Speaking about Compression ...

[Tom Bombadil]

I read that one of the on-line downloadable movie services was applying amazingly severe compression.

A movie that is 129 minutes long, is compressed into a downloadable file of 1.5GB. That's about 1/3rd of a DVD.

Amazon was promoting that their new service was a higher quality and cited this as an example. Their downloaded file of the same movie is 2.2GB.

I can't imagine how bad that 1.5GB movie would look when blown up on a HDTV set.

No wait, I could watch a Dish SD channel on my set and get a pretty good idea!

This era of digital TV is just not going the way I had hoped.

 

[GeorgeLV]

When not using a real-time encoder, mpeg4/vc1 etc, really does compress that much better than mpeg2. I archive captures from my pc hdtv tunder at quarter hdtv (640x352 for 720p, 960x540 for 1080i) and get quality better than most dvd transfers at 1.5 Mb/s.

 

[jgarrison]

Have you watched a properly encoded H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Video? Once you rip out all the other language tracks, DVD Extra's etc... 1.5 GB for two hours of footage can create a fairly decent picture.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I doubt I have seen the very best H.264 possible.

However I'd have to see it to believe it that a movie with a bit rate this low would look decent on my 47" TV. I have a DVD player that displays the bit rate and everytime it drops below around 3.0Mbps, the picture noticably deteriorates. And when it is lower than 2.5, it is irritating to watch.

Watching a movie streaming at 1.5 doesn't sound like an enjoyable experience to me.

 

[dfergie]

Try divx HD... PQ is amazing a 1 hour show takes 700mbs or so...

 

[skakusha]

I do that level of compression on my Mac Mini and watch it on my 60 inch Sony HDTV, via DVI to HDMI cable and it looks pretty good. It took me some practice on tweaking but it is up-converted to 720p via the computer and looks pretty good. If I am between 1.5 and 1.9 GBs, you can barely notice the difference. Closer to 2GBs you can tell any difference at all. I would assume they have much netter compression software then what the average consumer has.

 

[htguy]

Try divx HD... PQ is amazing a 1 hour show takes 700mbs or so...

For the size it is pretty darn good.

 

[retorq]

Who was the online service?? Have you guys ever checked out http://www.nubatv.com/?? I signed up there looong ago before I had an HTPC so I was never able to watch it over a fast connection hooked to my TV. Now I have dial up so there is no use. Some of thier stuff looked OK on the compute screen, not sure what kind of compression they are using or anything.


Edit: Nevermind, it looks like they went belly up.

 

[skakusha]

New iTunes Near Quality DVD Downloads

You might want to check the new iTunes offering at:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/

They are near quality DVD and 4x the old resolution at 640 x 480. I have also successfully streamed video over wireless to both Mac's and PC's without prejudice. The new interface is much improved and the movie downloads start playing within seconds.

Apple is also releasing iTV in 1st quarter of next year that will stream all media to your home theater.

Please note I am very pro-Mac but have a mixed environment and work for big blue, so I am somewhat objective in my testing and run WIndows MCE in my environment as well. Perhaps this will work for you.