Itunes video quality, my impressions...

When I heard Apple announce that the itunes site would offer selected tv shows for download, I was pretty excited. So today I downloaded the "Desparate Housewives" pilot for $1.99. I was impressed with the ~30min download and the slick looking itunes interface.
I was not impressed by the proprietary *.M4V file format. The media player format is clunky, without obvious controls available when in full screen mode. itunes crashed twice when I was trying to toggle between the preview screen and full screen. I actually had to ctrlaltdel the application.
My biggest problem, though, was video quality. The file was 1/3 smaller than most bittorent tv, and it shows in the quality. When I played the file on my HDTV, the quality was not acceptable. Edges were blocky and the audio was sub-par.
Apple, you are on the edge of something great. People will download TV for a fee, if your servers are fast, the price is right, the format is convenient and the quality is good. In my opinion you are halfway there, and no one else is even close.
If you were to release your shows in HD format and have a reasonable media playback option (read as: make a deal with DIVX), I would accept DRM limitations and would get all my shows on itunes. $1.99 seems a bit high for a low definition file that can only be played on a proprietary and clunky player. Especially when there are free sources on the net offering the same shows in full HD with 5.1surround for free.

Agreed.
I just purchased my first legal download (as well as QT Pro), only to be sorely disapointed with the file I downloaded. As my laptop runs at 1280x800 (and I grabbed BSGalactica), I was horrified of the video I saw.
How the heck am I supposed to put that up on a 40' plasma screen?
I'd pay a little more (not much), for HD video. Until then, I won't purchase another video.
Windows XP

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Poor iTunes video quality

Hi,
I just purchased an episode of Lost through iTunes because I missed the original airing on TV. When I try to play back the video on my iMac, the quality is garbage. The video is jerky, stops, and when it does run, it runs at about 10 frames per second.
It does this while in full screen mode, and also when running in windowed-mode.
There are no other applications running in the background, not even Dashboard is loaded up. I've tried repairing permissions and re-starting the computer. iTunes videos play back fine on my Mac Mini, but for the purpose of this Lost video, it needs to play back on the iMac.
I downloaded the 7.0.2 iTunes update (it was on 7.0.1), hoping it would eliminate this issue, but if anything it's worse since the update.
Any suggestions to make the video play back smooth? This computer has plenty of free hard drive space, and a gig of RAM. It's annoying that this computer cost what it did new, and now four years later can't play back a Quicktime video that I paid $1.99 for.
Thanks,
A
600 MHZ iBook, iMac 800MHz, 1.42 GHz Mac Mini,1 GB RAM in both Mini and iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) Aiport Extreme, and express. iPod2G, Nano, and shuflle.iSight. Mac LC580.

Macmenno,
Thanks for the reply.
To be honest I didn't really look at the requirements for iTunes, I just assumed it would work haha. Thanks for pointing that out. I wouldn't think 200 MHz difference would cause it to run this poorly, but oh well.
A

Itunes video quality

Have just recently downloaded a video clip from itunes music store, except the video is jumpy thru out (as in it stops and starts again with a second). Does not happen to any of my other itunes videos. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with this?? What should I do to get the issue fixed? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Dell Inspiron 630m Windows XP

Ok, to clarify, by quality I meant resolution. I actually wasn't aware that there were even other measures of quality. That's nice to know that they have an updated codec, but I would really like to see higher resolution videos if I'm going to spend my money on this... it's cool to be able to see it on an iPod on the go but I don't think that that replaces a real screen, and if iTunes wants to get a lot of purchases I think they'll have to fix that. I already looked at the previews and it was definitely pixilated when I enlarged it.

Poor iTunes video quality on Vista PC

I have a new Windows Vista laptop, 1 g ram, 1.7 ghz processor and i realize the iTunes requirements for playing video says 2 ghz, but is there any way i can get my laptop to play smooth iTunes video such as memory or program upgraded?

I bet its iTunes and not your computer. iTunes seems to be junkware on Windows.

Itunes Video Quality issues and crash in Windows vista

When using itunes listening to music works great, however when i play music videos purchased from the store they keep on skiping and after a while itunes will close and a message from windows will appear saying the software stopped working. when the video is playing the sound is fine and plays quite happily in the background however the video freezes and jumps.

Have you tried this article:
Troubleshooting iTunes for Windows Vista video playback performance issues
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305392

Video Quality: iTunes Purchase vs. DVD rip

Is there a difference in video quality between, on the one hand, buying a movie on iTunes and, on the other hand, buying a DVD and ripping it to the iPhone?

