“When Apple Computer started offering short videos and TV show episodes for $1.99 through its iTunes Music Store late last year, I thought it was a good idea… The problem is, in the real world, these videos don’t represent a good deal at all. And now I’m beginning to rethink my opinion on downloadable digital video. In fact, it’s unclear to me why any individuals need to own this content at all,” Paul Thurrott writes for Connected Home Media. “My first glimpse into the problem came last October, when Apple released its video iPod and added the first round of videos to the iTunes Music Store. I immediately downloaded a small collection of test videos, including a few TV show episodes (the pilot episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives) and a couple music videos. The quality wasn’t inspiring. Because the Apple downloads are matched to the capabilities of the iPod, they’re encoded at 320 x 240 and about 650Kbps. This resolution is lower than that of standard-definition TV. Put another way, it’s poorer quality than VHS, a technology that’s over 25 years old.”
“When you watch these videos on an iPod screen, they actually look startlingly good, thanks to the small size of the display,” Thurrott writes. “The quality problems are exacerbated when you try to watch these videos elsewhere. There are two logical alternatives: a notebook or desktop computer, or a TV set. As computer files, the videos you download from iTunes will work fine on any Windows PC or Macintosh, assuming that you’ve installed iTunes and authorized that device to play videos you’ve purchased. But the high-resolution screens of most PCs—my iMac runs at 1680 x 1050, for example—makes the tiny iTunes videos look like animated icons, they’re so small. And when you enlarge them, the low quality of the encoding becomes apparent, with banding, artifacting, and other visual errors. They look horrible.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: “They look horrible,” writes Paul Thurrott. Hmm, Thurrott… Now why does that name seem familiar? Oh yeah, Thurrott’s the same same guy who wrote for WinInfo on October 28, 2005, “I’ve been playing with a new iPod with video, the Apple Universal Dock, and the new Apple Remote for the past week, and I have two observations. First, despite years of experience with portable video, I’m super impressed with both the iPod video and the video formats (MPEG-4 and H.264) that it utilizes; even at 320 x 240 (or 480 x 270, as I’ve encoded my widescreen videos in), these movies look great blasted out to a large TV set, albeit with sub-DVD-style artifacts here and there. Second, I’m suddenly hooked on the TV show ‘Lost.’ I purchased the show’s premiere episode via iTunes to test the iPod, and now my wife and I are several episodes in and there’s no turning back.”
So, which is it, Paul? Apple has changed nothing regarding iTunes Store video quality between October and today. The canyon between “horrible” and “amazing” is just a tad too wide for us to get a good feel for what you really think. Or do you just scribble whatever you feel like based on whatever random whim strikes you?
Regardless of Thurrott’s strange about-face, yes, it would be nice if Apple could up the video quality (and the music quality) if the content owners (TV producers and music labels) would allow such increases (don’t hold your breath). And, yes — referring to another of Thurrott’s points in his full article — for video content, a subscription service for iTunes would be a welcome option; pay a monthly fee, watch TV, just like cable (or in place of cable).
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Related articles:
Thurrott: ‘I’m super impressed with Apple’s iPod video, looks great blasted out to large TV set’ – October 28, 2005
Hm. Told’ya.
Well, you know…he is right.
That resolution does look terrible when blown up to the full screen size of a 20 inch LCD.
The man is a goat
Hee hee. MadMacMan said “goat”. Hee hee.
3
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/389
Tell him about the turnaround, and like a good politician, he’ll probably remark, “The circumstances have changed.”
Turdrott is a schizophrenic hypocrite. I simply ignore his drivel these days. Of course it looks like shit on a 1680 x 1050 display, we didn’t need his genius ass to point this out to us. Hook it up to a standard TV set (720×480 tops) and it looks fine.
Ha ha – thanks Murray the K Byte.
3 Software Updates just been unleashed. Would love to know the Security Update ins and outs
He is right Apple is selling shabby videos. Also, no Closed Captioning sucks big time and its illegal.
“Because right now, iTunes is broken. And anyone who spends good money on such low-quality videos is just hurting themselves and retarding the market for truly viable services.”
Annoying as he may be, he’s totally right on this one. The only video I downloaded was Coldplay’s Speed of Sound. The quality of that video is just terrible on anything but an iPod. Other previews I’ve seen look better, but I’m not purchasing any more.
As for other quality, thanks to the latest version of Handbrake and OSX 10.4.5, the H264 encoding from DVD’s is much better. So I’ve started ripping the music video’s I’ve bought over the years and put them into iTunes manually instead – resolution is double that of iTunes. Much better picture.
I would point out that there is a difference between low quality encoding and low bit rates.
