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Quick Poll Apple TV

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:42 pm
by sidechain
I am wondering if how many people have ATV on order...
My Order still shows Shipping Feb 28 ....

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:19 pm
by baggss
I have read elsewhere online that Apple has pushed most ship dates back to March.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:03 am
by sidechain
To Our Valued Apple Customer:


Thank you for ordering the new Apple TV, an easy to use and fun way to
wirelessly play all your favorite iTunes content from your Mac or PC on your
widescreen TV.

Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we
now expect to begin shipments in mid-March, not in February as originally
anticipated.

You may check the status of your order any time by visiting our online order

A shipment notification, with tracking information, will be emailed to you as
soon as your order is shipped. There is no need to contact us unless you
choose to change or cancel your order.

We appreciate your business and thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!

Sincerely,
The Apple Store Team

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:56 pm
by Bog
I pre-ordered the Apple TV the day it was announced despite my 12 year old TV not having any component video inputs.

Last week I purchased a new LCD HDTV so I can use the Apple TV when it arrives.

I'm anxious to find a source of content that doesn't involve purchasing it from the iTunes store. I prefer to continue buying DVDs and encode them to a high quality MP4 file.

Optimun settings for viewing on an Apple TV

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 6:12 pm
by chief
Bog wrote:I'm anxious to find a source of content that doesn't involve purchasing it from the iTunes store. I prefer to continue buying DVDs and encode them to a high quality MP4 file.
Assuming that you want to keep the DVD's high quality when encoded to mp4 to view on your ATV, what media fork/handbrake settings would you use?

I would like to get my DVD's ready for optimum viewing on an ATV, but just playing a couple of sample DVD's encoded using the default MediaFork settings on my computer, it appears that action sequences are too blurred/boxed. When I changed to 1450 bitrate from 1000, and checked the 2 pass setting, that helped some. I'm not as concerned with disk space usage as quality, but I'm pretty sure that the best the ATV can do is 720p.

Any help would be appreciated. I suspect that the current default settings have viewing the movie on an iPod in mind instead of an ATV.

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:08 pm
by sidechain
My Apple oder now says March 30 they might as well say April, I placed my order in Jauary. :(

Re: Optimun settings for viewing on an Apple TV

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:27 pm
by Yakko
chief wrote:When I changed to 1450 bitrate from 1000, and checked the 2 pass setting, that helped some. I'm not as concerned with disk space usage as quality, but I'm pretty sure that the best the ATV can do is 720p.
According to the tech specs page the Apple TV can:
Video formats supported: H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): 640 by 480, 30 fps, LC version of Baseline Profile; 320 by 240, 30 fps, Baseline profile up to Level 1.3; 1280 by 720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. MPEG-4: 640 by 480, 30 fps, Simple Profile
So it looks like 720p is the best. As someone mentioned in another thread it's not sure which Main Profile Apple is referring to so settings beyond that are unknown (no mention of supporting anamorphic for example)

Also I've seen a bunch of rumors that ATV will only play iTunes Store videos but the fact that they call out H.264 and protected H.264 tells me those rumors are crap.

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:33 am
by sidechain
I could see a company like Sony only playing DRM's files.
Apple is not a lame company. The big sucess with ipod was that it played mp3's

Apple TV will play a MP4 encoded movie not just files from the itunes store.

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:11 pm
by rhester
sidechain wrote:Apple TV will play a MP4 encoded movie not just files from the itunes store.
I hope this is a typo. Apple TV plays all iTunes-purchased video content.

Rodney

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:42 am
by sidechain
It has to work with iLife apps, Apple would not shoot themselves in the foot.
Like Sony did with the PSP for example.
If Sony PSP played any mini DVD-R they would have sold millions more of them.