apple tv video quality vs hd tv and high def dvd's

People seem to confuse (most of the reviews, anyway) the iTunes store content, which isn't HD quality, with what the Apple TV is capable of. I'm recording over-the-air HDTV shows with the Elgato Systems EyeTV Hybrid and using the built-in EyeTV Apple TV conversion. The quality of watching these shows from my Apple TV on my 1080i HDTV is indistinguishable from watching the HDTV channels directly.

Supporting 1080i may not be what you think. The tv's largest supported resolution is 720p, this is the highest resolution file it can handle although it will output an upscaled 1080i signal from this source.

1080i is a questionable improvement anyway, many are not convinced that the increase in resolution is not cancelled out by the interlacing. I have the choice with my set up of 720p or 1080i, I prefer 1080i.

I doubt the difference between blu-ray and tv HD is undistinguishable, I haven't actually seen a blu-ray movie, but all indications are that the difference is marginal and probably akin to the difference between itms movies and DVD or itms tunes and CD.

Based on my own testing, the distinctions between an HD-DVD movie (which are true 1080) and an Apple TV video converted as its own maximum settings (which is 720) is actually quite noticeable if you have a 1080 TV set, but at the same I don't consider it a show-stopper. I watch a lot of HD broadcast content that's only 720p, and it's still very good.

An HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD will normally be in 1920 x 1080 resolution (1080p or 1080i, generally depending on your equipment). The Apple TV's maximum resolution is 1280 x 720 (basically 720p). Therefore, even an original HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD converted to Apple TV will need to be scaled down to 720p for display on the Apple TV.

Further, Elgato EyeTV actually scales these down somewhat lower, so HDTV recorded content could be even worse-off, depending on the original source. The standard Apple TV export settings use a 960 x 540 frame in order to keep the bit-rate and frame rate within tolerances (since a 720p signal is approximately 60fps, and the bitrates will generally exceed 5-6 mbps, which pushes the limits of the Apple TV).

Even more interestingly, Elgato's new turbo.264 dongle will only encode in "Apple TV" format at a maximum resolution of 800 x 600 (and if you do the math you will realize that this will be considerably less for a 16:9 aspect ratio video).

The result is that videos converted from an EyeTV Hybrid are technically much worse off on the Apple TV than viewing the original source material. Whether this is significant enough to be noticeable will depend on your output medium, but on my 62" DLP, the difference is quite apparent (although still far superior to an SDTV signal).

You can get 1280 x 720 content to play back at 60fps at 5mbps bit-rates on the Apple TV by using ffmpeg-based encoders and manually selecting higher settings, although it's been hit-and-miss in my own testing, and of course it creates gargantuan files. Elgato and others have obviously tried to stay with the more conservative settings to ensure that they can guarantee the broadcast possible range of support.

In fact, although most of the standard encoder settings max out at 2.5-3.0 mbps, I've successfully pushed up to 6 mbps through the Apple TV, although such content has to be synced rather than streamed, since even an 802.11n network has a hard time keeping up (it worked, but there were some drop-outs and glitches in the process). Of course, 6mbps content is going to fill up the Apple TV hard drive pretty quickly as well (you'd only be able to fit around 11 hours on the internal 40GB hard drive).

The other thing to keep in mind with DVD movies is that they come from film, which is a 24fps source (based on the physical nature of film). As a result, the distinctions between a 720p and 1080i signal are less prevalant when dealing with film content, since you won't get the full 60fps HDTV capabilities anyway. Interlacing can still create some nasty side-effects, but it's far less of an issue when you're dealing with less than half of the normal frames.

In my own experiences, I have an Apple TV that is connected to a 1080p upscaling DLP TV (native 1080i input, internalized de-interlacing), and a second Apple TV that is connected to a 720p LCD TV. With the first Apple TV, I can notice the difference between 720p and 1080i output settings only when viewing photos, since the remainder of the standard content doesn't exceed 720p anyway. Further, because my TV de-interlaces a 1080i signal to 1080p, I don't get the flicker that is normally associated with a 1080i signal.

On the second Apple TV, I leave the setting to 720p, since that's the native resolution of the second TV, and I get noticeable interlacing-based flickering on the 1080i, particularly with photo slideshows (mostly in the transitions).

