MacNoob

Yesterday’s introduction of “High Definition” (in quotes because there doesn’t seem to be a good definition of the term) movies to the iTunes store leaves no doubt about Apple’s intentions to compete in the movie space the same way it does with music.  It was a move they had to make if they want to keep up with the big digital players like DirecTV, Dish, Netflix and Amazon and with physical media.

I’m a DirecTV customer and have a PS3 and a Dell Studio PC for my Blu-ray needs on two separate entertainment centers.  One includes a 52” Sony XBR 1080p LCD and the other a Samsung 52” 1080p LCD.  To say I’ve been disappointed with the quality of DirecTV’s HD content would be accurate for the most part.  The so-called “Premium” channels (HBO HD, Showtime HD & Starz HD) have never impressed me with their picture quality.  Compression artifacts have always been a problem as is contrast, especially in darker scenes.  My quality reference is a recent Blu-ray release of Indiana Jones playing on my PS3 to the Sony LCD.  Home movie viewing just doesn’t get any better.  The PS3 is still arguably the best Blu-ray player and while not the latest Sony offering, the 52” XBR4 is one hell of a fine display.  The point of all this name-dropping is to establish that I have some fairly solid equipment for testing HD quality.

Back to Apple.  The iTunes store has become nearly ubiquitous.  The stunning success of the iPod and iPhone has made that a reality.  Movie purchase and rental was a logical outgrowth of Apple’s music business, the largest in the world.  Before yesterday, I thought the movies offered by Apple in standard definition (853 x 362) were quite good, even on a 52” screen.  The quality is nowhere near that of Blu-ray, but even though the resolution is a bit less than DVD (720 x 480) the picture quality is comparable.  One major downfall of Apple’s format is the audio.  So far, every movie I’ve downloaded is only available with stereo sound.  That’s great for an iPod or laptop, but I find I miss 5.1 surround sound when viewing Apple’s downloads on one of my entertainment centers.  I guess Apple is trying to keep the file sizes low to make downloading less painful, but good audio doesn’t add that much and I have to believe it’s just a matter of time before this gets upgraded.  For now we’re stuck with synthesizing Pro Logic to fill all the speakers.

Apple appears to be taking a few “baby steps” into the high definition movie market (just like they did when they first offered movies).  There are only 12 titles currently available with a couple more available for pre-order.  To test the ecosystem, I selected Transporter 3 from the HD Movie gallery and iTunes took me to the usual detail page with a $19.99 “BUY HD MOVIE” button added to the page just above the usual $14.99 “BUY MOVIE” one.  Clicking the HD button began the download immediately (I have one-click purchases turned on).  What’s different is both versions of Transporter 3 began downloading, a 3 GB high definition file and a 1 GB standard def.  This was a bit of a surprise, but after I thought about it a minute the reason was obvious.  The standard def version is for your iPod or iPhone.  This is a nice addition, and something Apple didn’t have to do, I suppose.  An hour later [using my 6 Mb internet connection] both files were on my Mac.  One curious addendum: iTunes only lists the HD version in my library even though both files are in my “Movies” folder.

I was anxious to see what the new format looked like on my big screen so I started iTunes on my Vista media center PC, browsed to the shared library on my Mac and began playing the movie over my wireless N connection.  It was a little jerky for the first few seconds, but then it settled down and streamed flawlessly.  The picture was beautiful, and while not quite Blu-ray quality, I had to look closely to tell the difference and it was certainly better than the so-called high definition offered by DirecTV.  iTunes lists the resolution at 1280 x 544, but I just call it sharp!  Motion was smooth and the color was quite nearly perfect.  The H.264 codec Apple employs is [obviously] far superior to the compression method used by DirecTV.  If quality is your only deciding factor when choosing between the two, Apple wins hands down.  Another plus for Apple is portability.  When I record something on my satellite DVR, that’s where it has to stay.  I can’t even watch it from another DirecTV DVR in my home even though the two are networked.  DirecTV has recently offered a beta version of their software (Windows only) to run on a PC, but it is still too buggy for “lean back” viewing, and forget ever getting satellite content onto your iPod.

The downside?  Apple is charging twenty bucks per movie.  Compared to Blu-ray, it’s quite competitive but an on-demand DirecTV HD movie is $4.95.  It’s easy to give up a little quality and portability to pay 25% of the iTunes rate.  Apple is obviously not trying to compete with the satellite companies.  The Blu-ray market is a different matter.  Right now, assuming availability won’t be a problem soon, I’d say Apple has a leg up on the physical media HD standard.  With new Blu-ray releases going for $25-30 a pop, the $20 Apple offering is a visual equivalent (for most people) and you don’t have to leave your chair to buy one.  Plus, you can put a version on your iPod at no additional cost.  I was disappointed when Transporter 3 only played a stereo soundtrack but I’m not sure most people will care.

The next few months will be interesting.  Will Apple greatly expand their HD offering?  Will they offer Dolby 5.1 or TrueHD audio?  Is a higher resolution format in the works?  One thing that’s not in question: Apple is going after the Blu-ray market.  And, with infinitely more copies of iTunes out there than Blu-ray players, they may have a shot.

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