[Mercator]

I am considering getting an iPod video but I was curious how the quality of tv shows, clips, etc look on a tv screen. I don't expect high definition or dvd quality, but is it better than say, a vhs recording?

Also, does the ipod come with the necessary cables to connect to the tv, or do I need to buy the universal dock?

Thanks!

[SoBayJake]

I bought "For The Birds" and "Geri's Game" from ITMS, and those look good on the TV. For other content, I can't comment, really, as I've only tried low-quality stuff (no DVD's), just home video and such.

The cables are not included. You can use the Apple AV cable ($19) or one from Radio Shack ($17, where you need to swap 2 plugs). Check out this thread: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=273474

I personally got the Apple cable, just so I don't have to worry about remembering which two plugs to swap.

-Jake

[gojosh]

For instance, the Lost episodes on the ITMS rot. The quality is substandard, and for no good reason. They look fine on the iPod, but downright bad on the TV. If they used the h.264 compression, it would look much better, even at the 320x240 size. Instead, they are using mpeg4 with heavy compression @ 320x240. The result is pretty crappy.

On the other hand, you can compress your own films or TV shows using mpeg4 @ 720 x 320 (widescreen DVD full-res) and they look spectacular. (Yes, the ipod supports that resolution -- you have to use mpeg4 and keep the frame size under 230,400 pixels.)

So the ipod supports great quality movies, but they don't seem to be to concerned (with TV shows) about actually tapping into that quality potential. Pixar's shorts are much better quality than the TV shows, and consequently almost look normal (aka off of a dvd) on a TV.

That's been my experience.

[icruise]

Are you sure that the iTunes videos aren't h.264? I thought that was what they were using for everything. Remember that iTunes will say "MPEG-4 video" for both h.264 and regular MPEG 4. You have to open the file in Quicktime and look at the "Movie Info" to tell the difference. I haven't bought any video from iTunes, so I can't check this myself.

[mduell]

The iPod supports about a quarter as many pixels as regular TV... the shows I've seen from iTMS look about as good as a VHS tape on extended long play.

[jgrevich]

Has anyone done any side by side comparisons of the different video codecs? I'd like to see the H.264 vs. mp4 with some still frames highlighting the differences. Perhaps if I ever finish my master's thesis I'll get to that, but I am hoping someone has already done it and will save me the time.

I would like to see some tutorials on the best way to convert DVD's to the highest quality format for the iPod video.

better yet, I can't wait for an improvement with the device to allow for HD video playback. How cool would that be to have 3-4 of your favorite new movies in HD to bring to a friends house or a party.

also, where's our airport express video. I want to wirelessly stream video from my cpu's to my tv?...

[mgehman]

Originally Posted by jgrevich

Has anyone done any side by side comparisons of the different video codecs? I'd like to see the H.264 vs. mp4 with some still frames highlighting the differences. Perhaps if I ever finish my master's thesis I'll get to that, but I am hoping someone has already done it and will save me the time.

I would like to see some tutorials on the best way to convert DVD's to the highest quality format for the iPod video.

better yet, I can't wait for an improvement with the device to allow for HD video playback. How cool would that be to have 3-4 of your favorite new movies in HD to bring to a friends house or a party.

also, where's our airport express video. I want to wirelessly stream video from my cpu's to my tv?...

Well I don't have screenshots of the 2 formats, but I have encoded in both. MP4 is easier and faster to encode, but H264 is by far and away better quality. On a t.v. in H264 it looks as good as DVD quality. As for an easy way to encode most any video, including DVD, I use Forty-twoDVD VX plus. I encode 1.5 hours of video in ~ 45min. on a 1.42DP G4 Powermac. Hope this helps.

[bsaxton]

I've really enjoyed the video on the iPod. I would say the quality is about that of a VHS but a little different. You don't get static and noise like you tend to on VHS, on the other hand you do get MPEG artifacts that can be a bit distracting - thats with H.264 even at max quality. However, I have Handbraked a few of my own DVD's using MPEG4 at 2048+ bps and it looks really good - even on TV - approaching DVD quality. And home videos look pretty good too.

[fxg97873]

Okay, let me put this to rest.

At 320 x 240, any video whether it's h.264 or MPEG4 is going to look like crap over a composite connection on a TV (especially if the source video was already compressed to begin with). This goes extra for HDTVs.

The amazing thing about the iPod is that it actually allows for higher resolutions than 320x240. You can obtain very nice 480P like resolutions if you are using MPEG4 (versus h.264).