The iTunes videos are okay for watching on a normal TV or the iPod V. But, when I watch them on my 12 laptop screen, I can definitely see the artifacts. It looks worse than video that comes off a TiVo in high quality (not even best).
If Apple is trying to take over the living room with the overpriced Mac Mini and these songs that won’t look at all decent on a HDTV, then they are going to fail.
I really like where they are heading with all of this stuff, but they had better drop prices and get higher quality video out there or they are not going to make it.
um…i have a 23″ LCD and an AlchemyTV card…and i can say quite confidently that NORMAL TV looks like doo-doo at 1600×1200. looks terrible.
iTunes video was never billed as HDTV quality. it’s a freakin DOWNLOAD so it needs to be small. you should know better, Thurrott.
Anyones notice this:
When I started downloading LOST episodes and watch them when iTunes with video was first released, you could see artifacts in the video.
I just downloaded the last LOST, becasue I missed it, and the quality was amazingly better than how it was previously done! Amazingly!
Did I miss the news exerpt about the higher quality going up?
I watched both on my 23″HD display, and my TV.
Bipolar much?
I never knew Apple had ever suggested these videos were ever meant for anything BUT the iPod?
Thurrott is a terrible user of the English language: “The quality problems are exacerbated when you try to watch these videos elsewhere.” Exacerbated is hardly the correct word to use after you have just said the quality is great on the iPod…exacerbate, Paul, means to make something worse. Good to bad is not to exacerbate.
Learn to use the language and don’t add big words to look like you know your stuff. You clearly don’t… Oh, and be consistent will you!
The pig is right. The video quality sucks.
But there are many fools, er people who don’t care – millions.
Thurrot is completely right. The quality of those videos totally blows on anything bigger than an iPod.
I think it would be wonderful for someone to reveal Paul’s bank account and see when he gets paid – and by whom.
Apple today, M$ tomorrow. He’ll write for the highest bidder.
Of course this is the internet eara, and Paul continually pulling this type of thing are pathetic, and are at least exposed to a large audience.
THANK YOU MAC DAILY NEWS for posting this – so I do NOT need to click to his article, and can instead reduce his click-rate while exposing his lack of consistent journalism at the same time.
I understand that Macdaily news should justify everything on mac, Apple. But you got thinking it again. that quality from ITMS is totally terrible to watch through TV. you should admit it. with my 42-inch plama TV, I don’t watch TV shows from ITMS because the quality is way behind. next time, if Apple will introduce real video ipod, they must go with 640×480. period. I am not satified with it.
Whats the big worry about the quality? Those who are willing to spend the 1.99$ chose to have something to occupy their free time with rather than drink a latte and piss it away 1.5 hours later. Sounds to me like the critique is coming from boo birds who are a day late with their latest and greatest. Can anyone say VISTA?
For those commenting on his flip-flopping, if you read the article he actually addresses that. He was a fan from the beginning but after the excitement wore off, he found the solution less than stellar. A change of opinion isn’t flip flopping, nor is it ignorant.
MDN’s bushlike tactics I find rather hypocritical, knowing full well the political leanings of the site.
Maybe now that he’s seen it a few times he’s thinking $2 for a low quality show you’ll only watch once is a bad deal.
Apple needs to up the quality. I haven’t bought a video, but I’ve downloaded free ones from iTMS. It is cool to download videos for free, but the low quality is a turnoff. At first though it looks alright. Then you get used to it and see the problems.
Maybe Steve will become a self-proclaimed videophile and fix it.
You know he would if there was competition.
Turd-rot is a Windoze ho. He changes his position more often than a prostitute!!!
“Also, no Closed Captioning sucks big time and its illegal. “
Really? You want to cite the statute that covers this? Remember, Apple is not broadcasting video content, so even if there is a law that pertains to broadcasters it would affect Apple sales.
Sorry, guys, he’s right. The TV shows are not a good deal. $1.99 for video that is unacceptable quality on anything but an iPod.
I don’t doubt some will find it worth it, but I watch my videos at home so there is no way I can justify these purchases.
I will buy videos online when they can upgrade them to standard quality. Something I suspect may not be too far away. I think they’re moving in steps and I’m excited to see what will be the standard will be a few years from now.
It looks like Turdot was comparing what he saw on TV through his iPod to what he saw when he blew up the movie to fit his iMac. He compared different things.
iTunes downloaded videos look a worse on iMac’s LCD screen than on TV. TV resolution is closer to that of those videos than the LCD panels found on iMacs. So, when you blow up a video to fit on a higher resolution screen, of course it will looks worse. Also, darker scenes look worse than lighter scenes because the tonal range is limited in darker scenes, which results in more compression artifacts.
