iTunes re-encodings
I just installed the new iTunes version and with great satisfaction I saw that all episodes of newer TV series are now in 720 format: 1280×720 at 24fps (I won’t say 720p, because “progressive” correlates to 60 fps). Anyways, so far, so good.
But while I was browsing the catalog, I saw that the older TV series, like ‘Star Trek: Voyager’, have been resized too, but in an unfortunate way. Now, all 4:3 shows are 1280×960 instead of a more standard definition resolution. This is a waste of cpu cycles (my 3 GHz PC struggles with it), a waste of bandwidth, and a waste of screen space for no good reason. I would have much preferred the older 4:3 videos to be something more normal, like 640×480 or something, or 800×600 if AppleTV can upscale them. But 1280×960 for some shows that were even shot on video instead of film? This resolution brings nothing, it requires more cpu speed than a real widescreen video, and given that these are 10-year old shows, it amounts to ridiculous requirements! I have a 1680×1050 monitor, and I still find these videos ridiculously big.