Wildattorney,
Depending on encoder used, and settings there could be no difference, or vary widely.
However, discussing ripping DVDs is a murky area of copyright, and specifically against the Terms of Use for Apple Discussions.
Hope this helps,
Nathan C.

Video quality on macbook with retina

I am curious what current owners think of the video quality on the MacBook Pro with Retina. How does it look compared with video quality on a non-Retina laptop? Curious about:
1. Netflix quality
2. YouTube and other websites
3. iTunes downloads and other downloaded media.
I've heard some say that they need a higher bitrate to experience the same quality of video, subjectively. You'd be unlikely to find 1800p video from these sources (for maxing out the Retina resolution). I'd be concerned if blowing up lower-quality video (like 720p DVD quality) looks bad, because that's what you're most likely to view in 2012. Curious what your experience has been.

Maybe I should make my question clearer: I have read many reports of non-Retina apps looking worse on the rMBP screen, due to the pixel doubling+interpolation that the Retina does for these apps. My question is specifically whether this same issue could make video look worse on the rMBP than on a normal MBP laptop.
For example, does 720p video look blurrier on a rMBP screen than 720p video on a non-rMBP screen?
The issue is well known for apps, for example in Chrome until recently as shown here: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/google-chrome-21-stable-release-adds-retina-m acbook-pro-support/.
My impression is this could also happen with video, and the problem is that "Retina-ready" video is not really available since it would have to be an extreme resolution.

MacMini - LG 32" (32LB75) Problem - Poor video quality and now no picture.

Hi there, apologies for the length of this post....
I purchased a mac mini 1.8Ghz with 2Gb RAM yesterday with a wireless keyboard and mouse and hooked it up to my 32" LG 32LB75 using VGA. On startup the display looked ok, I managed to click through the various Leopard initialisations. I bought the machine for use as a front room media player for mainly DivX movies and the occasional bit of music.
Once I had installed the DivX codec I opened a DivX file in Quicktime and selected "full screen mode." As soon as the movie started I became quite disappointed. The picture quality was quite pixelated ("noisy") and certainly not as good as when I play the same movie file from my old dell PC on the same LG tv (the dell PC has a 64Mb PCI radeon 7000 which connects to the tv using the same VGA port as the mac).
Anyway just to give the mac a fair go I thought I would try out some genuine quicktime video samples from the itunes store (this time viewed from front row)....again not brilliant.
So I thought I would investigate the screen resolution to see if I could improve things. It appeared the resolution was set to 1900 by 1200ish I say "ish" because I can't remember exactly. I then attempted to reduce the resolution and eventually I settled on one that looked quite clear with the font size big enough to be easily read. Again I tried the movie and there wasn't much (if any improvement). Whilst changing resolutions the screen would go blank for a few seconds but on one particular setting (can't remember exact numbers) the display went blank and never came back. The tv now just displays "no signal".
I despaired and connected the mac to a 17" Iiyama montior that I use with a PC and it worked ok. However each time I tried to "hot swap" back to the television I would end up with no picture.
I'm really disappointed because everything else about the mac I really like. Particularly the remote for frontrow which is precisely what I wanted it for. The problem is I've spent over £500 and now seem to have a lesser quality picture than I had to begin with (ignoring for the moment that I don't have any picture!!)
Anyway my questions are these, answers to any or all most appreciated.
1) what is the easiest way to get my mini to start displaying on my tv again?
2) what would the optimum resolution be? My television mentions 1366 x 768 in the manual
3) If the mini doesn't offer this resolution in the pick list is it advisable to "force it" using some alternative software (ie 3dexpress.de)?
4) Is the video quality affected by the software player? ie would VLC give better picture with DivX over quicktime/itunes/front row?
5) How likely is it that the video resolution of my new mac mini isn't "as good" as my old dell machine with its PCI graphics card?
6) Finally if I don't get results as good as my existing PC setup, how accomodating are apple with refunds? I bought it from a UK high-street apple store. The back of the receipt mentions a "14 day not satisfied" return policy but then goes on to say something about being "unopened"...which seems a little confusing. Ie how do you know if you're satisfied until you've actually used it?

