Apples Announces New iTV Player Software

[Audioholics]

<A href="http://www.audioholics.com/news/pressreleases/AppleiTVsoftware.php"><IMG style="WIDTH: 125px; HEIGHT: 83px" alt=[itunes7store1] hspace=10 src="http://www.audioholics.com/news/thumbs/itunes7store1_th.jpg" align=left border=0></A>Apple today announced iTunes 7 which is now offering over 75 movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, that customers can purchase and download to watch on their computers and iPods, and soon on their flat screen televisions with Apple’s upcoming iTV player. Movies will become available on the iTunes Store the same day they are released on DVD, with new releases priced at $12.99 when pre-ordered and during their first week of availability, and $14.99 thereafter, and library titles available for just $9.99 every day.</P>
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[tomd51]

With the projected price point of the "iTV" ($299), the simple, elegant iTunes interface for both music and movies and the HD interface options (HDMI and component), this might very well be the low priced media server many folks have been looking for.

If the new version of iTunes allows you to play your own movies (ripped to your machine or home made), I think I might be stocking up on hard drive space once the iTV hits the shelves... -TD

 

[gellor]

iTunes will play your homemade movies, provided they're in .mpg, .mov, or .mp4 (m4p? I forget).

Just a warning, there's been a lot of people having problems with the new iTunes 7. Basically, when running 24-bit audio, its distorting music when it plays...you have to reset your quicktime preferences (in the control panel / QuickTime Preferences) to 16-bit with iTunes closed. This fixes it for the most part, with the occasional glitch. Might wanna wait for at least iTunes 7.1.

 

[tomd51]

Just out of curiosity, I downloaded one of the free shows from the iTunes store to see what format they're in. This one in particular was encoded as an m4v. I'll have to do some experimenting to see what else iTunes will play, but I think you're right abou the formats you've listed... -TD

 

[WorldLeader]

All movie encoding on iTunes, Quicktime, etc is done using H.264, which results in small file sizes and great quality, even HD.

 

[gellor]

Just out of curiosity, I downloaded one of the free shows from the iTunes store to see what format they're in. This one in particular was encoded as an m4v. I'll have to do some experimenting to see what else iTunes will play, but I think you're right abou the formats you've listed... -TD

iTunes will play any QT-compatible video files. There's a link on Apple's website that lists all of the compatible files. (Its under the quicktime page, one of the support links, I think)

Mostly its the H.264 (.MP4 in unprotected form or .m4v in protected form), the .mpg/.mpeg, and the .mov files. Some .avi files will play in QT, depending on what codec is used. .avi is simply a "container" file that holds audio and video streams, and as such can be encoded with different codecs. QT/iTunes will not play some of the more popular codecs such as XVid or DiVX. Sadly. I've found a few tools that will allow me to encode movies for QT, but none have worked satisfactorily. At least none of the free ones. Xilisoft makes some tools that seem pretty good for extracting unencrypted DVDs to video and also for converting from other formats to the quicktime compatible formats. But ya gotta pay for 'em. I'm sure there are others that work equally well, I just haven't looked into them yet.

But I'm thinking of buying one of them for that ability, since my sister keeps sending me video of my neice in formats for players that I never use/hate using.

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating using these utilities to break any laws or circumvent any copy protection. None of these utilities have that capability, anyway.)