Another dumb question - formats of TV shows

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geekIT

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#56970 30-Jan-2010 10:07

Not sure what's on offer when downloadable TV movies are variously described as:

1) HDTV
2) 720p.x264
3) Bluray
4) Bluray 720p
5) HDTV Xvid-FQM
6) Xvid-SYS
6) MKV 150MB

These files will all be played through a computer onto a Bravia TV.

I'd like to get the best possible results and I guess that the bigger files must be higher definition. But Bluray? Does that description mean that the resultant movie file can only be played through a Bluray player?

Confusing....

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Mad Scientist
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#294613 30-Jan-2010 12:18

i doubt you'll be allowed an answer on this forum as they're all illegal?

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d0tn3t

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#294624 30-Jan-2010 12:59

geekIT: Not sure what's on offer when downloadable TV movies are variously described as:

1) HDTV
2) 720p.x264
3) Bluray
4) Bluray 720p
5) HDTV Xvid-FQM
6) Xvid-SYS
6) MKV 150MB

These files will all be played through a computer onto a Bravia TV.

I'd like to get the best possible results and I guess that the bigger files must be higher definition. But Bluray? Does that description mean that the resultant movie file can only be played through a Bluray player?

Confusing....

1)HDTV can often just mean that it has been taken from an HDTV source, and it may actually be encoded at an SD resolution.
2)This is often the format used for BD rips, usually in MKV format
3)Taken from a Bluray, but maybe encoded at SD resolution which is common now.
4)Taken from Bluray but 720P so perhaps scaled down from 1080 for filesize reasons
5)? Maybe an SD rip of a TV show from an HD channel
6)Probably SD
7)MKV file which is usually only used for HD rips, but 150mb? not sure

All of these can be played using VLC player. Most modern TVs, LG and Samsung will play HD MKV native off a USB too (except for DTS sound).

geekIT

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#294800 31-Jan-2010 09:54

Beats my why joker97 thinks these movies of my Aunty Betty's grandaughter's christening would be illegal...Must have a guilty conscience :-)

Anyway, d03nt3 has answered my question, thanks m8 :-) BTW, when you say.."SD", I assume you mean 'Standard Definition'?

Interesting, I downloaded two copies of one of Aunty Betty's movies, one unpacked to a 550MB .avi and the other unpacked to a 1.5GB .mkv (which I now understand is a Matroska file). Both played through my home-built mediapc using VLC player, but the 1.5GB file, while a slightly better video quality, was quite jerky in playback. I guess it might have been beyond the handling ability of my pc. Still, the 550MB was copy was perfectly adequate, in fact much improved over our regular TV reception, as we don't subscribe to Sky's overpriced HDTV.

So I might tell Aunty Betty to just encode her home movies into the simpler format :-)

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robjg63

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#294833 31-Jan-2010 11:24

Your best bet is to do a wikipedia on the different formats :-)
Nut d0tn3t has given you a pretty good answer.

It is a bit complicated when you first start looking at these.

If you have a PC connected to your TV, pretty much all these can be played back with the right codecs and grunty enough hardware. You also have the whole 24fps/25fps thing. Some TVs apparently dont like source with 25 frames per second (or is it 24) and go a bit jerky on it. Movies typically get filmed at one rate and TV is filmed at the other )or something like that - do a google on this and you will see lots of moaning and groaning.

Generally - the bigger files would be expected to be a bit better picture quality - though again that depends on the codec - some are better than others. And sometimes the notes people make just indicate the source that were ripped from.

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richms

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#294926 31-Jan-2010 16:05

most of aunt bettys home movies are 24FPS, as they have been delinterlaces and de tele-cyned from a 1080i 60fps that was made from a film or a 1080p24 camera to simulate film.

playing 24fps on 25fps pal sucks, its also bad if you have a 50Hz HDMI output to the tv. best change the computer to output 24fps when playing those home movies like that, and to 50 or 60 as appropriate when playing anything that has that as a native format.

Not aware of any media players that will shift resolution for you as needed like most hardware playback devices will.

