Filed under: iTS, Video, iTunes, Podcasting, Reviews
Video Quality: What $1.99 will buy you
So, I finally managed to get the full copy of Lost that I purchased off the iTMS to download successfully yesterday, and I've been watching it on my Mac, so I thought I'd share what $1.99 per episode will get you, and where the video quality is lacking.I've watched this episode several times already, both live as it aired and we had a chatcast of it over at TV Squad and then later, watching it on ReplayTV, when we did the podcast commentary on the episode, so I'm familiar both with what it looked like when it aired and at medium MPEG2 compression on my PVR device. $1.99 doesn't buy you that level of quality. Those of you who were hoping that this would be the triumphant return of Apple's foray into HD will be disappointed, as will anyone who is looking for truly high-quality video. However, if you are just looking for some TV that you can watch while typing up a report or on your new iPod during the morning commute, it's honestly not too shabby. More details with more detailed screenshots can be found after the jump....
If you click on this picture, which is a screencap taken while watching the Lost episode at full-screen, you will be taken to the full-sized copy of the image, so that you can really get a feel for the artifacts that start showing up as you try to watch these shows on anything larger than an iPod's screen. There is quite a bit of fuzziness and the cigarette that Locke is currently toking looks bent in the still (even though it is straight, and looks so during replay). Also, on shows like Lost where many of the scenes are so dark that they have an almost chiaroscuro effect, there will be multiple block artifacts in particularly dark scenes, when watching the video at larger than its default size. At regular size and even in the little window embedded in iTunes, it looks crystal clear, with no noticeable or distracting artifacts even in fast moving scenes with lots of action. At double normal size, you will start seeing a few artifacts, comparable to the compression artifacts you'll see when watching shows recorded on popular PVRs like TiVo and ReplayTV. Full-screen is much more like watching a VHS tape. Actually, it's more like watching an old VHS tape that has been watched one too many times.
Overall, however, I think $1.99 pre episode is a steal. It is watch-able. It's small and portable. The episode weighs in at 198MBs. The DRM baked into the file prevents you from converting it to other formats for watching on something like your PSP ( I already tried; no luck), but it doesn't prevent you from opening the file in other media-players like QuickTime (where the TV buffs among you can step frame-by-frame through the episode looking for clues to Lost's mysteries).
You cannot burn the files to a set-top viewable DVD, but you can make copies on your system, and it looks like you can burn copies as back up to removable media, just like any other data file. I think not allowing the video to be burned to a viewable DVD has less to do with restrictions put in place by the television industry and more to do with the big pain in the butt that re-encoding all these files to DVD video would entail. I mean it would be several hours of compressing and the resulting DVD would be low-quality. Also, as is evidenced by this post, the DRM doesn't prevent you from taking screencaps of what's going on, which is great for bloggers, film-students, and TV fans. Want a Desktop picture of your favorite scene from Desperate Housewives? It's as simple as Command+Shift+3, then set as Desktop picture.
I've heard a lot of criticism about this already from people saying, "Who would want to spend $1.99 on the show? I have TiVo/ReplayTV/bittorrent!" If you are happy with those solutions, then good, but I think $1.99 is a good deal. I mean, torrented TV shows can be hard to find at times and they often have things like the local TV stations insignia emblazoned along the bottom of the screen or the latest thunderstorm warning. Also, they are usually a bit larger than 198MBs and recompressing them can take time. This is the same difference with PVRs. Sure, I can use mReplay to jump into my networked ReplayTV and grab my shows, but they are in bulky muxed MPEG2 files that take quite a bit of processing to recompress to a manageable size and to remove the commercials. All that work and hassle and saved hard-drive space sounds like it is worth $1.99 to me. Although, I do hope that someone either figures out a way to strip the DRM so I can put these files on my PSP or that Apple and Sony strike a deal. Which of those do you think is more likely? Yeah, me too.
In conclusion, the $1.99 per episode is good for what it is, and it is even good enough to the point where I am actually considering buying the first season of Lost on the iTMS for $34.99 rather than grabbing it on DVD for $10 to $15 more.
As a side note, if you are a Lost fan, make sure you check out this week's podcast commentary on the show. Think; you can download the new episode later today in the iTMS. Open the file in Quicktime. Start playing the video and mute it, while listening to Ryan's commentary on the episode. That's nice podcasting sweetness.
Update: Here's a full-screen screen cap of Pixar's Gerl's Game for comparison. Also, our sibling blog, HD Beat wants to know what you would pay for HDTV download.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
David GP said 9:42AM on 10-13-2005
23 episodes of Lost buyed in iTunes = $45,77
the complete first season of Lost in Amazon = $38 with better quality, extras and subtitles
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C.K. Sample, III said 9:45AM on 10-13-2005
Actually, David, if you buy the first season as an "album" all at once via the iTMS it's only $34.99. Amazon lists it slightly higher for me...
