Apple TV on a 1080p or 720p TV?

Discuss encoding for devices and presets.
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cbud
Bright Spark User
Posts: 181
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:24 am

Apple TV on a 1080p or 720p TV?

Post by cbud »

Will 640 x 480, 1500 kbs, h.264 encoded movies look better on a 720p or 1080p TV of the same size via an Apple TV?

I need to buy a HDTV and was wondering if the low resolution of current iTMS content will look better on certain TVs.
deckeda
Enlightened
Posts: 138
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:38 am

Post by deckeda »

I don't know that I'd buy a TV based on how AppleTV or iTunes might supply a picture to it ... but I have some comments nonetheless.

AppleTV supposedly only provides a 720p signal, so a TV with that same resolution wouldn't have to upsample/upconverrt whatever AppleTV provides. That's one potential issue, as I see it. Hey, I just saved you money!

The other is the relatively small resolution of the (iTMS) source files. One way or another (AppleTV, actually) they'll need to be upsampled/upconverted to reach 720p output. Just something to think about ...

... because the BEST type of TV to match up with a 640x480 source is probably an EDTV, which of course is a slightly beefed standard def TV. Think about it for a second --- sending an iTMS video to such a TV, without re-sampling, is a fairly native thing.

Am I right? << my conjecture here is based on anecdotal evidence I've read that normal DVDs often look their ultimate, accurate best on EDTVs, not HDTVs.

Hope I didn't open a can of worms here.
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