Hi there
the solution was to remove the various display config files in leopard and then restart the machine, this got my display back on the tv (albeit off centre). To fix the "off centre issue" I used the LG "auto correct" feature from the remote control "menu > screen" options.
The apple support site describes how to remove the affected leopard display files here http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2213?viewlocale=en_US As you will see their resolution consists of 2 main steps, the first one involves starting your machine in safe mode, if this doesn't work then you proceed to the second step where you remove the files using a terminal prompt.
I didn't bother with the first step mainly because I don't think I can start my mac in safe mode since my only keyboard is wireless (bluetooth). So I connected the mac mini to a 17" LCD monitor (which thankfully did display the video signal ok) and removed all the listed files using terminal. I then shut the mac down, swapped the VGA cable back to the LCD tv restarted the mac and it detected the tv and set a resolution that worked. I then very carefully reduced the resolution down to one that was recommended by my tv (1300ish.. x 768ish??).
At this point I was back to having an acceptable signal but still a little off centre. So I used the TV remote, pressed menu, went into screen options and chose "auto correct". Picture then filled the screen perfectly.
The problem seems to be, leopard lists a bunch of resolutions that it believes your tv/display can handle but it would appear that in fact some of these resolutions are not supported by your TV and if you choose one of these your signal disappears and you can't get it back.
I would still say that I'm not 100% convinced with the mac mini's onboard graphics (I have a 1.8GHz version). I'm going to download some HD content and see if that improves things, but certainly my existing DivX collection looked a little sharper and clearer and better coloured using my old dell PC with its radeon PCI card. But the difference in picture quality is outweighed by the convenience of its size and the font row interface. I might tinker with putting Windows Media Center on it one day, perhaps that might improve things.

How to manage itunes video HD and SD versions ?

I'd like to figure this out...
When buying itunes movies that come in HD, both the HD and SD (for iphones) versions are downloaded. Both versions are located in the itunes media folder under that movies title/name. In the itunes movies list, only one icon is displayed. That one icon represents two movie versions, HD and SD in the one folder. When you play on the computer or appletv, the HD version is played. When syncing the movie to an iphone, the SD version is copied.
I'd like to know the trick to managing two different versions of a movie, the same movie, in itunes. One high quality and a second lower quality for iphone compatibility. And have both versions represented by only one movie icon in the itunes movies list.
Purchased HD movies from itunes already somehow manages this itself.
When I add my own video to my itunes library, I add one higher quality for appletv, and a lower quality of the same for the iphone.
Iphone will not accept higher quality appletv video. I can create a lower quality version, but when added to the library, it shows as a second listing in the itunes movies list.
I end up with two duplicated icons for those two movies. One higher quality I added to the library, and a second icon for the iphone version I added to the library.
I would like to package the two versions together under one icon. Like itunes HD purchases are managed.
I'd like to know the trick to change that to one icon representing the two versions, if possible. So that I could "package" two versions of the same movie and have only one movie icon displayed in the movies list.
Trying to figure out the trick itunes uses to package different versions, when purchasing movies that automatically come in two versions.
I know..i know, i could make one "universal" quality movie of that one movie, playable on both appletv and iphones, but I prefer manually creating two quality versions to retain the best video quality AND fit the big screen tv properly for the higher version. Universal quality movies work fine for the iphone, but look bad when played using appletv on a big screen.

I came across this guide:
http://www.m4.com/blog/noteworthy-geek-stuff/how-to-create-and-tag-hd-sd-dual-ve rsions-of-a-movie-for-itunes/
I found that you can skip the MetaX section completely, and still have success.
And as to "STEP 3: Adding the ContentID tag", in the guide... way too messy.
You DO need to add a number (the "ContentID" tag), so I made up a little trick.
To keep all ContentID tags in my video different from others, I simply use the alphabet
where the number 1 is the first letter A, and 2 is B, 3 is C, and so on.
Then for the two movie formats in the two open SUBLER windows, after adding the same ContentID tag
to both windows, I entered the same number for the first 4 titles letters using the alphabet trick.
Example, the movie THE SHINNING, I used only the first four letters in the name "SHIN" then subsituted
the numbers 19 for S, 8 for H, 9 for I, 14 for N to end up with the ContentID tag of 198914.
Enter this same number in the ContentID tag space for "BOTH" SUBLER windows.
They must be the same for the two movie versions.
So basically for the movie THE SHINNING (ripped from my DVD movie catalog),
I ripped first to appleTV file format. Then converted that to iphone format.
Ending up with two file formats of the same movie.
Then used SUBLER to open both files in separate SUBLER windows.
Then I needed to add the "NAME" tag and enter the movie title in both SUBLER windows.
I then added the ContentID tag in both SUBLER windows and entered my title number schemed 198914 for both versions.
PS.. Also be sure to add the same movie picture icon to both files in SUBLER.
If you need a icon picture for your movie, try searchig:
http://www.albumart.org/index.php?srchkey=Girl+Group+Anthology&itempage=1&newsea rch=1&searchindex=Music
Then I followed the guide to mark the appletv version format as "HD" (check box under OTHER SETTINGS in SUBLER window) and make sure both are selected as "MOVIE" in the drop down.
In other words, BOTH movie versions in the two SUBLER windows MUST contain the same
tag, picture icon, all info duplicated exactly, EXCEPT... for check mark the appleTV version box as "HD".
Then save the two files (see the guide on how to save the file).
Last, add the two video files to your itunes library.
Both files should end up listed under ONE movie icon in your itunes movie library.
And display "HD SD" under the one single movie icon in itunes for your movie.
Keeping it simple, minimal tags, i.e. "NAME" , "ContentID" , "picture icon", and then
creating your own simple ContentID number, seems to do the job for basic DUAL
video listing in the itunes movie library.
When you then add video to your iphone, itunes knows to add the SD compatible version.
And your itunes movie library isn't all messy with duplicate listings for the same movie.

