Minor Video Stutter

I was going to buy an HD movie on my macbook through iTunes and the play through ATV to see if the jitter is present but I don't really want to spend $19.99 on a 720p movie that jitters when I can get it on Blu-Ray for $18. Has anyone bought an HD Movie this way and not had the jitter issue ?

Message was edited by: rz22g

rz22g, why not just rent an HD movie from iTunes on your Macbook? There are plenty of HD titles under the 99¢ rentals right now in the iTunes store.

Im wanting to find out if purchased HD movies have the same jitter issue as the HD movies rented from the store via the new ATV. If your suggesting I rent and HD on the macbook and then play it on the ATV I will try that but is that even possible ? Will the rental be stored temporarily on the macbook so I can access it on the ATV?

The rented HD movie will fully download onto your Macbook just like a purchased movie and can be accessed from the Apple TV just like any other movie you have within iTunes. The only difference between a rental and a copy you purchased is that the rental is flagged for deletion after a predetermined period after you start watching it.

Ok cool. I will give that a shot then.

Hmm I took a second look at the 99¢ movie rental section for iTunes. The standard def versions are 99¢, the HD versions are $1 more. However $1.99 is still a lot cheaper than purchasing a movie out right to do what you want.

I went ahead and rented a $3.99 one since I would rather actually rent one I want to watch. I didn't see any $1.99 rentals that I would force my worse enemy to watch. Its 90% complete now so I will test it shortly and post back.

Ok the movie I rented on the Macbook and played through the ATV has not jittered at all so far. With the 3 other HD movies I rented directly through the ATV I saw the jittering throughout. The only way I could really test further would be to rent the same title I rented on the Macbook on the ATV as well but I just don't feel like paying another $3.99 . I thought that when I selected it in the store on the ATV it might detect that I had rented it and would just play but not the case. So I have not really shown anything other than this particular title, when rented through the itunes on the Macbook does not jitter when played back on the ATV.

I had rented both Ironman 2 and the new version of A Nightmare on Elmstreet directly on the Apple TV and hadn't seen any jitter or any other issues. Maybe someone else can confirm how these titles played on their ATV as well.

Aside from rentals, does anyone have any handbrake encoded movies that can be tested...ie preferably ones that worked on ATV1. The judder should not exist for previously encoded movies that use to play fine on the ATV1.

Why still no fix for this ?

THIS ISSUE IS NOT RELATED TO HANDBRAKE IN ANYWAY WHAT SO EVER

The issue is not resolved. It will require a software update to fix it. Hopefully it can be fixed.

It's not related to any specific material. I watched a movie I purchased from iTunes tonight (Sky High in HD) and saw it numerous times. Yes this streamed from my mac pro to my new apple tv, but a) the buffer completely filled up and b) streaming the same movie to my old apple tv does not exhibit the problem.

Initially I reported that it was happening every few seconds. On this program I saw it less often, more like every few minutes, with a bad one every 10 minutes or so. Sometimes it's hard to see, only a single frame skip or dropped frame. So if you're not watching for it you might miss it. To me it completely takes me out of the movie and makes me aware that something is wrong. Like a kid crying in a movie theatre.. or like when I saw Star Trek and there was a cluster of burnt pixels in the middle of the screen. For a videophile it ruins the movie.

There is a discussion over at mac rumors that has more information. Check that out to see some of my experiments trying to figure it out. I have yet to read all 6 pages here but am about to. If you see it please report it to apple using the link on this thread.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1034558

Do these videos play OK for people on their PC or Mac? The stuttering I've seen seems like it's encoded into the video. I'm using Handbrake to encode all my Blu-ray discs and I'm seeing the stutter happen in the same spots whether I play it on the new Apple TV or my iMac using the QuickTime player. I encoded Gone with the Wind most recently for my Apple TV and another copy using the iPhone/iPod preset. Both videos stutter at the same spot when played using the QuickTime player on my iMac.

Handbrake encoded video is most definitely related to iTunes rentals. ATV is a video box. If the new box has playback issues where the original did not then I would say it's a problem whether the source material is purchased, rented directly from iTunes or something you've encoded yourself. ATV2 should be backwards compatible.