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It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

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    It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

    "Vudu has thrown down the gauntlet? They contacted me yesterday to emphasize their ?quality of HD video is better? than what Apple TV provides. The claim is based on Vudu?s resolution of up to 1080p versus Apple?s 720p. Of course, the pixel count doesn?t tell the whole story? How well are these movies compressed and encoded, what bitrates are we talking here? Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget HD is on-board with a comparison - so he?s Fed-Exing his AppleTV to me for a side by side comparison. And then I?ll FedEx both boxes to him for his perspective." - linky: http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-02/...ersus-vudu-hd/


    I've followed Dave Zatz blog for a couple of years now. He's normally pretty pragmatic and honest with no hidden agenda. Lets hope he can do Vudu justice and show the world what us VUDU users have been telling them!

    In the comments they discuss including xbox in the comparison too - that would be great.
    Last edited by steveybaby; 02-15-2008, 12:59 PM. Reason: added linky!

    #2
    Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

    Yes Dave does a nice job, that's why I sent him my ATV.

    Honestly I wanted to try out the Vudu, but it's only fair that other Engadget writers get review hardware too.

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      #3
      Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

      Well, I trust Dave to do a better job than AppleInsider, lol

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        #4
        Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

        Originally posted by Rusdude View Post
        Well, I trust Dave to do a better job than AppleInsider, lol
        Yeah their review was crazy, not to mention it drives me nuts when people spell HD DVD and Blu-ray incorrectly.

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          #5
          Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

          Or says Blu-ray DVD.

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            #6
            Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

            Zatz is a friend of mine and I've been nudging him toward Vudu for some time now. He was kinda negative at first, but he's coming around. I expect him to be very fair in comparison.

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              #7
              Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

              HDTV magazine beat Dave to the punch with an apple-TV versus Vudu review

              "Why choose VUDU?: Better resolution, faster access to movies and a more scalable platform. Also a better choice if you prefer to own, rather than rent, digital movies. Winner: VUDU"

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                #8
                Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                That was a pretty fair and balanced (Fox News Style) report. The table in the article was the best I have seen so far for comparisons.

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                  #9
                  Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                  Originally posted by steveybaby View Post
                  HDTV magazine beat Dave to the punch with an apple-TV versus Vudu review

                  "Why choose VUDU?: Better resolution, faster access to movies and a more scalable platform. Also a better choice if you prefer to own, rather than rent, digital movies. Winner: VUDU"

                  This is more fun than watching "Celebrity Death Match" on TV!!

                  Having both ATV and VUDU, I would pretty much agree with their evaluation.

                  I'm disappointed that they didn't speak more to the audio part of the viewing experience. I feel that DD5.1 over Stereo greatly enhances the viewing experience and VUDU has ATV totally beat in that area when it comes to providing titles with DD5.1

                  It just seems odd that there isn't more discussion about it. Although there seems to be criticism about VUDU not outputting DD+ yet, you would think there would be more complaints about titles that are only in Stereo. Sigh......

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                    I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how highly he regarded Vudu's video quality:
                    The video quality was excellent, even for SD fare. All of their content is encoded at 24 fps. SD video is 480p/24 and encoded with H.264 Main Profile while all HD content is 1080p/24 encoded with H.264 High Profile. In all honesty, when I first began testing the unit with SD programming back in November, it was not obvious to me that what I was watching wasn't HD. I've looked at all the major players in the movie download market, and the quality they are getting with their SD video is unsurpassed. And the quality of their HD content rivals that of packaged media, although I'm sure it would not hold up to a side-by-side test.

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                      #11
                      Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                      Originally posted by Rusdude View Post
                      I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how highly he regarded Vudu's video quality:
                      It was packed with lot's of info I've been wondering about.

                      Now I've got new interesting terms to chew on that I get not even get from this forum, like:

                      H.264 Main Profile and H.264 High Profile which certainly suggests there are different compression quality settings that can be adjusted by the content provider. I just would like to know how they found all this out.

                      420p/24fps and 1080p/24pfs are terms I'm just starting to understand. Everyone on the forum kept saying VUDU doesn't support 1080p/60 and until recently I thought that was a bad thing (sub-consciencely thinking 60 is better than 24).

                      But thanks to the one gentlemens post with his Sony TV display settings problems, I went to Sony's site and they had a great explanation of 24 FPS. I'm now convinced that for movie content that's the only way to go and my next LCD will need 120 HZ with 24 FPS support before I buy it.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                        Originally posted by RobertHodge View Post
                        It was packed with lot's of info I've been wondering about.

                        Now I've got new interesting terms to chew on that I get not even get from this forum, like:

                        H.264 Main Profile and H.264 High Profile which certainly suggests there are different compression quality settings that can be adjusted by the content provider. I just would like to know how they found all this out.
                        <snip>
                        This was the first article where profiles (Main and High) for H.264 were mentioned.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                          Originally posted by RobertHodge View Post
                          It was packed with lot's of info I've been wondering about.

                          Now I've got new interesting terms to chew on that I get not even get from this forum, like:

                          H.264 Main Profile and H.264 High Profile which certainly suggests there are different compression quality settings that can be adjusted by the content provider. I just would like to know how they found all this out.

                          420p/24fps and 1080p/24pfs are terms I'm just starting to understand. Everyone on the forum kept saying VUDU doesn't support 1080p/60 and until recently I thought that was a bad thing (sub-consciencely thinking 60 is better than 24).

                          But thanks to the one gentlemens post with his Sony TV display settings problems, I went to Sony's site and they had a great explanation of 24 FPS. I'm now convinced that for movie content that's the only way to go and my next LCD will need 120 HZ with 24 FPS support before I buy it.
                          Could you post a link to that Sony webpage that convinced you of the 24fps argument?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                            Originally posted by Rusdude View Post
                            I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how highly he regarded Vudu's video quality:
                            I actually really do agree with his position on the SD video quality. For a lot of the movies I watched, I would have been hard pressed to say they weren't HD.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: It's on! Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

                              Originally posted by redwein View Post
                              I actually really do agree with his position on the SD video quality. For a lot of the movies I watched, I would have been hard pressed to say they weren't HD.
                              Well at least definitely better than DVD quality.

                              Comment

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