Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and will be renamed iTV

Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by mikeryan on Thursday August 12, 2010 @12:17AM (#1597195)

Just out of curiosity what content would you be watching on an appple itv device that's at 1080p? The vast majority of its content is delivered via IP and 1080p video which streams at about 45Mbps isn't really realistic to be moving around on most networks. Most 1080p video is still going to be distributed the old fashioned way... On blu-Ray.

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by gnaffle on Thursday August 12, 2010 @02:11AM (#1597370)

It's realistic enough that it's perfectly doable on Pirate Bay. Apple could have been innovative here and offered a (legal) BitTorrent network for downloading HD content.

I _think_ that a lot of non-technical people (even Apple fans) will have a hard time buying accessories for their shiny new "Full HD" flatscreen TV, and then buying an Apple TV that doesn't support it. Unless they reduce the price to the point where it's a no-brainer.

Fortunately, I'm still able to buy an Apple TV that supports 1080p without problems, called a Mac Mini :)

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by mikeryan on Thursday August 12, 2010 @10:54AM (#1598220)

I disagree that its perfectly doable on pirate bay. Downloading and watching 1080p movies via the pirate bay is even an edge case for that service.

Take a look at their "High Res" movies

http://thepiratebay.org/top/207

First the majority are in 720. The ones that are in 1080 tend to be 10GB to 50GB in size and downloading them can take days (I've tried - on a decent cable modem connection). Then you need to store these beasts which means some sort of multi-terabyte storage server - or burning them to Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disk. A perfectly acceptable alternative but then you're not usually using an Apple "iTV" as your playback device.

So so far this is so far out as an edge case that Apple's choice still makes sense.

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by mgrouchy on Thursday August 12, 2010 @09:43AM (#1598051)

Well currently in Itunes you can watch/download video in 1080p? Seems like that would be the place where I would start. I'm not certain I care so much about streaming, but I do care about playback. I'm doing my best to not by physical media, so playback of high quality content is important.

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by mikeryan on Thursday August 12, 2010 @10:30AM (#1598166)

HD Movie rentals from iTunes is 720p

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by wmf on Thursday August 12, 2010 @01:10AM (#1597278)

IIRC Sony is selling 8Mbps 1080p content on the PS3. I think Apple is genuinely behind in this case.

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by nixy on Thursday August 12, 2010 @02:12AM (#1597371)

What is the notable quality difference between 8Mbps 1080p and 8Mbps 720p scaled to 1080p?

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Re:Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and... by mikeryan on Thursday August 12, 2010 @08:21AM (#1597869)

Bingo. thats the point you can't deliver 8Mbps 1080p of any decent quality. In fact 1080p at 8Mpbs is generally worse quality then 720p upscaled.

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