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However, “the reality is that higher resolution doesn’t necessarily mean better image quality,” Moskovciak writes. “The fact that the Apple TV doesn’t support 1080p video doesn’t matter.”
Moskovciak writes, “When it comes to streaming video, bit rate is much more important than resolution. Video bit rate basically states how much information is being used to create the video, and in general, the more information the better… The difference between 720p and 1080p content just isn’t that noticeable on a standard-sized HDTV (50 inches or less) at a regular seating distance… We won’t be able to tell how good the Apple TV’s streaming video quality is until we do a hands-on review, but nobody should shy away from the new Apple TV because it’s ‘just’ 720p.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This much we know: The current Apple TV’s streaming HD movies and TV shows are gorgeous. We would expect the new Apple TV to be at least as high quality.
@ungarelli
Idiot. When you start streaming a critical mass of 1080p content without crushing the U.S. network, then Apple will increase the AppleTV to 1080p. Until then, you are still an idiot.
It is only $99! If you want it, then buy it and enjoy it until Apple upgrades it to 1080p. Then pass it on to the kids or a relative, and pry another $99 out of your wallet for the next generation AppleTV. Someone accurately identified some posters as whiners…
@kizedek
You can make a 480p signal look worse than a 720p signal if you have to use excessive compression to squeeze the 720p video through your internet connection.
I grew up with analog noise and ghosts. Sometimes I had to hang onto the antenna just to maintain any kind of decent picture on the TV – it often depends on the time of day in mountainous areas. The TV was black and white (misnomer, actually grayscale) and a 19″ TV was considered to be pretty big at the time
As a result, even standard DVD 480p still looks good to me. 720p is even better, and 1080p is gorgeous. But to be content in life you have to be practical. Too many people are always looking for more without appreciating what they have right now.
720p is good enough for me right now, and I’ll bet that it is good enough for the majority of people right now. A few years down the road perhaps 1080p will be the norm for streaming and such.
Perhaps you are spending too much time watching video and not enough time living? I hear that the resolution of the great outdoors is only limited by your retinas and your imagination.
although, Apple should get as much crap as possible for their perversed goldielocks mode of operation: “Maybe a bit to little and certainly not to much”
Dear god. Reading the bullshit posts of some of you smucks acting like you need to see the detail of every pubic hair on your bluray porn makes me wonder how the fuck society survived for 50 years with standard definition. Seriously you need lives.
“the reality is that higher resolution doesn’t necessarily mean better image quality,” Moskovciak writes. “The fact that the Apple TV doesn’t support 1080p video doesn’t matter.”
BULLSHITE!
I hate dumbass commentaries like this. Do I REALLY have to lecture everyone about 1080p technology??? Give me a break and DIY:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p
bob: the grave HD demand by this kids might be bull, or at least a bit overly something, but you really shouldn’t be using a computer slamming them with up to 50 years of nostalgia
Apple users have for way too long been subject to lower performance to get better UI, that only they would argue that any medium with half the information of the state of the art is just as good. Wow
@ “My larger disappointment”: “…the larger disappointment for me is that Apple *could have* made the device 1080p on the output side”
WTH are you talking about? Apple TV–even the original Apple TV–DOES output 1080p. Why did you think it didn’t?
http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,819906,820550#msg-820550
@ kdemz4: “all broadcasts are only in 720p”
That is NOT true. Currently, NBC, CBS, The CW, and some PBS stations broadcast in 1080i. ABC, MyTV, and Fox broadcast at 720p
Easy way to end the debate:
You go into a video store and your given the option to rent a movie in either 720p or 1080p and the price is the same. Which one are you going to rent?
Seems to me that an important factor is missing or has only been touched upon lightly. Some posters have mentioned ‘pipes’.
It is no good to compare between streaming (AppleTV) and a physical hard copy (Blu-ray) of any HD content.
Streaming has a major weak link and that is the speed of your internet connection and that it is not possible to pass full 1080p or i down copper wire or through the air. Current methods to deliver HD to your lounge TV actually only get 720 and use error correction and interpolation to increase to 1080p.
