What is Apple's policy on Resolution of Movies and TV Programs?

Can anyone explain Apple's policy on the resolution of the various movies and TV episodes on offer in the iTunes store? I was surprised when I bought a short TV film (one of the Wallace and Gromit series) that it only had VGA (640 x 480) resolution, and therefore looks pretty fuzzy on my computer monitor - and would look fuzzy on a European TV screen also. For me it would have been better to buy the DVD. Apple must have some underlying idea about this, and they must have decided to lower the definition of some shows, presumably to minimise file sizes. I have seen discussions suggesting that some movies are offered in two resolutions (SD and HD), but what exactly are these really? I can't understand why anyone would buy a movie without knowing that it would look good on the screen. I suppose I'm looking for some kind of policy statement - has anyone seen one?

I am not sure I entirely follow your argument that when a 640 pixel wide image is adjusted for wide screen it can look sharper.
That's not what I was attempting to say, which was that a video from a DVD at the normal TV aspect ratio of 4:3 would be about 640x480 (the spec given for DVD resolution non-square pixels and works out to be 640x480 when the square pixels used on computer displays). So the videos and movies from the iTunes Store are right at DVD resolution (give or take a bit depending on the specific release).
Anyway, up to you whether you buy physical DVDs or buy downloads. There are good arguments for both, and what works for some people won't suit others. There won't be any huge quality difference, though, between an SD DVD and an SD video/movie purchased from the iTunes Store when it comes to resolution. How well a given movie or video was encoded will be a different matter.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

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