Sorry, I don't agree. i have the PS3 and play blu-ray movies all the time. The difference between a true hd movie and the upconverted dvd movie from the ATV is marked. I'm awaiting Apple to release HD movies on iTunes so I can compare how they look against a blu-ray movie.

Glor

Sorry, I don't agree. i have the PS3 and play blu-ray movies all the time. The difference between a true hd movie and the upconverted dvd movie from the ATV is marked. I'm awaiting Apple to release HD movies on iTunes so I can compare how they look against a blu-ray movie.

Glor

Sorry, I don't agree. i have the PS3 and play blu-ray movies all the time. The difference between a true hd movie and the upconverted dvd movie from the ATV is marked

I can see why you don't agree, but I wonder if you would still disagree when we are comparing the same thing. You are talking about upscaled DVD content in comparison to Blu-ray, we were talking about comparing original 720p content (not upscaled from a DVD).

I don't disagree with much you say, but I do doubt the relevance. If your output device/software (eyetv or "standard encoders") doesn't provide 720p then it should be ignored for purposes of comparison.

There are perhaps 2 comparisons to consider:
tv 720p vs Blu-ray on a 720p/1080i tv set, and
tv 720p vs Blu-ray on a 1080p tv set.

Firstly lets forget 1080i for tv, 720p content upscaled to 1080i can only look as good or worse as when viewed at 720p.

I have little doubt blu-ray at 1080p is noticeably better than tv at 720p, although as you have said I also don't believe it would be a show stopper.

As for Blu-ray viewed at 1080i or 720p, I think any difference would be much less noticeable and in some cases likely unnoticeable. I don't have a blu-ray player and have only seen playback in stores so my comparisons are not reliable, but compared to our HD broadcasts and my recollections of what I have seen in store with blu-ray, when I play a properly encoded 720p file (source - NASA/BBC etc) any differences are only noticeable when I start looking for them at a quite abnormal distance from the tv screen.

Up close the difference is noticable.

But when watching a 40" screen from 3-4 metres it's really hard to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

Sorry if this gets double posted, the forums are a bit of a nightmare today.

I don't disagree with much you say, but I do doubt the relevance. If your output device/software (eyetv or "standard encoders") doesn't provide 720p then it should be ignored for purposes of comparison.

There are perhaps 2 comparisons to consider:
tv 720p vs Blu-ray on a 720p/1080i tv set, and
tv 720p vs Blu-ray on a 1080p tv set.

Firstly lets forget 1080i for tv, 720p content upscaled to 1080i can only look as good or worse as when viewed at 720p.

I have little doubt blu-ray at 1080p is noticeably better than tv at 720p, although as you have said I also don't believe it would be a show stopper.

As for Blu-ray viewed at 1080i or 720p, I think any difference would be much less noticeable and in some cases likely unnoticeable. I don't have a blu-ray player and have only seen playback in stores so my comparisons are not reliable, but compared to our HD broadcasts and my recollections of what I have seen in store with blu-ray, when I play a properly encoded 720p file (source - NASA/BBC etc) any differences are only noticeable when I start looking for them at a quite abnormal distance from the tv screen.

I think your assessment is on the money. The only thing I thought I would add, is from my experience, HD movies recorded with EyeTV (My cable system broadcasts Cinemax HD and HBO HD as unencrypted QAM) and exported to ATV at 960 x 540, look better than the standard DVD version.

To be fair, however, in the first item you have to define whether you are talking about a 720p or 1080i TV, since they are not necessarily the same thing.

Manufacturers love to confuse the issue, since just about every 720p HDTV set will take a 1080i input (and hence frequently get mislabelled as "1080i HDTVs"). However, the native resolution of a 720p set is still 1280 x 720 (same as the tv), so there's almost no point whatsoever in shoving a 1080i input into it, since the TV is just going to downscale the results to a 720p signal anyway (some TVs will push that envelope by giving you 768 lines out of a 1080i signal, but the difference is still so slight as to be irrelevant).

On a 1280 x 720 TV, a Blu-Ray / HD-DVD is likely going to look very similar whether you're playing it from a DVD player or via the tv, assuming that you can get software that will encode the tv version at a high enough resolution and bit-rate to be practical for these purposes (ie, a full 1280 x 720 frame). In fact, I would bet that you could probably make the output look almost indistinguishable from the source DVD if you tweaked the settings enough, since the tv is theoretically capable of spitting out whatever a 720p TV can take.

