Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upscale?

Random chit-chat and anything that doesn't belong elsewhere
Post Reply
alehel
Experienced
Posts: 83
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:08 am

Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upscale?

Post by alehel »

I've been watching my DVD rips on various devices. I have them on my laptop and sometimes watch it on there. It's a 15 inch Macbook Pro. When watching on the Macbook Pro, I can easily see the difference between a DVD rip and a blu-ray rip. When I use my Apple TV to watch it on a 40 inch tv though, the picture quality looks much closer to each other. As a matter of fact, I don't even bother with Blu-Ray ripping anymore because of this. Has anyone else noticed that their stuff looks better on a TV screen? I tried going inn closer to the TV, but to be fair, watching the TV at a distance and watching my 15 inch laptop close, makes them look more or less the same size, so I wouldn't have thought that would matter.
LinBrake
Experienced
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 7:39 am

Re: Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upsc

Post by LinBrake »

What settings are you using for the encodes?
phoenixdown
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:47 pm

Re: Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upsc

Post by phoenixdown »

I didn't do any exhaustive type of testing but I compared (1) a dvd I own being played on an upscaling dvd player, (2) the same dvd ripped with handbrake and (3) the same movie purchased from iTunes (720p) on my 61" HDTV. I didn't notice any real difference but people's preferences do vary.

I don't have blue ray so I can't comment on that.

I have noticed from time to time that similar content looks better on my friends 50" tv than on my 61" tv but I think it has to do with the size rather than the quality of the video source. Perhaps your expereincing the same effect with yoru laptop.
alehel
Experienced
Posts: 83
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:08 am

Re: Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upsc

Post by alehel »

According to the Apple TV forums over on the Apple site, the Apple TV does in fact upscale video. I guess the DVD player in OS X doesn't do this which would explain a lot.
dynaflash
Veteran User
Posts: 3820
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:19 pm

Re: Movies look better on TV than laptop, does Apple TV upsc

Post by dynaflash »

alehel wrote:According to the Apple TV forums over on the Apple site, the Apple TV does in fact upscale video. I guess the DVD player in OS X doesn't do this which would explain a lot.
Yes, of course the atv upscales video ... it has to since its max source input is 720p. Fwiw, it does a fine job at that imho.
Post Reply