While Blu-ray was the clear winner in an informal test of image quality for a rented HD movie on the Apple TV, Charles Starrett at iLounge was surprised at how good the Apple TV video was, given the constraints of the download process.

Mr. Starrett conducted a test with the movie Live Free or Die Hard on all four formats and viewed the results on a 40 inch Sony Bravia XBR4 HDTV with 1080p and 120 Hz support. The Apple TV rental was in HD as was the cable showing.

Identical scenes were extracted from the movie and compared.

"While the Blu-Ray version was the clear winner of the bunch, we were surprised by how well the Apple TV fared in comparison to the other formats we tested. Its [Apple TV] weakest performance was in the straight shot-for-shot resolution test, where we looked at how all four devices displayed a scene with fine details. Here, the Blu-Ray Disc�s image couldn’t be beat�it is capable of putting out a true 1080p (1920x1080, 2.0 Megapixels, 60fps) signal with the right source material, and with Die Hard, it had a clear edge on detail when viewed up close," Mr. Starrett noted.

"By comparison, the cable on-demand HD video displayed at 1080i (1920x1080, 2.0 Megapixels, 30fps), which made its output look very similar to the Blu-Ray when paused, and in some cases, better than Apple TV, for which HD videos are capped at 720p (1280x720, 0.9 Megapixels, 60fps), while DVDs run at 480p (720x480, 0.35 Megapixels) before upscaling. Each device was set up to let it make the most of its video signal on the Sony�s 1080p display. You can see the differences below�look to the people to see how finely they�re rendered by each device."

Within the limits of what can be presented on the Internet, the author showed identical scenes for each of the formats and made comparisons. They are nevertheless instructive to look at.

The bottom line is that purists will want to stay with the physical media of the Blu-ray. However, the Apple TV images stood up fairly well. "From where we stand, frequent and quality-sensitive video watchers will find Netflix or Blockbuster to be better month-to-month values for HD video rentals than Apple TV or on-demand cable services, while Apple TV provides an option that�s in the upper middle of the pack on quality and the best on convenience, so long as you�re willing to pay the $229-$329 cost of entry," the author concluded. "The question is: are you?"