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Sean Flanagan said 9:48AM on 10-13-2005
I don't have a PVR, so this will likely be a Godsend to me if the content arrives. At $1.99/episode, I could purchase 75-100 episodes of any combination of shows and cover the initial cost of a decent TiVo, plus an extra few per month to cover the cost of a subscription. Considering how many TV shows I really watch and wish to have archived (5 shows at last count, which air weekly and have MAYBE 10 episodes per season), this works out to be quite a good deal.
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Victor Agreda, Jr. said 9:48AM on 10-13-2005
That's the price you pay for convenience. Like ringtones. Does anyone use their ringtone collection as a jukebox? I mean, aside from 40-yr. old virgins...
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David GP said 9:52AM on 10-13-2005
C.K. Sample, III, ahh, I'm not from USA, so I couldn't check that option, tv series in iTunes is only from USA clients at the moment, anyway, I still like more the option of the dvd, better quality and you don't have to authorice a computer or player to play it. Off course, you cann't use the new iPod to watch it, but I can live with that
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Darnell said 9:56AM on 10-13-2005
The lost dvd is only 40 bucks. I rather have better quality, digital sound and the ability to watch on both the tv and computer then have a low quality version that can only be watch on the computer or ipod. I'm also pretty sure the video quality on the ipod tv-out isn't that great either.
I do think that it is a good solution if you missed an episode and wanted to see it.
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mike s said 10:20AM on 10-13-2005
I missed last night's episode of Lost. The Season 2 DVD won't be out until next year. $1.99 to get caught up seems like a pretty good deal to me. It would be too expensive -- for me -- to download an entire season (esp. season one, which is obviously available on DVD) but it is a good value -- for me, and I suspect for others -- to be able to conveniently download and watch an occasional missed episode.
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Berko said 8:14PM on 10-13-2005
I think that the iTMS video stuff has some kinks to be worked out as far as pricing and quality. Here's why. There is a wonderfully handy program called Handbrake (I think it's still in beta, but isn't everything?) that will compress DVD into MPEG-4 with AAC sound. The quality comes out really nice, obviously depending on settings. What I like about it, is that you can set a target size. I usually set mine to 700MB so that it can be burned to CD-R. I keep all of mine burned on CDs or DVDs and when I go on a trip or need to take video with me for some other reason, I can drop a few of these on my Powerbook over Airport in about 20 minutes and be good to go. Of course, with Handbrake, there isn't much to stop you from ripping all your Netflix or checking things out from the library, but I have never done that. ;-)
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Tim Dorr said 10:20AM on 10-13-2005
I went over this in my blog, too. Here's a recap:
Lost - Season 2, Episode 3 - Orientation
Length: 43:29
Dimensions: 320x240
Filesize: 197.8 MB
Data Rate: 628.41 kb/s
Obviously, this is designed just for use on an iPod. The video quality is excellent for that purpose given the data rate. It's even fairly watchable at 2x zoon. Unfortunately, the cost is the downside. I paid ~$40 for the Season 1 DVD set, which is 25 episodes long, not including bonus features, menus, etc (I count the finale as two, personally). Therefore, it's just $1.60 per episode in full 480p quality. WIth the video store I'm paying 20% more for a video file that's got about 22.2% of the pixel information. So, purely based on the numbers, I should be paying about $0.35 per episode.
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Al said 10:21AM on 10-13-2005
You may be able to get the Lost DVD for not much more - this is about convenience and speed. You can't but any of series 2 of Lost on DVD can you?
Sure, there's always illegal downloads, but I'd rather pay say $3 for a HD quality version available straight after broadcast. Especially if I could do it from the UK, where we're still showing series 1 on TV!
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Chris said 10:22AM on 10-13-2005
I think the "bent" cigarette is caused by the screen grab happening during a frame update. If you look further to the right there's a corresponding discontinuity in the white object behind Locke. And in the pale green area (foliage?) to the left edge of the image there's another, very subtle discontinuity.
What you're seeing is the top half of the incoming frame and the bottom half of the outgoing frame.
Any chance of another screen grab, but of a well lit scene?
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Jordan Running said 10:23AM on 10-13-2005
The "Why not just buy the DVDs?" argument that keeps coming up doesn't make much sense. The kind of people who are going to download Lost from iTunes are the people who want to see last week's episode, i.e. the kind of people who already watched last season and likely already have the DVDs. If one of these people misses an episode (or wants to take it with them on the train), they aren't going to wait three or four months for the DVDs to come out, no matter how much better the quality or convenience is. Not if they can download it quickly, easily, and cheaply.