I encoded one of my DVD movies using Handbrake at a resolution of 720x304 at a bitrate of 2500 kbits/sec (combined audio/video) and it looks absolutely gougeous on both my analog and HDTV.
The average person would not be able to tell that it isn't a DVD.

The trick with setting resolutions is to stay under a certain pixel total. Credit for the information below goes to the people at macosxhints.com:
For mpeg4, "480x480 = 230,400 pixels. So 720x304, keeping the aspect ratio, comes to 218,880, which is less. Keeping inside that maximum I believe is the only restriction"

A good formula to calculate bitrate is:
"width = pixel width of the picture
height = pixel height of the picture
FPS = source DVD's frames per second
Q = bits per pixel quality for the codec. A good setting for MPEG4 is .23, and a good setting for H.264 is .15. You can change those to suit your tastes.
For a 720 x 304 widescreen movie at 24 FPS, the equation looks like this:

(720 * 304 * 24 * .15) / 1024 = ~770"

mk2000

[jgrevich]

Originally Posted by fxg97873

Okay, let me put this to rest.

The amazing thing about the iPod is that it actually allows for higher resolutions than 320x240. You can obtain very nice 480P like resolutions if you are using MPEG4 (versus h.264).

mk2000

Can you do these higher resolutions with H.264 or does that require mpeg4? I thought i remember reading that the iPod will only do 320x240 H.264...

Thanks for the very informative post mk2000. I can't wait for some drag and drop DVD to HQ iPod video coverters to become available that will automatically choose the best aspect ratio and bitrate.

justin

[icruise]

Originally Posted by jgrevich

Can you do these higher resolutions with H.264 or does that require mpeg4? I thought i remember reading that the iPod will only do 320x240 H.264...

That is correct. There's a whole thread on video conversion here if you want to know more.

[rtbarry]

Originally Posted by fxg97873

Okay, let me put this to rest.

mk2000

thanks for the great info. so with the SD content i've been downloading, i've been using the S-video out as it should be superior to the composite in the AV cable for 480p content. but if i encode my own video for the iPod and do higher res, then i should use the composite in the AV cable? or is the S-video connection to a plasma still the better option?

[jmelrose]

Madonna's Vogue and the Pixar shorts show this as the format:

AAC (protected), Stereo, 44.100 kHz
AVC0 Media, 320 x 240, Millions
FPS: 29.97
Data rate 722.59 kbits/sec

No idea what the shows are being encoded at. AVC0 Media sounds like a proprietary Mpeg-4 compressor maybe?

[jmelrose]

I just ripped "For the Birds" from the Monsters, Inc DVD to compare it to what's being sold at the iTMS. I used Handbrake, and replicated all the settings, using File Size instead of kbits/sec to match the 2 up.

I used H.264 as the encoder, and they look identical to me. Maybe AVC0 is some variant of an H.264 encoder.

[Big Mac]

I don't see why Apple refuses to allow for the option to download higher resolution versions of iTMS video content. Many people won't consider the store unless higher resolution versions are available.

[fxg97873]

Originally Posted by jgrevich

Can you do these higher resolutions with H.264 or does that require mpeg4? I thought i remember reading that the iPod will only do 320x240 H.264...

Thanks for the very informative post mk2000. I can't wait for some drag and drop DVD to HQ iPod video coverters to become available that will automatically choose the best aspect ratio and bitrate.

justin

Resolutions higher than 320x240, or better said, pixel counts higher than 320x240 require mpeg4. Mpeg4 can do up to 480x480 (230400 pixels)

mk2000

[fxg97873]

Originally Posted by rtbarry

thanks for the great info. so with the SD content i've been downloading, i've been using the S-video out as it should be superior to the composite in the AV cable for 480p content. but if i encode my own video for the iPod and do higher res, then i should use the composite in the AV cable? or is the S-video connection to a plasma still the better option?

The S-Video connection will be better (although the official Apple AV cable for the iPod only does composite). Obviously there are some third party AV cables for the iPod that offer S-Video (Monster Cable).

mk2000

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't see why Apple refuses to allow for the option to download higher resolution versions of iTMS video content. Many people won't consider the store unless higher resolution versions are available.

bandwidth costs money.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't see why Apple refuses to allow for the option to download higher resolution versions of iTMS video content. Many people won't consider the store unless higher resolution versions are available.

