Streaming Bits: Hulu’s Player Grows 55%, Cablevision Launches HBO Go, Amazon Signs Discovery Deal, iTunes 1080p Almost As Good As Blu-Ray
Watching movies on your computer has long been a convenient option that comes at the cost of quality. But as Hulu’s video player gets a size upgrade and iTunes launches 1080p videos, digital media is looking better and better. After the jump:
The redesign isn’t without its downsides, however. The “Dim the Lights” feature has been cut entirely, and some users have complained about the difficulty of accessing the “pop out” button (you now have to hit the “more” button to find it). Still, as a frequent Hulu user, I’d say this is a win for the site overall. [Venture Beat]
Now you actually can live every week like it’s Shark Week. Over the next few weeks, Amazon Instant Video will be rolling out almost 3,000 new titles from Discovery Communications, thanks to a new deal between the two companies that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos calls “the biggest addition yet” to Amazon’s catalog. The agreement covers shows from Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science, and the Military Channel, such asDirty Jobs,Say Yes to the Dress,Cake Boss,Mythbusters, and yes, Shark Week.
While Blu-ray unquestionably remains the ideal format for home video, it’s not always as convenient as one might hope. On the flip side, while downloading or streaming an iTunes video is about as easy as it gets, the quality often isn’t up to par. But as digital media improves, that gap is closing, and with the launch of iTunes' new 1080p videos, it’s now narrower than ever.
To find out just how much difference a disc makes, Ars Technica recently decided to do a side-by-side comparison between a Blu-ray of30 Days of Nightand an iTunes 1080p digital copy of the same film. Unsurprisingly, Blu-ray won out in the end — but iTunes turned out to be a closer competitor than you might expect:
I was surprised to see how close the iTunes 1080p download comes to Blu-ray, considering that it’s only a fraction of the file size. And let’s be honest: there are lots of Blu-ray titles that look much worse than this iTunes download. But despite an impressive effort by Apple, Blu-ray still reigns king when it comes to image quality. And unlike iTunes titles, BRDs can have uncompressed multi-channel audio, multiple audio language options, and special features. Am I being greedy in wanting both good-looking downloads for convenience, as well as buy-once-play-anywhere Blu-ray discs of my all-time favorite movies?
See the difference for yourself below:
That’s iTunes on the left, and Blu-ray on the right.
There’s no point in throwing your Blu-rays out the window just yet, especially since Blu-ray still handily beats 1080p video when it comes to audio. But given how difficult it is to really spot the differences between the two images above, I’d think all but the nitpickiest cinephiles would happily turn to iTunes in a pinch. [viaCult of Mac]
