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downloaded video quality question

dudeofblokes

dudeofblokes

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 3, 2007
237
7
carrickfergus, northern ireland, united kingdom
hi im sure this has been asked before but im curious about apple tv and the quaity of videos it would display if for example say a episode off smallville is downloaded at 338mb how would this display on a large tv? or a film like the free star wreck movie which is a 699mb torrent.

im sure there must be a strong degrade when displayed over large tvs mine in question is a 50" but im curious how quality would be strtch this big over even over my 28" tv
 
The 338MB and 699MB suggest, that the files are in SD (720 x 576 - PAL / 720 x 480 - NTSC).
If you have an HD TV, you will see some degradation, but you will be several decimetres away, so it shouldn't bother you that much.

Modern MPEG-4 codecs are able to deliver stunning images while the video is compressed like an egg with a brick on it. Most 350MB or 700MB videos you can download look more than okay, if the encoding was properly administered.
 
In my experience the SD download files look just fine on my 1080p 42" LCD TV. There are a few exceptions, though, with a few TV shows I've gotten where the encoding wasn't as good as it was for other shows. If you look carefully in skies and other featureless places you can sometimes see a little bit of compression artifacts. The HD files I've gotten from iTunes have been just fine on the TV and usually look very crisp. Not that I would mind if they upped to 1080p files and updated the Apple TV... :)
 
dudeofblokes said:
hi im sure this has been asked before but im curious about apple tv and the quaity of videos it would display if for example say a episode off smallville is downloaded at 338mb how would this display on a large tv? or a film like the free star wreck movie which is a 699mb torrent.

im sure there must be a strong degrade when displayed over large tvs mine in question is a 50" but im curious how quality would be strtch this big over even over my 28" tv
Click to expand...
Um, not familiar with these titles but those are quite small file size / bitrate wise for a feature length film (typically about 1.5 hrs give or take). So unless the person encoded it really knew what they were doing I would suggest the quality would be sub sd dvd at least stretched across say a 42" + tv.
 
dynaflash said:
Um, not familiar with these titles but those are quite small file size / bitrate wise for a feature length film (typically about 1.5 hrs give or take). So unless the person encoded it really knew what they were doing I would suggest the quality would be sub sd dvd at least stretched across say a 42" + tv.
Click to expand...

An episode of Smallville is probably around 40 minutes, Star Wreck us about 100 minutes.
 
OP you will see some degradation, but unless you are an extreme videophile you will not care much, even on a 50" screen. I've placed my entire DVD movie and TV collection in digital format and it's the BEST decision I've ever made in my home theater setup.
 
though of course dvd collections are in the 4 - 8 GB range for source. The Op is talking much less as far as source bitrate. Big diff.
 
spinnerlys said:
That's why you can transcode the MPEG-2 encoded video to MPE-4 encoded video via Handbrake.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I am somewhat familiar with HB. But even HB can not make more from the source than originally existed. Those are low bitrate sources given their length. HB is lossy. so it will only get worse quality wise.
 
the-oz-man said:
OP you will see some degradation, but unless you are an extreme videophile you will not care much, even on a 50" screen. I've placed my entire DVD movie and TV collection in digital format and it's the BEST decision I've ever made in my home theater setup.
Click to expand...

awesome i expect some degradation was just worried about too much of a difference thats all
 
dynaflash said:
Agreed. I am somewhat familiar with HB. But even HB can not make more from the source than originally existed. Those are low bitrate sources given their length. HB is lossy. so it will only get worse quality wise.
Click to expand...

It is lossy, but you hardly see it. MPEG-2 is just an inefficient video codec when it comes to space (up to 1MB/s), MPEG-4 just takes better care of its bitrates. I have transcoded some video DVDs in my time and used the Divx or H264 codec with data rates of up to 1.5Mbit/s and the resulting video was more than acceptable, I could hardly see a difference to the source (which is crappy anyway).
 
But the point is the OP's example source are considerably less than sd dvd quality. So to say that your hb transcoded dvd sources scale well to a 50" tv is erroneous in respect to the ops original question. I have done this. The OP will notice artifacts in my opinion. Objectionable ? I can not say as that is up to the individual and his/her tolerance for quality. Thats about it and as true as the sun coming up tomorrow.
 
Is your TV a 50" or 28"? I am confused.

I have a calibrated 50" Panasonic plasma and most SD DVD's look bad. They show pixelation, artifacts, and banding.

I've done a couple digital downloads for my kids and have experienced similar symptoms with even the HD downloads.

The file sizes you mention for full length shows seems rather low. As others mentioned, you may see issues on a bigger screen. Smaller screen seem to hide some of these due to smaller pixels.

So, I think they are probably not high quality and you will see video quality issues, but based on your tolerance, you may not notice. I am very into both audio and video so the my standard is set very high... Blu-ray quality high. :D
 
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