Paul Thurrott is right!!
The video does 5uck @$$ at larger screen sizes.
Put unfortunatly the internet is suffering already from too many videos/large files moving around.
Apple is being responsible.
Of course I like having a few hundred full lenght movies on my iPod and of course the quality has to be downgraded to do this.
If you want to learn how to get dvd movies on your iPod see this link
http://macteens.com/index.php/features/fullstory/putting_dvds_onto_your_ipod/
Oh and I bet you thought I was going to troll. hahaha
Paul Thurrott writes WHATEVER just to troll for hit counts.
I never liked ipod but its popular.
i never liked jerry springer but it is popular.
i never liked howard stern but it is popular.
i never liked american idol but it is popular
i never liked sports, but they are popular.
i never liked george w. bush, but he is popular.
i never liked christianity, but it is popular.
i never liked google, but it is popular.
i never liked dell but it is popular.
i never liked blogging, but it is popular.
i never liked existence, but it is popular.
i guess i will never understand. 🙁
iTunes is a great deal if you’re living in Japan and can’t get the TV shows any other way.
Our 4-year-old hasn’t complained about poor video quality of “Dora the Explorer.”
I remember being chastized here about misjudging Mr. Thurrott’s newfound religion. I am waiting for my apology. And back rub.
Watching iTunes Video on a Mac is for what his Steveness calls the 10 foot interface. Otherwise, it’s not for viewing 12″ in front of you. I watch Lost and other shows on my bedroom Mac and it’s not bad at all.
if you missed a show. what better options do you have? wait for the DVD and you won’t be caught up for next week’s show.
1.99 every now and then isn’t going to put anyone in the poorhouse.
Uh, yeah, the video looks good on a small screen but sucks on a large screen that the g* honest truth… whoever says otherwise, is lying or has serious anger issues with Thurrott.
Video looks good on my plain old boring cheap regular 27″ TV hooked up to my iPod.
Looks good on my iPod screen-which despite what some whack jobs say, is quite watchable.
Looks ok opened in a window on my iMac-looks bad full screen.
Then again, I am crazy enough to believe the music I downloaded sounds good at a mere 128kbs and not the 3 Gbs some expect.
I also somehow don’t feel the realy overbearing oppressive nasty restrictions of the evil Apple DRM that ruins others existence. I guess this is because I know how to operate a CD/DVD burner.
Everyone that is even halfway knowledgeable about broadcast standards and the various requirements for even 480i Standard Defintition knows the iPod is a pretender to even VHS standards. What I don’t understand is Thurotts gushing and then 180 degree flip-flop.
Personally I’ve always known iTunes video DL’s would never replace a VHS tape much less a DVD when it comes to ANY display device that is bigger than 13″ of real estate. Where’s the big revelation there? <yawn> Until I can download HD video from Apple they won’t be getting my money for that. But if they come out with a PVR HD capable Mac that’ll output to my projector and my 36″ TV I’ll be first in line for that.
Dude, C’Mon’s right. If you’re gonna watch with your nose pressed up against the screen of course it looks shite. I do it all the time after i’ve converted something. But if you watch on your tv, sitting back on the couch you realise it’s quite acceptable. As long as you get the jist of whats happening and can follow the story, hell you’re only gonna watch that Desperate Housewives episode once, and maybe again in a years time. Naturaly the quality will drop depending on the size of your tv screen. Remember this is early days, it will get better.
Most of the complaints about iTumes video quality are similar to what I imagine Trog the caveman heard.
Trog, “Hey, look, I just invented fire!”
Other cavemen. “What? Where’s the gas stove? Where’s the electric central heating and air conditioning? Where’s the microwave oven?”
Trog, “Huh?”
Other cavemen. “Trog, you’re such a loser.”
iTunes videos were made for iPods, not “whatever” else. Sure, you can view them on “whatever” else via an iPod, but they were made for iPods.
We’re just starting out with this stuff, people. Give it time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
And, MDN, let’s get off the iTunes needs a subscription model kick.
I downloaded the free version of Conviction, the quality has definitely improved. Was able to size it up much better. So much so I downloaded one of the Actor Studio pieces. It was also better. Could the answer be that whoever is providing the downloads to Apple or Apple itself, is sizing these better? I would think it has been a learning experience for the networks and also for Apple.
Bushlike tactics….. You are an idiot! Go hang out with your new friend Thurott. Like other posts have stated, the target viewing device for these downloads are iPods. I’m sure Apple will up the quality when the time is right and the content providers let them. This situation isn’t Apple’s fault. They are pushing the industry in a whole new direction. Give them the credit they deserve.
