Apple TV vs. Blu-ray: How do they stack up?

No, but I am giving serious consideration to abandoning my PC. MS’s Vista continues to be slower than GW’s synapses.

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#1 No scratches- I’m tired of renting discs by mail or in store and not being able to enjoy watching a movie because of scratches on the disc.

#2 Sure Apple TV costs about $200, how much does a Blue-ray player cost?

#3 Cable/Satelite on-demand? Well I think what others have said covered that pretty well as far as costs/quality are concerned.

#4 As stated by others as well- Apple TV = TV shows (Rent or buy), Movies (Rent, buy or self-produced), Itunes, Photos ( yours, others, Flickr, slideshows), Podcasts, Music Videos, You Tube, works with EyeTv (PVR for Apples).

#5 The only drawback is they don’t have the 60,000 titles (yet) that were available to rent from the likes of Netflix/Blockbuster but again if you can’t watch them anyway because of all the scratches what’s it worth?

#6 Apple TV is eco-friendly in terms of production and delivery. What are those discs made of? What kinds of fuels are used to deliver discs to your door or to your local store?

Dave, i like how you say Blu ray was “forced on the consumers” how many weeks last year did HD-DVD out sell blu-ray…yah thats a big ZERO. And HD-DVD does not offer the same quality audio. They run out of room so they can not put lossless audio on longer movies…

We will also see how CH-DVD does. I am sure it will sell well when in a few months almost no studios will be making movies for it…

I have both an Apple TV 2.0 and a Sony PS3. I love my Apple TV for listening to music, pod casts, viewing photos and maybe even the occasional TV show that I might of missed, but for movies Netflix and Blu-Ray are way better. First off Blu-Ray does look a lot better on a 1080P TV in my experience. Two, downloading a movie to ATV is kind of slow and if you don’t wait long enough for a good buffer the movie freezes occasionally. Three, 24 hour rentals on ATV. With Netflix I keep the movie as long as I want without extra charges. Apple TV is great overall, but is not my first choice for movies.

Considering the cost of a Blu-Ray player, I think that $229-$329 for an Apple TV player is right in line with what the market can bear. Add in the convenience factor and you have a real winner in Apple TV.

Michael Davias, you are wrong about the down-conversion to 480p without HDMI. Let me explain:

AACS (used in both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD) has what they call an “Image Constraint Token” (ICT) which can be applied by the content owners that would downconvert the video over analog outputs to 480p, however it is not mandated. No disc in the USA has had the ICT applied so far. Only one HD DVD has so far used it in Europe.

apple tv was a dud before, and is still a dud. the specs just dont match up…

I understand how Blue Ray should be better than AppleTV, and it’s not a totally fair comparison. I don’t understand why I should go out and pay extra money for an AppleTV box, when I can order from my cable subscriber for the same price, about the same quality,and not have pay extra(since am already paying cable). I understand the appeal of AppleTV, but I don’t see how it’s “Special” enough for me to get it in addition to my cable box. If I could download my own movie files(and not from Itunes only) from my computer and send it to my TV, then I’d be more interested. For those who love Apple, I know you’re loyal, but I don’t see it’s appeal for the general public.

commenters only cite resolution but not compression. Apple TV content must be more compressed than bluray content to keep file sizes down. This inevitably affects picture quality to a noticeable degree, regardless of resolution (720p/1080p). It is noteworthy that the quality is better than expected, but unless you’re willing to download movie files from 25 - 45 gigabytes in size the quality will never match that of blu-ray. Not to mention all the added features that blu-ray offers such as bonus content, interactive features, etc.

and here’s a comment taken from the above mentioned review of the Apple tv-HD-BLue ray etc..

quote: “Because of its cleaner motion and audio, we felt that the Apple experience was better in both overall audio and video quality than the HD cable experience, and for most users, superior to renting a standard DVD as well.”

read 2 full reviews here
http://gizmodo.com/355843/apple-tv-20-review

http://ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apple-tv-20-vs-blu-ray-dvd-hd-cable-the-comparison/

Thanks for the coverage of the ‘Take 2′ release. Notable, as Fortune seems to be the first (and only even at this point on The 14th) mainstream media site to recognize that Apple has indeed released the software. (Actually, the story doesn’t state that…. For the record it was on line Feb 12th) I also bought ‘Take 1′ pre-order last year, and continue to be extremely satisfied with its multiple use features. My 1080i 40″ HDTV does not have HDMI input, only Composite. As such, the Blue-Ray and HD-DVD formats are not usable by me due to their DRM-mandated restriction to 480p if not HDMI-connected. I will most likely never buy either of those, as the Apple TV will deliver all our household needs.

It is logical AppleTV (720p upconvert to 1080p) from the BR (1080p) standard. But it is very surprising, it is keeping up that well. The encoding/decoding on an AppleTV is very well done. For most people, AppleTV will be sufficient as they are watching movies on TV’s up to 50″ lcd tv’s with a distance of at least 8 feet. There is no noticeable difference between 1080p and 1080i/720p.