With a native 1080i/p TV, however, the resolution is actually 1920 x 1080. To some degree, the p/i question is irrelevant in this case (although a progressive picture will look better). The point is that the higher resolution is still available on the TV, and to the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player (almost all of which output at least 1080i). In this case, the difference will be quite noticeable on a large enough screen.

Again, it's not so much of a difference that one should care, as it's still light years beyond what any 480p DVD player or SDTV broadcast signal is going to give you, but if you have an actual 1080i/1080p TV, the resultant 720p source will look a little bit "fuzzier" than a true 1080i/1080p source. In fact, I observe this effect all the time with broadcast programs and stations that mix 720p and 1080i programming.

The short answer is that my own testing shows that an tv converted HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DVD can look every bit as good as the original on a 720p set if you take the time to tweak and push the settings. However, the default settings in the current crop of converters (Handbrake, VisualHub et al) will only produce similar "near-DVD" quality to what the "iPod" settings do for SD content -- quality that is most certainly more than adequate, but which still presents a noticeable difference under closer scrutinty.

Further, even on a sub-40" 1080p TV, the difference between 1080 and 720 is not going to be all that noticeable either. At 50" and up, however, the difference becomes quite apparent, even from the same source (ie, by forcing the TV or DVD player into 720p mode, for instance).

Note that this completely leaves out the audio question as well, however... The tv currently only does two-channel stereo sound, so you can only get a Dolby Pro-Logic II signal out of it at best. Therefore, even a movie converted at the best possible tv settings will still be quite deficient in terms of the audio quality compared to the source. Again, it won't matter for everybody, and it certainly won't matter for every movie, but there are those movies I'm not even bothering to consider converting to iTunes/Apple TV yet for that reason alone.

Of course the difference is marked with a standard-definition converted DVD. The use of the word "upconverted" in relation to the tv is probably a misnomer at best anyway, since I don't think the tv is doing any particularly magical upconversion... Rather it's just spitting out a 640x480 stream onto a 720p/1080i connection. While that may be "upconversion" by definition, it's not the sort of sophisticated "upconversion" that most DVD player manufacturers talk about, since I don't expect there's any special processing involved.

In fact, you can get better quality playing a standard-definition DVD out of a good upscaling DVD player than the tv necessarily provides (my HD-DVD player, a Toshiba HD-A20, produces noticeably better playback of my standard DVDs than either my Panasonic 480p player or the tv).

However, as I mentioned above, if you were to take a Blu-Ray DVD, rip it, and convert it to tv format, you would find that even the default settings produce output that is close enough to the original Blu-Ray to be acceptable on an average 720p set. Manually tweaking the settings further in the encoding software will produce an even better-quality result.

Just to put some numbers to it all.

(I'm sure many will dispute the actual numbers, but it's the implication of the numbers relative to picture size, that is important).

tv = 5Mbps (video & audio)
Blu-ray = 40 Mbps (video)
HD-DVD = 30 Mbps (Video)

Although the datarate for tv includes audio, the audio bitrate is extremely small compared to the audio bitrate for Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Blu-ray / HD-DVD is likely encoded in mpeg 2, tv is AVC. So it may be fair to reduce the comparative bitrate for blu-ray and HD-DVD to 15Mbps and 12 Mbps respectively. The difference is numerically quite large. This of course relates to a 1080 tv set.

If you drop to a 720 tv set only around 40% of the information from the Blu-ray / HD-DVD source is needed, which makes the comparative bitrates for blu-ray and HD-DVD not so numerically different from the tv.

I do however disagree about upscaling DVD players. I don't believe upscaling, no matter how sophisticated, will improve a picture. Indeed any conversion in my thinking will cause degredation. It's true that the picture from an upscaling DVD player is better than a standard DVD player, but this is because the standard player degrades the picture through digital/analogue conversion rather than the upscaling player improving it.

I think the thing to take from this is that a number of us are debating how big a very small difference is, perhaps the best thing to do would to pop down to the applestore and see for yourself. My personal opinion is that you'll be pleasantly surprised.

As for HD content via itms, we will all have to wait and see. The topic counts as speculation which is not allowed in these forums, in any case non of us know anyway.