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

ok...i know it supports 1080i, but does the video quality of video in itunes really look good compared against say a blu-ray disc, or hdtv signals? i'm sure it will get better (with a hardware or software upgrade?) if its not close to high def quality but want to know what i'm in store for if i buy appletv now...thanks. PS: i currently have directv HD and a ps3 for blu-ray, and my tv's are all HD...

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).

Mp4 iTunes ''video fine but NO Audio''

Hi, I just convert 1,500 DVDs (concerts, videos and Tv series) into Mp4 using Nero Recode with no problems, everything is perfect when I play, tag, etc. my Mp4 in iTunes, but now Im in the process to covert 300 DVDs movies into Mp4 but when I try to play this new Mp4 into iTunes I have no audio, if I play this Mp4 in Nero showtime, VLC, winamp, etc. I have audio but in iTunes/QuickTime I have no audio
Please help me, thanks in advance
AMDAthlon64x2DuaCore44002gbRAM*300gbSA2*SP2*NvidiaNX6600AsusA8N32SLIDeluxe Windows XP AMD Cool N Quiet driver

Ok I know whats the problem is:
The first 1,500 DVDs (this Mp4 have no problem) I convert at 2 chanel stereo 448kbps and the seconds 300 DVDs movies (with no audio) I convert in AC3 5.1 at 640kbps
I realize because I rip to my HD one of the movies with no audio and convert in 2 channel stereo and this one have audio
The problem is AC3 5.1... do you have any idea to solve this because I dont want to re-convert again the 300 Mp4 files
Do you think if I purchase QuickTime Pro can solve this problem?
If not, if I recode again I will loose audio and video quality?
Regards

Is it possible to sort / group movies by video quality?

I'd like to sort or group my movies by video quality. I am not sure if it's possible in iTunes -- if it is, I certainly can't figure it out.
I can certainly see the info when I click "Get Info" on individual films, but I don't see a way to sort or create a smart playlist with such info.
Can I do this, or is it just a dream?
(I'm on iTunes 11. Up-to-date.)

Thanks for the info. I'm specifically interested in splitting 1080 and 720 HD movies, so I'm probably better off just creating non-smart playlists and dropping the movies in each accordingly, as it probably requires as many steps as editing the tags for each film.

Video quality is questionable

I've recently reinstalled windows on a new hard drive as well as reinstalled Itunes and imported my libraries from my secondary drive. The video quality in ALL of my videos seems a bit questionable. It's a darker hue (maybe a bit of blue) and not as sharp as I remembered it. I've uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes and graphics drivers trying to correct it but no help.
Other media files (like AV for Windows Media) look fine. Is there a setting in windows I need to change so I can see my videos in the picture quality I remember? Is there anything I can at least use to adjust the contrast?

Hello elpato54
Check out the troubleshooting steps in the article below to isolate and resolve video playback issues in iTunes.
Troubleshooting iTunes for Windows Vista or Windows 7 video playback performance issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1718
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Regards,
-Norm G.

Macbook air 2013 video quality is poor?

I just purchased this laptop and the video quality seems, overall, dull. I was expecting an exremely smooth resolution, but when I play videos form youtube on full screen, the image is not defined and clear. I have run the available updates and I have changed quality details on the actual youtube video, but nothing changes.

can you post a screen shot.
Also.....as stated....process of elimination ...
watch a ITUNES movie PREVIEW of a recent high definition movie as a test.

Problem with itunes video playback.

many of my high quality video files seem to run so smoothly with my media players lik VLC, but when i play them in itunes the video gets stuck and the audio keeps playing.. how do i solve this..

What was the fix for this? Everything has sucked for my itunes video playback since the last major revision release.

Itunes video quality, my impressions...

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