Hard copy, Blu-Ray is disc based and so the connection between it and your lounge TV is direct via a single cable without much in the way of your enjoyment. This can deliver 1080 to your HD TV.
So those of you that have Verizon FiOS or in the UK Virgin Media Fibre Optic connection are the lucky ones. With this technology you can get the full 1080 HD streamed to your TV.
Until a tipping point occurs when the majority of internet connections are fibre optic based will you see increased capabilities of streamed services such as Apple TV and YouTube.
You can be sure that Microsoft Zune, Sony Qriocity, Netflix, Google (YouTube), Amazon, et al will be boasting of streaming 1080p in their battle against Apple — most of these already stream 1080p.
Limiting to 720p won’t do Apple any favors, and whatever rational the firm uses, the competitors marketeers can simply say “1080p is better than 720p” and for most people that rings true therefore no sale to Apple.
@ Macjammer it is not possible to pass full 1080p or i down copper wire or through the air. Current methods to deliver HD to your lounge TV actually only get 720 and use error correction and interpolation to increase to 1080p.
Absolute rubbish on both parts.
For one, Microsoft Zune (video) on Xbox Live offers 1080p streaming; and it is true 1080p not interpolation (you obviously know nothing about video codecs). Takes about 5Mbps broadband to support is all.
1080p streaming does not require Blu-ray’s 40Mbps, similarly 720p only takes a couple of Mbps (BBC in UK stream 720p HD and it’s 2.5Mbps). So 5Mbps for true 1080p24 is no surprise.
More reality distortion field… I do chuckle when I read these forums.
Well, I’m really glad we settled this debate.
So, rather than Apple just using the most efficient means of delivering HD (bandwidth wise, storage wise, cost wise), we have discovered that they are no better than Wal-Mart, Monsanto, or Sarah Palin.
Of course, since I haven’t seen the documentary, I wasn’t an expert in this field (other than that pesky ‘I use one’ and ‘I work for an ISP’ crap), so thank y’all for setting me, Apple, and a bunch of other 1080p-deniers straight.
NEXT-UP:
Toilet paper roll off the top or bottom?
Now let’s really see some blood on this one, guys.
And can anyone direct me to a documentary?
I am sorely lacking in special interest groups slanted points of view….
Unless the internet bandwidth is fast, it’s no point having 1080p because the movie you will be watching through streaming would keep on being interrupted as buffering takes place.
As the tech specs from Apple, the previous post and the link you provided suggest, it’s a lack of support for 1080p source/content that are the disappointment.
It may output 1080p to a 1080p monitor/TV but it’s upscaled and not native since the largest resolution video it will accept and handle is 720p. Someone’s home movie or other content at 1080p would have to be scaled down to 720p before it would be accepted by the apple tv and then upscaled back to 1080p when played back on the 1080p TV set.
At least with the new model it will do 720p at up to 30 frames per second where as the old model will only do 720p at a max of 24 fps. On the old apple tv 30fps content had to be scaled down to 540p to sync/stream to the apple tv.
You what IS 1080p?
Blu-ray.
And it’s pathetic that a Mac can’t play one.
I don’t know where they get this “can’t tell the difference” stuff. Quit telling me what I can or can’t see. My TV is native 1080 and a 1080 signal comes out better.
For streamed content, however, as long as the bitrate is good enough, 720p is fine, and I completely understand the technical limitations of trying to deliver 1080p content.
So for streaming tv shows and rentals, fine. If I want the uber-expereince, I will buy the blu-ray.
@ Essefgy
> And it’s pathetic that a Mac can’t play one.
It’s not “pathetic,” its intentional. Pretty soon, Macs are not going to have any type of optical drive, period.
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@ Essefgy
> And it’s pathetic that a Mac can’t play one.
It’s not “pathetic,” its intentional. Pretty soon, Macs are not going to have any type of optical drive, period.
Which is pathetic.
I care about 1080P, I’ll never buy this Apple tv until it has it
Streaming 1080p is like the argument about Flash on Mobile devices. Maybe someday, but it’s not happening right now….
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