1080p video smackdown: iTunes vs. Blu-ray
Ars was recently able to conclude that the newly launched iTunes movies encoded in 1080p do, in fact, look better than the same content encoded in 720p, despite the modest increase in file size. That's good news for iTunes customers.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple spent years defending its 720p ceiling: CNET argued in September 2010 that the Apple TV isn't 1080p and you shouldn't care, and a July 2011 report suggested Apple was only testing a limited iTunes HD+ 1080p movie service. With this week's launch, the test became a product — and Ars put it to the same kind of head-to-head iLounge ran back in February 2008 when the Apple TV 2.0 went up against Blu-ray, DVD and HD cable.
The verdict matters because Blu-ray has been the quality benchmark since it won the high-definition disc format war, even as US household adoption stayed slow through 2009. If iTunes' 1080p encodes genuinely close the gap at a modest file-size penalty, the download store that already dominates music gains an argument against the disc that never found its audience.
First-order effects
- iTunes customers buying or upgrading to the new 1080p titles get a visible quality improvement over the 720p catalog at only a modest increase in file size, per Ars' comparison.
- Apple's own hardware story shifts: the 2010 position that 1080p on Apple TV wasn't worth caring about is now contradicted by Apple selling 1080p in its own store.
Second-order effects
- Blu-ray's remaining pitch to casual buyers — noticeably better picture than any download — narrows, putting more pressure on disc sales precisely where household adoption was already lagging.
- Studios gain a stronger digital storefront to price against discs, reinforcing the shift of new-release revenue toward iTunes-style downloads rather than shelf space.
Third-order effects
- If encode quality keeps closing the gap while file sizes stay manageable, the disc's last structural advantage erodes and home video consolidates around digital delivery — leaving broadband capacity and download limits, not disc formats, as the binding constraint.
- The pattern echoes the format war itself: the winner may be decided less by maximum fidelity than by which delivery channel consumers actually adopt, as happened when Blu-ray beat HD DVD but still struggled for living rooms.
The trend: Home video is migrating from optical disc to digital download, with each encoding bump — 720p to 1080p here — shrinking the quality gap that kept Blu-ray relevant.