Scobleizer is wrong: Apple TV not 1080i

apple tv vs xbox360

i have two apple tv's and my son has xbox 360 and for our needs, the apple tv's have met and exceeded our expectations and has practically reduced the directv to a very minor role. It is easy to use and having hundreds of movies available to us instantly is a godsend. As far as the xbox goes - we find it primarily as a game platform and prefer the apple tv to You tube usage.

"Anonymous" is incorrect in

"Anonymous" is incorrect in his/her comparison of 1080i vs 1080p vs 720p

Concerning 1080i, no resolution is lost. It's all there displayed in 60Hz sequential even and odd alternated fields. The 540 lines from each field aren't "bobbed", but retain their proper spacing from field to field. All 1920X1080 pixels are still accounted for.

BTW, you seem to have discounted the fact that horizontal resolution of 1080i/p vs 720p is a whopping 640 lines greater (1920 - 1280). Even if 1080i were bobbed to 540 lines (which quality sets don't do), it would still look superior to 720p due to substantially more active pixels.

I don't think I would be

I don't think I would be better off with one of those actually. I like that Apple TV is small and doesn't junk up my livingroom. But it's a better choice for most people have a big room.

Hey Alex, sorry it took so

Hey Alex, sorry it took so long for me to catch up to this post, its the same thing i wrote in my blog at www.hd1080i.com , thanks for staying on top of it.

IMHO just because the connector exists to plug into a 1080i capable input, deosnt merit claiming 1080i... and i see that all the time. It is a case of marketers that dont want to be left out for failing to use 1080 in the copy, but frankly i see it confusing more people than it helps.
Basically plugging an APPLE TV into a 1080 display is like putting a 4 cylinder engine in a Camaro. But dont blame apple please its just Step One in an evolution.

BTW all you out there that claim Progressive is better than interlaced, you should investigate the currently available tech on all that. Interlaced 1080 is just a delivery method ( Interlace is handled in firmware ) that does well with the available bandwidth and the image is much nicer than anything scaled up from 720.

For me the worst culprits in all this are the utterly horrible codecs used in the compression that produce blocky frames, and that is where the suer-base should be screaming about shabby quality. If its ally blocky then it doesnt matter what scale or output res you have, its junk on your screen.

For you, your TV downscales

For you, your TV downscales 1080i to 768 and upscales 720p to 768.

At 10' it's probably not worth the extra money to get a 40" 1920x1080 display, then again I've seen newer Samsung LED lit 56" true 1080 DLP displays on sale for $1600 or less.

Yep, basically, when talking

Yep, basically, when talking to someone looking to buy an HDTV set, I tell them that if it doesn't explicitly state that the resolution of the TV is 1920x1080 that it isn't a 1080 set.

Don't fall for the old "will display 480p/720p/1080i video" trick to make one think that a display is truly 1080 when it isn't.

Alex, I apologize. You are

Alex, I apologize. You are absolutely right. In no way, shape or form can anyone claim that video from Apple TV is 1080i. And in fact, as others stated, Apple itself does not claim anything of the sort.

And also, I think TV manufacturers really need to clarify what they are doing with their 1080i claims on 1366x768 sets.

I just spent some time

I just spent some time reading the Apple Specs site and they're pretty upfront. They support the 1080i TVs (so does my VCR) but the output is 720p at 24fps.

I'll wait for the next release, or get an xbox 360 elite.

"And when TV manufacturers

"And when TV manufacturers say that their 720p set can handle 1080i video, they are giving you a half truth. Only 1920x1080 resolution displays can display 1080i natively. All others must downscale."

That's exactly my point. These are the terms that the industry is working with. Apple is only following industry consensus. Whether all this is deceiving the public or not is beside the point. We must all use terms we can agree on.