HDTV question

[greymammoth]

so i have an hdtv and have tons of avi movies. My xbox can finally play h.264 movies. my question is when encoded my avi movies should i set my output resolution/ratio to 1280x720 or should i keep using my standard 720x480 which i have been using for quite a while now.

any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

[edDV]

keep them as they are and let the TV do the upscale.

If you export 720x480 from the Xbox360, the TV will upscale to native display resolution.

If you export 1080i, the Xbox graphics chip will do the upscale.

[greymammoth]

thank you edDV for your help. is it still ok for me to set the aspect ratio as DVD 16:9 to upscale it at 720x480?

right now i'm just testing the same file at 720x480 and at 1280x528 to see if there will be a difference

[edDV]

Test the various connection options and see what looks best to you. Aspect ratio may need correction with the TV remote control. Let us know how it goes.

[greymammoth]

ok, so i've encoded the same file. one at 720x480 and the other at 1280x584 with h.264, and i don't see a noticeable difference in the quality of the videos. On my xbox it automatically resizes the video to fit the screen properly and there is little difference. the only difference is that one encoding takes an hour and the other took 3.5-4 hours.

just food for thought

[edDV]

ok, so i've encoded the same file. one at 720x480 and the other at 1280x584 with h.264, and i don't see a noticeable difference in the quality of the videos. On my xbox it automatically resizes the video to fit the screen properly and there is little difference. the only difference is that one encoding takes an hour and the other took 3.5-4 hours.

just food for thought

What was the resolution of the source file?
Will the Xbox360 play the wmv-hd demo files? What do they look like?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/hdvideo.aspx

[greymammoth]

hi ed,

the original source file was around 620x256. i'm also trying visualhub to see which one has better compression to quality rate.

regarding that link i don't think i can use that because i'm on a mac, though i would love to watch all my encoded movies with HD quality

[edDV]

hi ed,

the original source file was around 620x256. i'm also trying visualhub to see which one has better compression to quality rate.

regarding that link i don't think i can use that because i'm on a mac, though i would love to watch all my encoded movies with HD quality

There is no way encoding to a higher resolution is going to improve the quality. It just makes a larger file.

If it was a 1280x720/59.94 source file at 16Mb/s or up then it would look better.

[greymammoth]

that's what i figured afterwards. i'm fairly new to this, but i figure that would be the case. though i have not yet had the luck with dealing with a true HD file. i'm not sure if i ever will. Right now i'm just trying out various programs to see which ones have a better compression to speed rate, and so far visualhub seems nice.