Looks like we have a winner...Blu-Ray

[SilverStone05]

I had problems with my first HD DVD players. That was the reason I switched to a BluRay player. No problems so far.

FWIW, Amazon has buy one get one free specials running on blu ray discs right now, and free shipping on orders over $25.

 

[H-carWizKid]

To add to this discussion:

One of the things that Apple announced today in addition to the new thin notebook is AppleTV 2 and video rentals. If you have a high speed connection, you will typically wait 30 seconds for the initial buffering and then can start watching an HD rental as it streams without having to wait for it to fully download. I believe the "HD" in this case is 720p, and not 1080i, but it's not such a big stretch to take that to 1080i. I think most ISP's have "high speed extreme" options capping out around 9-10Mbps, which implies that the Apple video must have an average bitrate well below that. However, in some countries they're talking about 100Mbps to the home, and when the infrastructure is up to that level, it won't be such a stretch to be streaming 15-20Mbps high quality 1080i H.264 video.

I just heard about that from a co-worker. I get a free software update that will enable the new features on my existing Apple TV

I also rechecked- you are correct- 720p is the HD resolution.

I can now stream YouTube to my big screen... But will I be able to see that YouTube Hoonage in HD? I doubt it...

Nice to see the technology continues to progress, and I am not excluded from the updates (like some early blu-ray adopters...)

Viva Apple TV!

http://gizmodo.com/345155/apple-tv-take-two-impressions

Philip

 

[hofffam]

Downloading a 20 Gb HD movie will take about 20 hours over a 4Mbit/sec cable modem.....

Yes you may be able to watch some of while it is downloading but the average broadband connection today is not fast enough.

The typical 802.11G connection in the home isn't fast enough to stream HD from one room to another either. The Blu-Ray spec is 40 Mbit/sec.

So downloaded HD movies won't be common for some time.

As for J6P (glad someone explained that acronym) - he'll choose the format he can watch his favorite movies on. He won't buy the HD DVD player at Walmart if he can't get any movies for it.

 

[Arshad]

Downloading a 20 Gb HD movie will take about 20 hours over a 4Mbit/sec cable modem.....

Yes you may be able to watch some of while it is downloading but the average broadband connection today is not fast enough.

Actually, 20GB works out to around 11 hours roughly at 4Mbit (4Mbit/8b = 0.5MB/s = 30MB/min = 1.8GB/hour = ~ 11 hours if you can sustain max bitrate)

Anyways, that's not relevant because you're not streaming BluRay or HD-DVD content. Yes, the BluRay spec allows for a maximum of 40Mbps video, but typical streams are 25Mbps or less for 1080. Apple's HD streams are only 720p, and I'm guessing are probably only 5Mbps or so, which means that users with faster modems can sustain the stream without a problem.

Also, AppleTV (which is where this is being deployed) is 802.11N which is significantly faster than G. In any case, even G is sufficient with decent signal strength.

 

[H-carWizKid]

Downloading a 20 Gb HD movie will take about 20 hours over a 4Mbit/sec cable modem.....

Yes you may be able to watch some of while it is downloading but the average broadband connection today is not fast enough.

The typical 802.11G connection in the home isn't fast enough to stream HD from one room to another either. The Blu-Ray spec is 40 Mbit/sec.

So downloaded HD movies won't be common for some time.

click the link to Gizmondo- other Apple TV users are reporting similar experiences with download speeds. Apple TV files from iTunes are 720p (still HD)

It doesn't take that long.

Philip

[I see Arshad beat me to the explaination]

 

[flaminio]

Also, AppleTV (which is where this is being deployed) is 802.11N which is significantly faster than G. In any case, even G is sufficient with decent signal strength.

Yeah, but that's mostly irrelevant -- even B is faster than most folks' Internet connections, so that's where the bottleneck will be.

Nonetheless, Apple TV users are not reporting many problems, so whatever combination of bandwidth and compression technology they're using is clearly sufficient to stream acceptable resolution content.

Either that, or they're just a bunch of fanboys who worship the ground Jobs walks on :tongue: .

 

[H-carWizKid]

Either that, or they're just a bunch of fanboys who worship the ground Jobs walks on :tongue: .

Hey I resemble that remark.... :biggrin:

Philip

 

[NSXrebel]

Either that, or they're just a bunch of fanboys who worship the ground Jobs walks on :tongue: .

Not just the ground , but the water he walks on too! :wink:
My first computer was an Apple, I dont even remember which model. This was back in the early/mid 90's. Windows 3.xx was out , and Win95 was just a rumor some kids were talking about. To me Mac OS (whichever version it was) looked better than Windows 3.xx, so that's what my father bought.

Win95 then came out and was teh new hotness, and the fact that building your own PC was cheaper too, I put my own together. Then I got Win98. Briefly had WinME which sucked. I dont remember having Win2k, but i hear it was the same as ME. Then came XP, whoa big improvement over anything previous. I was a Windows guy, not knowing what was going on over at the Apple camp.

Then along came the Mac mini, and it caught my attention. I looked into it and was very impressed at how far Apple had come along. The only thing I really knew about Apple was their iPods. I don't know when OS X came out, but it was love at first sight with Tiger.

I bought the mini to replace an aging PC that my younger siblings were using in the living room. The PC was big, beige, loud, and just plain ugly. Always had some kind of issue with malware. I remember installing Windows, and as soon as you connected to the internet to do the updates, it was infected and kept shutting down.

Anyways the Mac mini was perfect for the living room, unobstructive, and quiet, with an awesome OS to boot. Anyways, for my uses, Macs are great, and I recommend them to anyone with basic computer needs.

 

[Arshad]

Yeah, but that's mostly irrelevant -- even B is faster than most folks' Internet connections, so that's where the bottleneck will be.

Nonetheless, Apple TV users are not reporting many problems, so whatever combination of bandwidth and compression technology they're using is clearly sufficient to stream acceptable resolution content.

Either that, or they're just a bunch of fanboys who worship the ground Jobs walks on :tongue: .

Well the issue is that even though G may be sufficient at 54Mbps, that bitrate degrades significantly based on distance and interference. I know in my area everything is fiber and they offer 9Mbps cablemodems so it's actually possible for the modem to outpace older routers.

The compression technology Apple is using is well known: h.264. The question is the bitrate being used -- I haven't personally looked at any of their HD streams, but I suspect it's fairly low. I've got an AppleTV sitting around somewhere gathering dust so I'll have to update to the new SW and give it a whirl...

 

[Auraraptor]

How good is the PS3 as a blue ray player? I remember using my PS2 for DVDs was a pain, even with the Sony remote.

 

[SilverStone05]

The PS3 is supposed to be a fantastic Blu Ray player. Several reviews report that it performs better than many of the stand alone units.

 

[akira3d]

PS3 is the best Blu-ray player...and it does a great job upscaling DVDs too. Plus it plays DivX AVIs, WMVs, mpg, mpeg2, and MP4 h264 files...which can stream directly to the PS3 from a 2TB network attached storage device.