And concerning BitTorrent: I have always been more than pleased with the quality of downloaded episodes, except on the rare occasion when there are encoding glitches or out-of-sync audio. Never seen a storm warning and the little round "ABC" bug never, er, bugs me.
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Brian said 10:27AM on 10-13-2005
I'm with you C.K. I think it is a great deal.
I seen to recall Steve himself saying one of the major issues with a video iPod would be the availability of content for them. I think Apple has the beginnings of a great thing going here. Remeber, these video clips are intended to be viewed on the new iPod, not a 30" cinema display (well, at not at full screen away). I for one would much rather pay $2 to have it nicely downloaded to my library and good to go. I have bothered with the whole making content for my Audiovox smartphone, and let's just say it is kind of a pain (even more so if you are a mac user, since it is windows based, but it is possible to take a quicktime movie and convert it to something that a windows mobile smartphone can play, but that is a whole different topic). I like the convience that the shows are there for the picking, and am more than willing to pay $2 for it.
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Jordan Running said 10:27AM on 10-13-2005
Also, in reply to Al: For shows as popular as Lost, a HDTV-quality download is always available on BitTorrent within a couple hours of the episode's airing. The speed at which these buccaneers work is staggering.
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patrick said 10:38AM on 10-13-2005
It was my understanding that TV episodes broadcast over public ariwaves were covered under Fair Use. Thus, Lost bittorrent downloads = legal. Rome bittorrent download != legal.
Besides, is anyone really expecting 320x240 resolution to be as good as their expecting at a screen 5-10 times larger than it was intended to be played on?
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Illtron said 10:42AM on 10-13-2005
I can't complain one bit about bittorented Lost episodes. I used it all last season to catch up when I missed an episode, but this might be a good solution if you're on the go and don't have an hour or two to wait. Plus, you just know that it's only a matter of time until the networks and their cronies start going after the torrent sites.
It's a shame they're not selling Invasion episodes, because it seems hard to find on Bit Torrent.
As far as making your own iPod movies, I converted Tuesday's episode of My Name is Earl using Apple's instructions (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/creatingvideo.html), and it looks outstanding, but I get pretty much the same results when I try to scale it up.
To the people who would buy the DVD of Lost for any reason, WTF? That show relys on the fact that it's a serial. Unless you're planning to watch all of the episodes, you can't really watch just one. iTunes/BT are good solutions because like Jordan said above, it's going to appeal to people who just need to catch the latest episode.
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Ruben Dario said 10:43AM on 10-13-2005
V-Pod sounds promising for what's next. Perhaps the service will improve and content providers are assured that their stuff will not be stolen.
At the moment, I have little interest for an v-pod; though, the thought of having the Simpsons to go would be nice.
It will be interesting when you can stream your computer movies to your tv, a la airexpress.
The ipod remains my backup drive and music 'jukebox.' As Mr. Jobs said it is the music...I want and will continue to buy use music cd's and rare jazz LP's. I cannot just download jazz from itms...
However, the idea tha apple is there and doing it makes me smile...
rd
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Brad Murphy said 10:47AM on 10-13-2005
OK, so Lost was on last night, and as of 10:30 AM its not in iTunes. How long is it going to take for content to get from the broadcast to iTunes? If they really want to make money, post the show a few hours before the airing.
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James said 10:50AM on 10-13-2005
The ability to download current TV episodes will be HUGE!! I have a number of shows I religiously follow. Yes, I have a DVR and even an EyeTV. However, there have been many occasions when I either fail to get the show recorded or I'm on the road and getting it from my EyeTV or DVR is not worth the hassle. Getting it to my vPod with a single click? Genius! I'm on the road right now, and I missed Lost last night. I could download it this morning and watch it on the plane this afternoon! How sweet is that? I only hope that Apple's servers handle the video demand better than they can keep up with nano demand.
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jake said 10:50AM on 10-13-2005
K, unless one is a complete tech retard (I'm looking at your, my dear parents), who really believed 320x240 was going to look any good on a TV set, or on any standard display for that matter (1024x768 is standard and mainstream)? Don't get me wrong, I like where Apple is going with this downloadable video content, and it's formatted to look decent only on a small screen where you don't need to stretch the video (dixit the vPod), and yes it's cheap (for those of us who don't own a PVR, etc), but damn that TV-out connection on the vPod makes this stuff useless for use anywhere else than on the vPod. The whole point is to make people buy a vPod, obviously, so ok, fine, but I can't help but whine at Apple for selling video content in only one, crappy, resolution when they're also introducing a MCE-like device like the new iMac. That 320x240 resolution is complete crap for watching it on a large display.
Here's to hoping Apple extends, and I'm sure they will, the offer of their video content, offer higher resolutions very soon.
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