Lower Rez/Higher Bit Rate vs Higher Rez/Lower Bit Rate

[catinhat2000]

I am curious if people have opinions on the following -- encoding at a lower resolution (e.g. 576x320) and higher bit rate, or at higher resolution (e.g. 720x480) with a lower bit rate. Assuming the same file size and watching on a 1080p TV.

I totally understand each source is different and everyone has different opinions -- I'm just curious what people have found.

Thanks!

[dat720]

My Preference is higher res... higher bitrate...

Quality over Size, if a movie is 720 pixels wide i never resize lower, plain and simple, same with the height, i never resize smaller but i do crop the borders.

[Blue_MiSfit]

If you're targeting a bitrate that's low enough to require resizing, and are planning on watching the content on a 1080p TV, you should really re-consider your goals :)

Most SD is so bad (especially widescreen content letterboxed to 4:3), you really need to keep every damned pixel!!

Don't reduce resolution. Increase bitrate. Don't encode a bunch of craptacular movies that will look terrible on your nice HDTV because you "wanted to fit them in 700mb each" or some other outdated notion. Hard drive storage is cheap!!

On that note, look into CRF encoding with x264 ;)

~MiSfit

[dat720]

Blue_MiSfit is right, your talking about viewing content that is 720x480 and playing back on a display that is capable of 1920x1080 pixels, i'd want every single pixel i could get my hands on!!!!

700mb movies are evil!!!! unless they are a 16/9 Low Action movie, then they can be ok.... Action movies at 700mb gernally look like garbage!

[manono]

I am curious if people have opinions on the following -- encoding at a lower resolution (e.g. 576x320) and higher bit rate, or at higher resolution (e.g. 720x480) with a lower bit rate. Assuming the same file size and watching on a 1080p TV.

As bitrate is directly proportional to file size, the whole basis for your question is flawed. What idiot would want to use a lower bitrate with a higher resolution?

[jmartinr]

@catinhat2000
You might take a look at this post http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=140704, where one video is encoded in a few different resolutions.

The outcome was more or less: do not downscale.