720p or 1080p? Let us discuss

[Cuda1447]

Let's assume you are backing up your entire blu-ray collection and that it is rather large and will continue to grow. You normally playback the files via hard drive on a 52" 1080p capable tv. What format do you go with?


On one side, 1080p is the best quality, so why not preserve it? On the flip side though, 720p still looks great (do you even notice a difference?) and the file sizes will be much smaller enabling you to backup more movies before having to buy an external HD.


Which would you choose?

 

[Tweak155]

1080p. Storage is cheap - buy more if you need it. Never know when you'll upgrade that tv or get a nice big projector.

 

[abaez]

Uncompressed backup. There is no other choice.

 

[Skitzer]

I've got a 52" and I can definitely see a difference. If it was me I'd go with 1080. Besides, what does a hard drive cost now a days?

 

[Soundmanred]

1080p. Storage is cheap

 

[Gibsons]

720 if you're sure you'll be watching on 42" or smaller. Which you're not, so go 1080.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Let's assume you are backing up your entire blu-ray collection and that it is rather large and will continue to grow. You normally playback the files via hard drive on a 52" 1080p capable tv. What format do you go with?


On one side, 1080p is the best quality, so why not preserve it? On the flip side though, 720p still looks great (do you even notice a difference?) and the file sizes will be much smaller enabling you to backup more movies before having to buy an external HD.


Which would you choose?

1080p no question, also preserve the full audio and subtitles. As time passes TVs will continue to get better, and your video quality will be stuck at what you encoded it at. As Tweak155 said, storage is cheap and getting cheaper.
Oh, and on my 55 inch TV I can definitely tell the difference.

 

[FoBoT]

use the cloud

 

[Arkaign]

Depends on the film/content. For a lot of things, there really won't be any difference, or anything worth caring about (eg; something like 'Winter's Bone' or 'Inside Job'). For other things like effects-heavy action films, 1080p all the way. That way you're not wasting tons of space on uncompressed 1080p versions of movies where it just doesn't matter.

 

[Ghiedo27]

Considering how cheap HDD space is compared to the cost of the discs being backed up, there's no reason to be overly conservative. I'd encode 720p by default but favorites and the more visually oriented ones would be 1080p.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I've got a 52" and I can definitely see a difference. If it was me I'd go with 1080. Besides, what does a hard drive cost now a days?

Right, try this: Back up the same movie, something with a lot of action and dark scenes, in both 720 and 1080 and watch them both. You will see there is a pretty big difference.

 

[xanis]

I've got a 52" and I can definitely see a difference. If it was me I'd go with 1080. Besides, what does a hard drive cost now a days?

A quick Newegg search shows 500GB drives for $65 or less.

 

[SMOGZINN]

A quick Newegg search shows 500GB drives for $65 or less.

2 TB drives are as cheap as $79, you don't need a particularly fast drive to play back video.

 

[zerocool84]

A quick Newegg search shows 500GB drives for $65 or less.

$80 for 2TB WD Green drive

http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=22-136-514

 

[xanis]

$80 for 2TB WD Green drive

http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=22-136-514

Even better.

 

[SKORPI0]

$59.99 HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive at Newegg after $10 MIR.

1080p, can fit about 40 BD50 movies.

 

[zanejohnson]

1080p of course, storage will only get cheaper.

 

[sdifox]

hdd is cheap.

 

[Rifter]

use makeMKV to rip strait to MKV with ZERO compression. Full quality. Storage is cheap.

 

[Leros]

How much is a fully quality 720p or 1080p rip?

I know the compressed 720p movies that I download are about 6GB each.

 

[secretanchitman]

storage/hard drives are cheap and tvs are falling in price. 1080p or no go. if you buy a 42" tv or higher, it better be 1080p capable. anything under 42", 720p is fine.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

does it really have to be one or the other?

go 720p for movies you don't care as much about but make sure to go 1080p for the ones that you do want to have higher quality

Of course with 2TB drives averaging around $70 with an average good deal price you'd need quite a few blu-ray movies to really be concerned about saving space (2TB drive can easily hold ~50 movies uncompressed, ~150 even with excellent quality compression) that is unless you're planning on cramming everything into a shoebox HTPC

 

[0roo0roo]

It is a lot of effort either way, why reduce it to half resolution...

 

[DirkGently1]

Bit-Rate is the thing that matters here, not resolution. Do you need an exact copy @ 40Mb/s or will ripping it @ 10Mb/s suffice? Either pick a Bit-Rate that gives you the quality you are happy with, or go with a target file size instead.

 

[0roo0roo]

no, that is only at youtube bitrates. you have to starve 1080p pretty bad before it hits 720p quality, and then you are just doing it wrong in the first place.