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DVD download quality

post #1 of 13
11/1/07 at 4:00am
Thread Starter 
I see that Amazon is selling individual episodes of the TV series, House, MD. Anyone tried one of these? How does it look when played on a big screen TV compared to a DVD or a broadcast? Is the download compressed like music files or is it the same as the DVD?
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post #2 of 13
11/7/07 at 2:47pm
I've heard that if its the streaming version, the quality is... decent. Best quality comes from the vids that you can actually download to the desktop, and in that case they are AT LEAST DVD quality, usually better.
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post #3 of 13
11/12/07 at 3:05pm
DVDs are compressed via the MPEG-4 codec, btw.

My friend, who's a bit of a videophile/general geek, has downloaded some and he said that the quality was perfectly good.
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post #4 of 13
11/12/07 at 3:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Appleby View Post
DVDs are compressed via the MPEG-4 codec, btw.

My friend, who's a bit of a videophile/general geek, has downloaded some and he said that the quality was perfectly good.

Actually, DVD's native format is MPEG-2
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post #5 of 13
11/12/07 at 3:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sonick View Post
Actually, DVD's native format is MPEG-2
Correct - MPEG-4 is used for h.264, DivX, XviD.. It depends on what codec they're using for the Amazon shows. DivX, while generally regarded as "not quite as good" as a DVD MPEG-2, is also about a quarter of the size on average (given VBR vs. CBR, blah blah before someone tries to bust me hump) and perfectly acceptable viewing material.
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post #6 of 13
11/12/07 at 9:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kronik View Post
Correct - MPEG-4 is used for h.264, DivX, XviD..

It depends on what codec they're using for the Amazon shows. DivX, while generally regarded as "not quite as good" as a DVD MPEG-2, is also about a quarter of the size on average (given VBR vs. CBR, blah blah before someone tries to bust me hump) and perfectly acceptable viewing material.

It's not that it's not as good, people just over-compress. dvd mpeg2 is usually 4-8gb in size, depending on the movie. Divx tend to be 1.4gb at the most.
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post #7 of 13
11/13/07 at 1:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GQgeek View Post
It's not that it's not as good, people just over-compress. dvd mpeg2 is usually 4-8gb in size, depending on the movie. Divx tend to be 1.4gb at the most.

Not necessarily a matter of overcompression as it is the utility of the codec itself. While it is a more efficient codec than MPEG-2, if you were to try to preserve the integrity of the source DVD, you may as well just use the original because of diminishing returns. If studios were making discs from masters using DivX at its height, that'd be one thing.. but the codec propagated as it did due to its "use" and the spacial savings that it could offer. Transcoding will ultimately always result in quality loss, as minimal as it may be.
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post #8 of 13
11/14/07 at 6:40pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Appleby View Post
DVDs are compressed via the MPEG-4 codec, btw.

My friend, who's a bit of a videophile/general geek, has downloaded some and he said that the quality was perfectly good.

Perfectly good means indistinguishable from the DVD? What kind of system is he watching this on?

Just to be perfectly clear, I'm talking about programs you can buy and download on Amazon that you can also buy in the DVD format. I mentioned House as one example, but I'm sure there are many others.
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post #9 of 13
11/14/07 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hamlet View Post
Perfectly good means indistinguishable from the DVD? What kind of system is he watching this on?

Just to be perfectly clear, I'm talking about programs you can buy and download on Amazon that you can also buy in the DVD format. I mentioned House as one example, but I'm sure there are many others.

The quick and dirty answer is no, they will not be DVD quality - can you link to a page as an example? If it gives you information about how they stream / what they stream, I could better answer your question.
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post #10 of 13
11/15/07 at 2:48am
Thread Starter 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=atv_dp_series
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post #11 of 13
11/15/07 at 3:27am
They use MPEG-2 VC1 - no, it's not DVD quality though it's not unwatchable either. It, like Netflix, also requires Windows DRM.
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post #12 of 13
11/15/07 at 4:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kronik View Post
They use MPEG-2 VC1 - no, it's not DVD quality though it's not unwatchable either. It, like Netflix, also requires Windows DRM.

Thanks. So if I'm watching this download on a big screen what differences from the DVD will I notice?
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post #13 of 13
11/15/07 at 4:32am
Thread Starter 
And DVD is MPEG-2, right? So what is the technical difference with MPEG-2 VC1 used in the download? I assume the VC1 means video compression 1? How compressed is this?
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