Richard rich.ms

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#294974 31-Jan-2010 17:54

I wish my Panasonic DVD Recorder could play those high quality mkv files! It does xvid/divx only unfortunately.

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geekIT

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#294986 31-Jan-2010 19:30

So if I converted Aunty Betty's mkv files to regular dvd (with say, ConvertX2DVD) then burnt them to DVD, then played them in a regular DVD player, I'd probably get a better result?

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richms

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#295005 31-Jan-2010 21:14

no because DVD is interlaced standard definition, go get yourself a decent media player and play them on that. DVD is about the worst format you can use because its a really old codec with low res interlaced video on it.

THats like saying can I put this on a VHS tape and then play it to get a better result?

Richard rich.ms

geekIT

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#295010 31-Jan-2010 21:40

So you're saying that you can't convert a matroska file to a format that will play on a DVD, without losing quality?

'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' Voltaire

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Damager

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#295041 31-Jan-2010 23:41

geekIT: So you're saying that you can't convert a matroska file to a format that will play on a DVD, without losing quality?

Yes and then some.

Many of the mkv format files have high resolutions eg 1280 x 720. DVD full resolution is 720 X 540 or something very similar.

This is a huge quality drop.

richms

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#295071 1-Feb-2010 04:02

geekIT: So you're saying that you can't convert a matroska file to a format that will play on a DVD, without losing quality?

Exactly. DVD is a very dated format. It basically was made to support the 2 standard definition broadcast resolution and framerates and nothing else. It has non square pixels, and the chroma subsampling and interlace gives it terrible colour resolution.

Even a crap downloadeded "home movie" that is downsized to half 720p in h264 will look a lot worse when dumbed down to dvd.

Richard rich.ms

geekIT

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#295155 1-Feb-2010 12:16

OK, I think I get it. So the reason that my home-built media PC was faltering with the 1.5GB mkv file but not with the identical-content 550MB avi, was that my pc isn't grunty enuff?

Another weak aspect of my media pc is that it doesn't have a separate sound card. Its output to the TV is just a regular computer speaker cable, so I guess I'm missing a lot of the multi-channel info that might be contained in the mkv file?

'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' Voltaire

'A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.' Edward Abbey

richms

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#295186 1-Feb-2010 14:49

if its going to the tv, then what multichannel? You need a multichannel receiver to get that going on, and mulitple speakers too.

What graphics card is in the machine? most do h264 acceleration now, but it can take some messing with the codecs to get it working. Dont waste your time on VLC if you want HD playback, go get media player classic home cinema edition and have a shot, after making sure you have the latest videocard drivers installed. Even on the cards that dont say they do h.264 like my junk quadro fx it is pretty good with the latest nvidia drivers and MPC HC on 1080 stuff.

Richard rich.ms

geekIT

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#295216 1-Feb-2010 16:46

Sorry, richms, I should have been more explicit. My rig is set up so that I can use either the TV's inbuilt speakers or route the sound back through my Sony STR DA 1200ES receiver.

But I would have thought that, if the sound is leaving the PC via a simple computer speaker cable, then routing it through the Sony isn't going to improve it much. As I said, maybe I need to install a sound card into the PC and take its output direct to one of the spare inputs on the Sony.

I've had another thought about the PC not handling the mkv files too well; maybe the PC just needs some additional codecs. The graphics card is an AGP Powercolor Radeon HD3850, and while it's not state of the art, it's not too bad with games like Oblivion, so maybe better codecs might help? I think the Radeon drivers were the latest when I installed the card about 8 months ago, but I always find it difficult to get the right stuff for those cards; they're a different ballgame from NVidia....

'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' Voltaire

'A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.' Edward Abbey

richms

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#295234 1-Feb-2010 17:43

well they yeah, HDMI or 3 pairs of RCA cables to the reciver is the way to go for multichannel.

Forget bitstreaming stuff over spdif - too many issues with the newer codecs and having to change stuff between media IMO.

Richard rich.ms

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