xvid & hdtv

[mikecfa]

Recently i've been backing up my dvds (using xvid) onto a large hard drive with the intent to get one of those wireless DARs and just stream the movies to my home theatre. However, after putting about 20 movies onto one of the drives I started thinking about the loss in quality if I get an HDTV. Can anyone offer some expertise in this area? The goal was to eliminate the need to mess with dvds and I also didn't want to get one of those 400 dvd changers. But the question is if I'm planning to watch these movies on my home entertainment system (instead of a computer monitor) how much quality am I losing? Thanks for any input.
mj

[manono]

Hi-

If you made them with decent quality and resolution to begin with, they'll look fine on an HDTV.

[mikecfa]

What is decent resolution to watch the movies on a tv. With AutoGK, i've been leaving the resolution settings at 'auto'. Should I change this setting to a certain fixed or minimum width?

[manono]

Hi-

By leaving them set to Auto, you can potentially wind up with just about any resolution, depending on the compressibility of the movie and the number of CDs you go for.

I like to make my wide screen XviD movies at 640*xxx, and they look very good on my 43" DLP HDTV. I do make quite a few of my full screen movies at 512x384, and although they won't get mistaken for the DVD, the quality is still quite acceptable to my eyes. Way better than anything on SD cable.

Since you're not burning to CD, you might try making a few Quality Mode 1-pass encodes at 75% or so. They should look great on an HDTV.

[mikecfa]

Hi -

I've been making the vids at 80% target quality with a fixed width of 640. If the "video info" within autogk says 720x480, is there any hurt, assuming file size is not an issue, to set a fixed width of 720?

[bassgoonist]

well, first off, to get a good quality at a high resolution you need a fairly large size. Secondly, a dvd has a height of no more than 480 pixels. So depending on if the dvd is full frame or wide screen you should set your width accordingly. Of course if you have it on auto and have a large file size it will probably do it at 100% the original size anyway.
On a side note, if you do get an hdtv make sure to get one with a 720p resolution, or if you're not ready for full hdtv 480p is good too, just watch out for i. I stands for interlaced p for progressive, progressive is far surperior despite its lower resolution.

[mikecfa]

bassgoonist, thank you for your comments, but I don't think the question was understood.

I'm running quality mode passes (not setting a file size) and the question was more to do with the idea that, if I increase the fixed width to 720, will an 80% target pass suffer? Should I increase the target % to make up for the increase in width, or should I just begin choosing maximum quality instead of target quality. The goal here is to archive my dvd collection on networked hard drives to stream the movies (using pinnacle's showcenter 1000g) to the entertainment center.

[manono]

Hi-

If you have decent quality at 640*xxx and 80%, you'll have the same quality at 720*xxx and 80%. The file size will increase accordingly. They should look even better, because of the higher resolution. There's no need to increase the quality percentage.

[bassgoonist]

OH! Well I don't have extensive work with hdtvs, but I think 100% quality looks better than 75% on a computer monitor which is similar to an hdtv. Also what about sound? AC3 would probably be the best.

[manono]

...but I think 100% quality looks better than 75% on a computer monitor ...

Yes, but wasn't your original question:

...and the question was more to do with the idea that, if I increase the fixed width to 720, will an 80% target pass suffer?

And the answer's still no.

Also what about sound? AC3 would probably be the best.

If the DVD has it, DTS is the best. If you're asking if AC3 is better than MP3, then yes.

[musicnyman]

i have a 61" DLP HDTV tv and use pinnacle showcenter to stream my xvid's converted from dvd to my tv/entertainment system. works perfectly. i usually do a 2 pass maxing at 1.4 gigs for each movie and i think they look great. sometimes, i'll use 1.9 gigs as the max if the movie is longer. keeping the same resolution as the dvd and also keeping ac3 channel.

[mikecfa]

manono,

Yes, the following was my original question:
"...and the question was more to do with the idea that, if I increase the fixed width to 720, will an 80% target pass suffer?"

but, these were not my comments, they were bassgoonist's:
"...but I think 100% quality looks better than 75% on a computer monitor ... "
as well as
"Also what about sound? AC3 would probably be the best."

mj

[manono]

but, these were not my comments, they were bassgoonist's

Doh! How right you are. My apologies to both you and to bassgoonist.