As for Dave, Danville. Your argument on favoring HD-DVD over BluRay doesn’t make sense. Both use DRM, both based on AACS, and both support HDCP. BluRay added BD+, but both platforms provide full DRM support.

iLounge did a pretty good article, and even Philip is not negative in his article about this. For once, and that doesn’t happen too often, I agrre with him and ask a similar question. Will there be anough consumers paying for this device?

Just so you know, I bought a ‘Take 1′ the first week it came out, and it became a very useful tool for me. But that is me. Not a lot of consumers were convinced. And Apple will need to find a way to break into the livingroom. It’s a long term strategy that is needed for them to grow.

Funny you missed this paragraph.

It’s also worth noting that the Blu-Ray Disc’s biggest video and audio advantages are real, but will be lost on many HDTV users. Since the majority of HDTVs sold before 2007 were not capable of displaying true 1080p output—most were capped at 720p or 1080i—the superior video quality of the Blu-Ray versions of movies won’t be noticeable on such sets, and the difference between the Apple TV and Blu-Ray versions will be less noticeable. If you’re using a TV without the ability to display 1080p video—especially if you don’t have a receiver capable of decoding the Blu-Ray Disc’s DTS-HD signal—an Apple TV rental will be an almost complete substitute for renting the Blu-Ray.

I don’t like the fact the Blu-ray has been something that was forced on consumers because the studios like DRM. HD DVD offers the same video and audio quality for a lot less. Too bad it is losing ground at the moment. Wait for CH DVD (China’s HD format that is compatible with HD DVD) to take hold. The war is not over yet and as a consumer I would like to see Blu-ray lose.

Also whilst the Apple TV may cost (and Blue-ray doesn’t?) the functionality of Apple TV goes way beyond any ‘disk’ player.

How about Airtunes…that alone is very, very cool.

I’m sold (meaning I bought one due to ‘Take 2′) and that’s even w/out rentals here in Canada.

Actually the best Blu-Ray player (IMHO) is built into the Sony Playstation…and it is much less than the prices mentioned above.

I would have liked to see the the cable company’s HD video screen shot. That’s more of an apples to apples comparison even in spite of 1080i vs 1080p. It likely would have looked similar to the Apple TV shot. The term High Definition is thrown around loosely and there are variants. Cable doesn’t provide 1080p. And comparing high definition that has been encoded for practical downloading to Blu-ray really isn’t fair. Besides, Apple TV has many more fun features than a standard Blu-ray player (the exception being the PS3, of course). Certainly, one should have both the Apple TV and a Blu-ray player. And having cable or satellite is simply a must.

peabody out….

In a way, comparing the AppleTV to Blu-Ray is in large part a comparison of 720p to 1080p. Obviously 1080p, and hence Blu-Ray, will be superior for TVs over 50″. For smaller TVs, or for those with a 720p max resolution, this will not be an issue. Outside of that, any streamed video is going to have more compression artifacts, but also more convenience (no need to drive to the video rental store or wait for Netflix), than a Blu-Ray disc. The way I see it, there are times when you might value convenience higher, so why not have an AppleTV there just in case? Plus an AppleTV lets you watch YouTube, photos, Flickr photos, home movies, podcasts, etc.

quote:”so long as you’re willing to pay the $229-$329 cost of entry. The question is: are you?”

I ordered a refurbished one from the Apple store today
for $199 good deal.
I have seen one in use at a friend’s house and I liked it so now I am looking forward to cut down my dependency to the satellite/cable mafia , I figure no satellite for 3 months will pay for my apple tv, I do enjoy the blockbuster’s benefits so I will keep my membership

$1,000 buck for Blu-Ray? Dude where are shopping to come up with a number like that.

BluRay does not *NOT* cost $1000. The latest BluRay standard DVD player costs around $400 and some are lower now from on-line retailers.

YOU MENTION NETFLIX…..THEY ADVERTISE BLU RAY BUT TRY TO GET ONE FROM THEM..ALL THE BLU RAY MOVIES ARE ON SOME TYPE OF “WAIT LIST”…….IT’S NONSENSE THAT THEY OFFER A PRODUCT THEY CAN’T SUPPLY.IT’S BEEN OVER A MONTH SINCE I RECEIVED A BLU RAY MOVIE…NOW THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE REPORTING ON; NETFLIX: FALSE ADVERTISING AND THROTTLING DOWN THE SPEED OF SENDING MOVIES!!!!!!

I see that you can’t take criticism about your NEGATIVELY BIASED postings.

Why don’t you state the cost of Blue Ray??? I believe that it is close to $1,000 vs. Apple TV at “$229-$329. How do you come up with a price RANGE for Apple TV???

what about the other features through itunes that the blue ray doesn’t offer? movies, music photos etc?