I thought that I would look at the music video my bride downloaded. She happens to like the song and as was said earlier whats a 1.99? The only problem I see is that some nimrod over at the windows dept didn’t see the potential of a good thing to do. Kinda like their answer to OS X which is supposed to come out in awhile. Oh yeah, those same people missed the train when IPOD was launched too. BOO Hoo
Paul Thurrot doesn’t really exist. It’s a fake name used by various Microsoft Ghost Writers. So that’s why he’s contradicting himself at times
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Seriously, you have to consider this:
If you double the width and height, the movies will contain 4x more pixels. That means that a TV show that’s 200 megs now, would become almost 800 megs. Even if high-speed internet is now common in the US, the internet infrastructure is not ready for that kind of traffic. So it would likely take 4x the time to download such videos. That would stifle interest for the medium even more than the relatively low resolution.
I have downloaded probably 20 episodes of different TV content, including most of the second season of BSG and am very satisfied. I enjoy the content and the time to download vs. quality is about right. I have slow DSL (all I can get though I am in the middle of a very large city) and it takes between 30-40 minutes to download one episode of BSG.
I do notice that artifacts are visible on my 20″ iMac at full screen but it looks great on my 27″ TV. I would not want to wait longer for a download for more video quality – it simply wouldn’t be worth the trade off.
I am sure in a few years there will be an HD Video ipod. Then everyone will be complaining that the file sizes are too big. People will always find something to complain about.
He´s right. They look bad on a larger screen.
And why people would want to waste their time and money on these downloads I cannot fathom. I did it, probably won´t do it again.
MDN – have you even tried what he said he did?
Tell us what you think of the quality.
P.S. Unless its viewed in tiny mode, It sucks.
The only video I’ve paid for was the Rose Bowl highlights and when watching it at full resolution on my 20″ widescreen, you really notice the problems.
The problem here is Apple isn’t giving us what most of us want. Even if they did give it to us in a higher resolution, what good would it do us? They’ve put that f’ing DRM on it so we can’t burn a DVD from it. And my computer is used for more important things than watching movies.
Thats why I’ll stay with DVD’s and CD’s for my movie and music purchases.
I’ve been saying for a while that the model for purchasing music online via iTunes needs to be much different for video. I don’t think that the same model will work for both.
I think that most of us will watch a TV show once and unless it’s an “epic” or a particular show that we really really like a lot and want to watch over and over, we don’t particularly want to see it again.
I think the same holds true for movies. We rent the movie, watch it once, and can say that we’ve seen it. The few movies that are really good we may want to purchase to watch over and over.
Music is a little different – in that most of the time we are listening to music, we are participating in another activity (driving, jogging, exercising, biking, hiking, etc.). Our music becomes a part, or a background to the other activity. Even if we are doing nothing but listening to music, we can listen to a song several times. The same song still sounds good to us the next day, unless you’ve played it 400 times in a row.
We want to “own” our music and play it wherever and whenever we want. We probably would prefer to “rent” TV shows and movies and watch once or twice, with the exceptionally good shows and movies that we want to buy and see over and over.
This is where I think Apple is going to have to adjust their iTMS purchase model – exactly what that should be, i don’t know. Maybe a 1 week rental of a TV show or music video for 99 cents and the option to purchase (own) for $1.99 with the cost of rental that can be applied to the purchase price. A littler higher pricing structure could be applied used for full-length movies.
Huh? Oh wait.. yeah you’re right… AVC 1.3 no CABAC support…what does this mean in damn english?
ITMS Videos are of a lower quality for their size than other implementations of H.264.
PSP videos are better.
What does a PSP have to do with this? The limiting factor for video quality is your mobile player. Apple barely tried w/ the first ipod w/ video and the current stuff is rubbish. You want better video in the same file size then up the quality..it just won’t play on the ipod for video..if it didn’t need ‘psp atoms’ it would play on a psp.
Sooo… how about it Stevie boy? Can we gets the new ipod now so itunes can re-encode the video for the cruddy first gens on the fly…since I don’t see any way you’re going to sell two different formats to the point and click crowd..what? Widescreen and Standard you say? Ok… go for it bro.. cept the little thing about how shows were produced in the first place.
Yeah, I’m waiting. The quality is junk, the player itself isn’t cross-platform compatible,but… but??
Play it fullscreen and step back…way back….like as far as you should be from your television or twice as far as those trying to market 50″ LCDs say you need to be and the quality..well ya know.. it works out just fine..
So if you’re going to complain about the format at least complain for the right reasons.