Reducing dimension size

[rdeffley]

I know that it isn't considered true "HD" unless it has a 1280x720 or 1920x1080 dimension.

However, recently I did an experiment with the full 1080p blu ray collection of Breaking Bad in Handbreak (each ep was around 3GB raw). I reduced dimension to 624x352 which is technically considered SD 16;9. However, the smaller dimension size allowed me to use a much higher setting on constant quality. Instead of using 20-22, I was able to use 13.5. The end result was 500-600mb files that looked BEAUTIFUL and could easily pass for 720p quality wise. Also, the smaller dimension sped up encode speed considerably. So does "HD" always have to be defined by dimension size, or is picture quality all that matters?

[turk690]

So does "HD" always have to be defined by dimension size, or is picture quality all that matters?

Whether it looks awesome or otherwise, it isn't HD unless it's 1280x720 or 1920x1080 or more.

[rdeffley]

Well it's definitely the best "SD" I've ever seen. Haha

But seriously though, comparing it to 1280x720 footage, it looks pretty damn close. Maybe a tiny bit of difference. But it's really negligible.

[johns0]

Watch it on a big screen and you will see the difference in quality.

[johnmeyer]

You have permanently degraded your video by using this workflow. I don't doubt that it still looks pretty good, but if your original video was taken with a good HD camcorder, or if it was properly recorded from a true HD source, you will have lost a LOT of detail by downscaling. The up-scaler in your TV may do a nice job faking out some nice crisp edges, but you have lost detail that can never be recovered.

However, if you like it, then as the French say: À chacun son goût .

[Tom Saurus]

rdeffley: You should do an experimental encode with the 1280 x 720 dimensions with a constant quality of 20 and one at 18. Then take all three files, the one you encoded to 624x352, and the two 1280x720 ones put them on a portable hard drive or USB stick and play them on a Blu Ray player hooked up to a large screen TV with maybe a 40 inch or bigger screen then judge what is better. I use VidCoder for my encoding and it is based on Handbrake. It doesn't do any harm to experiment a little, you may find that the large dimension encodes, even though they may be a third bigger in MB or GB that is well worth it. If you backing up to Blu Ray if it takes a few more 25 GB Blu Ray discs, it probably would be well worth finding out what is best. Maybe back up your original rips so that you can use them in the future when a better container or codec comes out. Certainly there are going to be advances, h.265 is starting out and maybe it will live up to its potential. With 4K and 8K programing coming down the pike, unless someone had super duper fast Internet speeds and such there must be an advance in codec coming or some advancement in Internet Speeds. One must keep in mind as well that 100 GB Blu Ray discs are being introduced and once they are perfected they may be what hold 4K and 8K programs.