Well, it's a combination of factors. The main thing is that the iPod doesn't support resolutions much higher than 320 x 240 for non-widescreen content. Yes, you can get up to around 544 x 416 if you use MPEG-4, but I'm not sure that's a big enough jump in quality to make a difference to those who find 320 x 240 too small. And since Apple is (I believe) using h.264 for their video, the difference between what they currently offer and MPEG-4 files of a slightly higher resolution would probably not be that great.

I suppose they could offer video files that couldn't be played back on the iPod (maybe even offer two versions of a video, one for your computer and one for your iPod). But that seems overly complicated and also the iPod is the driving force behind Apple's video offerings right at the moment, so it would be odd to have a bunch of content that wasn't playable on the iPod. Also, I'm positive that one of the conditions that ABC gave for allowing its content to be sold was that it be in a format inferior to both broadcast TV and DVD.

Another issue is bandwidth and download times. The higher the resolution, the bigger the file and the longer it takes to download.

I personally have no intention of buying videos as they are. I buy a lot of music from the iTunes music store because:

A) It's convenient
B) It sounds as good as a CD to my ears
C) It's often cheaper than buying the CD, and I just put my CDs into iTunes anyway

But for video, the situation is very different:

A) Video from iTunes is more convenient compared to ripping a DVD, but download times are rather long even with broadband.
B) There's a huge difference in quality between what you get on a DVD and what the iTMS is selling.
C) It's actually more expensive to buy videos from iTunes than to buy them on DVD (assuming you're not paying list price for your DVDs).

So it seems to me that Apple is putting all of their eggs in the "convenience" basket. Their plan is to offer shows for download the day after they are broadcast, so people can catch something they missed or re-watch something they saw. And with the iPod, they're allowing people to watch shows on the go -- another type of convenience. As long as they beef up their lineup, I think this can work, but I'm not sure it'll have the same degree of success as the music store, for the reasons I gave above.

Personally, I'm buying my content on DVD and converting it for the iPod. This way I get a high res version for watching on my TV and a version for my iPod, and when they come out with higher resolution iPods, I'm free to just re-rerip the DVDs at a higher resolution.

[GreenMnM]

Originally Posted by fxg97873

The S-Video connection will be better (although the official Apple AV cable for the iPod only does composite). Obviously there are some third party AV cables for the iPod that offer S-Video (Monster Cable).

mk2000

Apple does offer an s-video connection with their iPod dock:

Apple iPod Universal Dock

Of course, you do have to buy your own cable, the dock only gives you the port...

-Doug

[rtbarry]

Originally Posted by GreenMnM

Apple does offer an s-video connection with their iPod dock:

Apple iPod Universal Dock

Of course, you do have to buy your own cable, the dock only gives you the port...

thanks. that's what i'm using now. was just wondering if, at higher res than what is currently offered on iTunes (like encoding my own video), S-video was going to be appreciably better than using the compsite run in the Apple AV cable. my takeaway is that it is.

[betasp]

S-video offers a wider color gamut, but the resolution would be the same. Some TVs offers better comb filtering on the S-video port, which does lead to better perceived image quality. I would like to see the higher res. MPEG 4 vs. the H.264 at 320x240. Both would theoritically be upsized to 640x480 for output, but I wonder if one really would look better then the other.

[GuyWithACamera]

Can anyone comment on the quality of still photo slideshows on a tv?

[Gavin]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't see why Apple refuses to allow for the option to download higher resolution versions of iTMS video content. Many people won't consider the store unless higher resolution versions are available.

The technical reasons above are good.

However I'm sure there are also contractual and legal reasons that are the driving reason. ABC, Time Warner, MTV, etc., don't want you to have a DVD quality copy for a buck. El Stevo was only able to get the deal because the companies were convinced it would not cut into DVD sales.

It's not about technology, it's about business.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Gavin

The technical reasons above are good.

However I'm sure there are also contractual and legal reasons that are the driving reason. ABC, Time Warner, MTV, etc., don't want you to have a DVD quality copy for a buck. El Stevo was only able to get the deal because the companies were convinced it would not cut into DVD sales.

It's not about technology, it's about business.

Yes, I did actually mention that as well.

Originally Posted by Icruise

Also, I'm positive that one of the conditions that ABC gave for allowing its content to be sold was that it be in a format inferior to both broadcast TV and DVD.

