DVD to WDTV to HDTV

[tbordo]

OK. So I've been ripping DVDs in order to play them on a 52" HDTV via a Western Digital Media Player. I've been using Format Factory to rip them to the following specs: MKV, H264, 720x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 fps, 16:9 aspect ratio.

Well, they look great on my laptop but only so-so on the HDTV...which has a max resolution of 1080p.

My question is: what am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? I understand the "mechanical" aspects pretty well. What seems to be eluding me are the finer points of what settings to use to ensure that I'm getting the best picture possible. By this I mean: what settings should I be ripping the source DVDs to? What settings (if any) can I use to make sure the HDTV is upscaling (instead of shmearing the 720x480 file across a 1080p screen), etc.

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

[Vianty]

The best result would be not convert DVD at all. All the conversion makes result only worse. The player is capable to reproduce VOB files. Stick to VOB.

If you want good picture on HDTV you should switch to blu-ray.

[RdM642]

Why would you convert your DVDs? The Western Digital will DVD play and upscale pure iso rips or video_ts rps (vob). Why would you be converting and losing quality and wondering why they look "so so"? (not to mention wasting time). MKV are not better and even direct conversion to mkv can create problems

[tbordo]

I honestly had no idea the WDTV would play ISO files. I'm going to give that a try. Thanks!

[jagabo]

WDTV won't handle menus from DVD ISO or VIDEO_TS folders. It just plays the longest video. That may be fine for movies but for TV series you can't see each episode. You can rip those as single VOB or MPG files per episode.

[mh2360]

ISO files are a waste of HD space, since only the main movie will be available to watch. The WDTV can handle MKV files just fine (at least I've never had any problems), so I use MakeMKV to rip the main movie or episodes to MKV files with the original streams intact.

[tbordo]

I generally only rip the main movie anyway. So ISO would work. But I'm going to try MakeMKV as well and see how that goes.

As for TV shows: you can rip a TV DVD to one episode per ISO if you use something like DVDShrink.

[RabidDog]

How is your TV and wd connected?? HDMI is best even for SD formats , like DVD... Not composite leads, I hope. Best leave the disks as original (7gb+ iso) as I have just bought some Samsung shares.

[tbordo]

Well, the WDTV and the HDTV are connected via HDMI.

Now that I think about it, I guess my question is actually about upscaling.

For example, I rip a file to 720x480 and load it onto the WDTV which is set to output to 1080p. The max resolution of the HDTV is 1080p. Soooo...is the file still being displayed at 720x480 but stretched out over a screen with a 1080p resolution? Obviously, that would reduce the sharpness of the picture.

If that's the case, would it then be necessary to rip the file to a higher resolution?

[lowellriggsiam]

Everybody likes to point out that the WDTV plays iso files minus the menu, but seldom does anyone say that the newer Segate Freeagent Theater+ does play them menu and all.

[jagabo]

For example, I rip a file to 720x480 and load it onto the WDTV which is set to output to 1080p. The max resolution of the HDTV is 1080p. Soooo...is the file still being displayed at 720x480 but stretched out over a screen with a 1080p resolution?

Yes. The WDTV's upscaler is decent for progressive material. You can try setting the WDTV's output to 480p and letting the TV upscale to see which does a better job.

Obviously, that would reduce the sharpness of the picture. If that's the case, would it then be necessary to rip the file to a higher resolution?

You might be able to do a better job than the TV by upscaling in software. But then you'll need a higher bitrate. And encoding again with a lossy codec will further reduce the quality. It's usually best to leave the DVD video as-is. Nothing is going to turn an SD video into true HD.

[TBoneit]

720x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 fps

720 by 480 @ 25FPS? Won't your TV play 24FPS or 29.97FPS
1200 Bitrate seems low to me

[RabidDog]

"seldom does anyone buy the newer Segate Freeagent Theater+"

[cal_tony]

"seldom does anyone buy the newer Segate Freeagent Theater+"

There are 3 versions of the Seagate player. The first version did not have HDMI the next 2 versions do and both of them play with menus. I bought my WD first. It was so limited in features that I bought a Seagate a month later. I use the Seagate more often because of the additional features but both seem to play just about anything with equal quality.

I don't know about the sales for either product, but since they are priced about the same, the Seagate provides more value.

Tony

[RdM642]

ISO files are a waste of HD space, since only the main movie will be available to watch. The WDTV can handle MKV files just fine (at least I've never had any problems), so I use MakeMKV to rip the main movie or episodes to MKV files with the original streams intact.

what makes you think the ISO has to have all the junk on it? My iso are the way they have been since I first used dvdshrink when it came out: main movie reauthor, with subs and audio tracks I want, credits cropped (all that stuff is on imdb anyway). if it is over dvdr capacity, whcih I find is rare, I have always split it to two disks.

no different ripping titles to separate is or video ts files with shring than makemkv. and you do not intricue the problems, even without recoding, that makemkv can introduce. I use mkv only for BD rips.

And it looks like most fo the media players will be able to deal with menus. If you keep them almost all the media plaeyrs except WD can use them, your pc software based players can, and as it is the number one request feature on WD it is possible WD will put in some kind of menu support fairly soon.