Better quality at same bitrate: higher vs. lower resolution?

[pxstein]

Assume I want to rip/re-encode a Blue-Ray movie to a smaller video file (e.g. *.mkv or *.mp4).

The original movie has a resolution of something about 2560 * 1440.

I decide that a target bitrate of 2000 kbps should be sufficient for resulting video.

Ok so far.

Now I wonder which target resolution I should choose:
Leaving it at the original resolution or shrinking it to
1920*1080.

Keep in mind the bitrate is fix!

If I choose the bigger resolution then all the pixels would get a smaller portion of bits as content information. Therefore the quality per pixel would be worse than the quality per pixel in a smaller resolution.

So what is recommended in general:
Encode with more pixels (=resolution) in worse quality or less pixels (=resolution) in better quality (and expanding/scaling video later at watch time)?

Is there much difference at all?

[Baldrick]

2560x1440 blu-ray?

But why decide 2000kbps? I would use constant quality if you don't need an exact output file size.

[pxstein]

So forget the "BlueRay" and take some video source.
Furthermore it is not the question if it is 2000 CBR or 2000 VBR or 2076 kbits whatever.
Thse are only simplified assumptions.

The core question is still unanswered.

[Baldrick]

I would go with less pixels in better quality (less encoding artifacts like blocks).

[newpball]

Is there much difference at all?

If you go down to 2mb/s practically nothing will be left of your high definition source irrespective of how you transcode or how much you lower the resolution.

How anyone can find satisfaction in degrading high definition videos to that extent is totally beyond me.