It's pretty clear that, for the moment at least, Apple isn't going to be able to offer content that competes with DVDs in quality, or even in price. It's all about convenience and portability. That's not to say that such a strategy won't work. I wouldn't have thought that UMD movie would be as popular as they are, but they seem to be selling relatively well, despite the fact that they are often more expensive than the more fully-featured DVDs of the same movie.

[Mercator]

Originally Posted by Icruise

B) There's a huge difference in quality between what you get on a DVD and what the iTMS is selling.
C) It's actually more expensive to buy videos from iTunes than to buy them on DVD (assuming you're not paying list price for your DVDs).

Personally, I'm buying my content on DVD and converting it for the iPod.

Thanks for all the replies, people.

lcruise, those points above are great. I will probably still get an ipod, but I'm not so excited about the ITMS videos now.

[Hawkeye_a]

I baught my first video off iTMS the other day, Pixar's Boundin. I dont have a video iPod....yet. but i did hook up my Powerbook to my TV, and played back the video.....and WOW. for all purposes, it looked and sounded like a DVD. it's encoded i nthat AVCO (which i beleive is Advanced video codec (protectcted)).

But yeah my roommate whos an Apple hater and avid anti-ipod/itunes sort of person thought i was playing back a DVD.

Cheers

[Spudboy]

The amazing thing about the iPod is that it actually allows for higher resolutions than 320x240.

-Where is this information found?

You can obtain very nice 480P like resolutions if you are using MPEG4 (versus h.264).

-Provided the iPod will accept the video.

I encoded one of my DVD movies using Handbrake at a resolution of 720x304 at a bitrate of 2500 kbits/sec (combined audio/video) and it looks absolutely gougeous on both my analog and HDTV.
The average person would not be able to tell that it isn't a DVD.

-What do you mean combined? How did you figure out this number?

The trick with setting resolutions is to stay under a certain pixel total.

-What is the maximum total pixel total?

Credit for the information below goes to the people at macosxhints.com:
For mpeg4, "480x480 = 230,400 pixels.

-Is this the max output (and or input acceptable at sync) for the iPod?

So 720x304, keeping the aspect ratio, comes to 218,880, which is less. Keeping inside that maximum I believe is the only restriction"

-Please let us know if you find anything else.

A good formula to calculate bitrate is:
"width = pixel width of the picture
height = pixel height of the picture
FPS = source DVD's frames per second
Q = bits per pixel quality for the codec. A good setting for MPEG4 is .23

-How did you come up with this? I've never heard of 'Q'.

, and a good setting for H.264 is .15. You can change those to suit your tastes.
For a 720 x 304 widescreen movie at 24 FPS, the equation looks like this:

(720 * 304 * 24 * .15) / 1024 = ~770"

-770 means what to me?

What I'm running into is iTunes tells me that the video that I tried to transfer to my iPod is not acceptable. With no explanion as to why.

I was able to convert one DVD to 640x480 and my iPod took it. It looks great on a TV. I've been encoding for the last couple of days with my Powermac and Powerbook trying to convert a DVD for playback on my iPod. 97% of the time iTunes tells me that my iPod would not accept the video. This is driving me crazy! Some settings take over 8 hours too encode with a dual 1.25 G4.

I'm using Handbrake and Forty-TwoDVD-VXPlus. Yes I'm a bpu.

Thanks for any help.

[icruise]

No offense, but I'm having trouble figuring out what you're quoting and what you're asking. But in any case, can you explain what settings you are using?

[Spudboy]

Originally Posted by Icruise

No offense, but I'm having trouble figuring out what you're quoting and what you're asking. But in any case, can you explain what settings you are using?

I was quoting fxg97873. Guess I messed that part up.

I realize now that the one movie, that I encoded with Handbrake at 640x480 was a fluke. For it to be accepted by my iPod.

What I'm really after is an easy way to figure out what is the best resolution that I can encode a movie for transfer to my iPod. Using 2-Pass encoding (I assume this would look better). I don't know what the Deinterlace option is about.

Should I keep the resolution static (tied to each other) or dynamic (able to be flexible)?

I mainly want to use my iPod as a video output device. To regular TV nothing fancy.

Thanks for any help.

[icruise]

For h.264 it must be the baseline profile and 320x240. The bitrate must be below 768kbps (although around 400 is the max you should really use).

For MPEG-4 keep the total number of pixels under 230400 (multiply your aspect ratio together and if it's below this number it should work) and keep the bitrate under 2500kbps.

