Backed up movies with upconverting players

[hoops10]

I currently use 'The Big 3' (DoitFast4u, Scenaid and CCE) to backup the movies I own. So with most dvds, I am going from around 8 gigs in size to 4.35 gigs in size. On progressive scan dvd players, it is impossible to notice the difference in video quality between the 2. With upconverting dvd players being so popular, will backed up movies look worse than original dvds when being upconverted? At 480p, it might be impossible to see the difference, but what about at 720p or 1080i? Thanks.

[writersblock29]

I haven't noticed *much* of a difference in the majority of my encodes. This is viewing on a 50" HDTV. But of course there's a lot that gives your question an answer that is simple, yet at the same time complex: "It depends."

It depends on the quality of the backup. If you're the type that makes full backups -- keeping absolutely everything, including foreign language tracks that you don't use -- and the backup in question was from an original with tons of extras... then absolutely, you'll notice a difference. If you customize your backups to include only the stuff you're really interested in (if your original files have an overall running time of 2-3 hours, counting both extras and main feature, and you're not keeping all of the audio streams) and take care to optimize your encodes... then no, you most probably won't see much of a difference.

It depends on your monitor. If it's a smaller screen -- say, under 42" -- then artifacts will be harder to see, and therefore less noticeable. The larger the screen and better the components, artifacts hard to see on a smaller screen jump right out at you: They might as well be in 3D. I'm sure that an encode I find acceptable on a 50" HDTV might make me cringe if shown by projector on a large screen. Of course, I have found plenty of artifacts on many original disks, which will of course be faithfully duplicated on my backup... minus the consideration of using filters such as Undot and Deen.

Also consider that you can't add quality to an original: Your material is your material. Upconversion doesn't actually turn a DVD into true HD-quality. HDMI ports offer the ability to view the video stream as uncompressed -- which is something that not even component video can offer. With standard connections, an analog conversion must take place at the set-top, and that analog feed is then converted into the digital domain. Not so with HDMI, which keeps the signal digital from the get-go. The result is a noticably sharper picture.

Still other "up-converters" use the process of line doubling, which -- much like deinterlacing using a field doubler -- offer a smoother image by closing in the space between your lines of resolution, thus making them less noticable. However, you're not truly adding quality to the original material; you're just making it more pleasant to view.

Keep in mind that a lot of original studio disks will sometimes encode a two-hour movie to a size less than a 4.36GB recordable, then stuff the remaining space on a dual-layer disk with extras. This means that some original disks use much the same bitrate as you'd use for a movie-only backup (sometimes less -- right around the 2700-3000 range) and look fine. Using an encoder like CCE will certainly minimize the possibility that you'll notice much of a difference if your own encodes hover around this range. But I digress: It depends on the quality of the source.

Sorry for the very wordy reply... but "it all depends!" :)

[setarip_old]

@hoops10

Hi!

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=116797

Duplicate posts are not appreciated at these forums...