2015-01-05, 20:40
Here's a question for you all, especially for anyone with a background in broadcast media.
Say I have an SD version of a programme, maybe a DVD rip. Along comes a friendly broadcaster and transmits an HD version of the same programme.
Which is better? I know 'it depends', because of bandwidth, compression level, CODEC, etc., but it seems to me that a 1080 H.264 OTA broadcast at maybe 10,000kb/s (i.e. about 4 to 5GB per hour filesize) feels like 'more information' than the original 2GB-per-hour MPEG-2 DVD rip.
Of course, where this really falls apart is if the original source material was SD. In that case, do the broadcasters upscale with a decent algorithm from a decent-quality source and then compress for broadcast? Which would theoretically look better, then - Kodi upscaling the DVD rip locally, or playing back an OTA recording of the same material via a decent HD channel?
(Lots of 'what ifs', I know... but my eyes tell me that OTA HD broadcast of SD material > Kodi SD upscaling > VLC SD upscaling).
Say I have an SD version of a programme, maybe a DVD rip. Along comes a friendly broadcaster and transmits an HD version of the same programme.
Which is better? I know 'it depends', because of bandwidth, compression level, CODEC, etc., but it seems to me that a 1080 H.264 OTA broadcast at maybe 10,000kb/s (i.e. about 4 to 5GB per hour filesize) feels like 'more information' than the original 2GB-per-hour MPEG-2 DVD rip.
Of course, where this really falls apart is if the original source material was SD. In that case, do the broadcasters upscale with a decent algorithm from a decent-quality source and then compress for broadcast? Which would theoretically look better, then - Kodi upscaling the DVD rip locally, or playing back an OTA recording of the same material via a decent HD channel?
(Lots of 'what ifs', I know... but my eyes tell me that OTA HD broadcast of SD material > Kodi SD upscaling > VLC SD upscaling).