HD Quality

[dataport]

Need help with some basic video conversion. I d/l a 1-hour TV show, MPEG-2 format. Convert it to MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 24fps, variable bit-rate, 3.3G file, 59 min. But when I play it via flash-drive through my LG/BR player, the video quality is nowhere close to HD. What format/settings do I need to use to get broadcast-type HD on my HD TV?

[hech54]

MPEG2 source will NEVER be "HD".....unless it started off with an astronomically high bitrate.

[LMotlow]

But when I play it via flash-drive through my LG/BR player, the video quality is nowhere close to HD.

It never will be. High definition means high resolution, not standard resolution blown up into a big frame.

You gave no information about the process you used to upscale that video, and no sample of what you're trying to work with. You can maybe get better results, but not without more info.

Don't your players and TV upscale for you? They can do better with hardware than you can with software. But I have a feeling you have a low quality source to start with.

[jagabo]

What format/settings do I need to use to get broadcast-type HD on my HD TV?

Start with HD broadcast resolution or better.

[Hoser Rob]

I think that the above are trying to say is that you cannot put information that isn't there by upscaling the resolution. In fact I don't think it's possible when converting to 1080p to actually get 1080p resolution without using at least 6Mb/sec bit rate. WHich makes for pretty large files.

[LMotlow]

O.P. said the original is 59-min MPEG at 3.3GB. That would be about a 6500kbps bitrate. Probably OK for standard definition, but not to work with for upscaling to full-height HD. Broadcast quality MPEG would be about 15000kbps. Would look better, but it still wouldn't look like 1920x1080 HD.

1920x1080 needss at least 10000kbps or it's a waste of time.

[poisondeathray]

O.P. said the original is 59-min MPEG at 3.3GB. That would be about a 6500kbps bitrate. Probably OK for standard definition, but not to work with for upscaling to full-height HD. Broadcast quality MPEG would be about 15000kbps. Would look better, but it still wouldn't look like 1920x1080 HD.

No, he converted it to that

1-hour TV show, MPEG-2 format. Convert it to MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 24fps, variable bit-rate, 3.3G file, 59 min.

He might have started with a 3840x2160 UHD 400Mb/s MPEG2 422 source.

But I doubt it

The only thing we know about the source is MPEG2, 1 hour. No mention of SD or HD dimensions, or bitrate

[LMotlow]

O.P. said the original was a download. Also said upscale to HD is a "basic" conversion.

I'm already worn out. I pass.

[poisondeathray]

O.P. said the original was a download. Also said upscale to HD is a "basic" conversion.

You can make that assumption that he's "upscaling", and it's probably a good one - but he doesn't actually say "upscale" anywhere . He might be downscaling from UHD ... but I doubt it

You can find sites where people distribute "raw" 1920x1080 high bitrate MPEG2 TV shows.

So some more info about the source file would be nice

[sophisticles]

As has been pointed out, we do not have enough information to conclude that this is an upscale, only that he downloaded a tv show in mpeg-2. Based on this I am guessing that the download is an ATSC capture, which can be up to 1920x1080 resolution. I think the problem starts with the quality of the capture and is then magnified when he encodes mpeg-4, which I'm taking to mean xvid.

Regardless, talking about piracy is against this forum's rules and so...

[KarMa]

MPEG2 source will NEVER be "HD".....unless it started off with an astronomically high bitrate.

Well the entire US broadcasts OTA in MPEG2, with a pixel height of either 480, 720, or 1080. Back when broadcasters were still on one channel per frequency, NBC, CBS, and other affiliates would use all +15Mbit on the one 1080i/720p channel and it would look great most of the time. But there has been slow move toward cannibalizing that bitrate for one or more sub channels, with some channels being more efficient with the sharing than others (constant vs variable). My local NBC station had been gradually dropping the bitrate on their main 1080i channel for years and then finally made the quiet move from 1080i to 720p in Jan 2017, with the main channel only getting ~6Mbit now and pretty noticeable quality loss.

[hech54]

This entire thread is why the term "HD" quickly devolved into complete bullshit electronics retailer sales jargon.

[dataport]

Nice discussion. I now see that it's the 'source' file that's critical. I just took a streamed MPEG-4/H.264 file and looked at it with Mediainfo: MPEG-4, AVC, 1280x640, 2195kbps. Converted it to MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 12000kbps. Put it on a flash-drive to play through a new LG/BR player via HDMI to a Pana HD TV. I couldn't really see that much difference in video quality after conversion vs. using the source file itself - which means (?) my hardware is doing the upscale?

I expected that a streamed MPEG-4 file would look like broadcast HD - but now realize there's a lot more to it.

[jagabo]

Virtually all players/TVs upscale or downscale automatically when playing full screen. Otherwise your DVDs would occupy less than a quarter of the screen.

And don't forget, some broadcast TV is 1280x720.

[LMotlow]

Nice discussion. I now see that it's the 'source' file that's critical. I just took a streamed MPEG-4/H.264 file and looked at it with Mediainfo: MPEG-4, AVC, 1280x640, 2195kbps. Converted it to MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 12000kbps. Put it on a flash-drive to play through a new LG/BR player via HDMI to a Pana HD TV. I couldn't really see that much difference in video quality after conversion vs. using the source file itself - which means (?) my hardware is doing the upscale?

Say you don't see a difference between an aspect ratio of 16:9 and 2:1? And there's no way a resize like that would display no quality difference.

[hello_hello]

Nice discussion. I now see that it's the 'source' file that's critical. I just took a streamed MPEG-4/H.264 file and looked at it with Mediainfo: MPEG-4, AVC, 1280x640, 2195kbps. Converted it to MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 12000kbps. Put it on a flash-drive to play through a new LG/BR player via HDMI to a Pana HD TV. I couldn't really see that much difference in video quality after conversion vs. using the source file itself - which means (?) my hardware is doing the upscale?

I expected that a streamed MPEG-4 file would look like broadcast HD - but now realize there's a lot more to it.

If the source was 1280x640 you probably should have encoded it that way instead of upscaling to 1920x1080, because you created a lot more pixels to encode without any extra picture detail. Let the TV/Player upscale to 1080p on playback.

Mind you 1280x640 and 1920x1080 aren't the same aspect ratio.
Assuming your source has square pixels and the resolution is the same as the aspect ratio (1280/640 = 2:1) the correct upscaling would be 1920x960, but there's no point in upscaling for encoding.