[Spudboy]

Originally Posted by Icruise

For h.264 it must be the baseline profile and 320x240. The bitrate must be below 768kbps (although around 400 is the max you should really use).

For MPEG-4 keep the total number of pixels under 230400 (multiply your aspect ratio together and if it's below this number it should work) and keep the bitrate under 2500kbps.

I really doubt I will encode with h.264 since it takes forever.

I've been using 400 for bit rate. Should I set it higher?

[icruise]

Try a few tests and see what you think is the best balance between file size and quality. Or if you don't care about file size, set it to 1500 or 2000.

[Mastrap]

I encode movies to a medium setting of 1500kbps, maximum pixels - see formula above. I deinterlace everything, it saves some space. I also go for a two pass encode, it makes for superior quality. On a G5 iMac the average movie takes about 2-3 hours to encode, using handbrake.

Movies come in at around 1.2 GB, with almost no perceivable difference between the DVD and the movie playing from the iPod. It's pretty damn cool.

[Salsa]

AVC=Advanced Video Codec=H.264

[eround]

I edit and broadcast over cable a weekly Bible study from our Church. When I first got there and started doing them I would edit in FCP and output to miniDV tapes for broadcast. Then I started editing in FCP and playing back the DV file for braodcast right from the Mac. Finally I tried editing in FCP and then converting it to iPod Video and then playing it back from the iPod for broadcast as a trial. It did not look as good as playing it right from the DV file from my Mac but did look as good as the miniDV tapes did. I have gone back to the DV file output for broadcast for various reasons, scheduling ,quality,...

[rjlawrencejr]

Originally Posted by Icruise

For h.264 it must be the baseline profile and 320x240. The bitrate must be below 768kbps (although around 400 is the max you should really use).

For MPEG-4 keep the total number of pixels under 230400 (multiply your aspect ratio together and if it's below this number it should work) and keep the bitrate under 2500kbps.

Yes, you are right, the bitrate must be below 768kpbs, but what are you basing your recommendation of 400kpbs on? I purchased an episode of "The Night Stalker" to see how it was encoded and the total kpbs was 664 or 536 video + 128 audio and I have done the same. In h.264 the quality is quite good. However, because I don't plan on viewing much of my content on a TV and because the encoding process into h.264 is very time consuming, I encode the vast majority of my videos into MPEG4. My iBook G4 800 with 640 MB RAM takes 4 hours for every one hour of video while MPEG4 only takes 80 minutes for every one hour.

[icruise]

I've done some experimenting with different h.264 bitrates and it didn't seem like anything over 400 made a huge difference in quality. If you have plenty of free space, by all means use the maximum.

Actually, I use 250kbps h.264 for all of my encoding. It's not perfect, but it's very watchable and keeps the file sizes down. I have a Windows gaming machine that isn't used that much, so I use Videora iPod convertor to do my converting. It's pretty close to real-time. I'm doing Simpsons episodes right now and they're taking something like 20-25 minutes apiece, and that's with 2-pass encoding. Unfortunately Handbrake on my powerbook is several orders of magnitude slower.

[Jonathan-Tanya]

I use Handbrake/QuickTimePro, Subtitler-D, TitleLab...to do DVD to dual subtitled iPod videos.

I was using ffmpegx at first.

I've also used DVDx 2.3 on the pc side of things, along with VirtualDubMod, SubRipper and Video Converter to do the same thing on the PC.

Well, the Mac is much better and simpler, except for SubRipper is far better at OCR than Subtitler-D.

But, all this is to say, I'll put my own two cents in...I use handbrake, but then change the width to 480 pixels, and keep the aspect ratio (so the height varies based on the DVD).

480x??? is always less than 480x480, plus the smaller the video, the less time it takes to convert too, by a large margin.

I get acceptable times, and very nice quality on the Mac. On the PC, its very easy to lose the quality, with the bizarre need to go to mpeg2, just to so virtualdubmod can add the second subtitles.

Quicktime is quite fast for adding a subtitle (called a text track in Quicktime speak), even if its slow for other things....if I didn't have to export back to mpeg4 a 2nd time (i.e. because ipod Video won't play text tracks)...then the mac would be hands down the fastest...and I never expected a mac to compete on speed....but this is so byzantine and strange on the pc side, productivity on the pc side, at least with free software, is much slower. (ok quicktime pro cost $30, but I also had a $30 converter program on the pc side, so it was an even match).