was encoded at, look at something like Mediainfo. iTunes will display the resolution of anamorphic content at the display size, not the encode size, so it's not always accurate.

If you have an issue with them not fitting in the iPod screen, well, they could encode everything by cropping it and having it at a 4:3 ratio, but that is backwards and would not fly well with most people, and even dumber when you can play back the file by cropping without actually cropping the video itself. The video is high quality enough that if you decide to crop during playback you won't be losing quality.

I don't see what the issue is here... they have widescreen iPods now, so why not spring for an iPod touch or something? Apple offers video that are the same resolution as the studios offer them, and they look good on HDTV's and play back on the old 5G. You can watch them as intended or you can crop them. Wouldn't you rather change a setting on the iPod to crop it rather than buying a cropped video and not getting the full picture when you upgrade your iPod or your home display?

 

[seb-opp]

21 for example is way way too big on all sides so half the movie is cut off--i could care less about different aspect ratios and letterboxibg, so long as the movie is scaled down to fit within the confines of the ipods screen.

Go to Videos>Settings>Fit to Screen


problem solved