[Dynalmadman]

Hi Guys,

I am running Kodi 14 on an Openelec/Kodi single boot setup on an Asus Chromebox. It works great. I have all my stuff stored on a networked 2TB NAS, works great too. I am watching on a relatively inexpensive 40" Magnavox 720p TV.

My question is regarding video quality. I have watched everything from 250mb mp4s to 7GB 1080 rips.

I am by no means a Videophile, but I was wondering where the visual quality line was. Obvioulsy, a 1GB (0r 2gb or 5gb) mkv looks better than the 250mb mp4, but where does the line stop, or start to get blurry?

Where do you guys set your desired rip size/type/etc? I realize everyone is different, but just want your opinions.

Thank you,
Michael

tl;dr What is your best compromise on file size vs video quality on a cheap 720p tv?

[.:B:.]

Viewing distance counts as well. Don't underestimate that.

[DJ_Izumi]

Peoples response to compression artifacts is actually a highly subjective thing so it varies person to person. Obviously there's a bottom rung where it looks like BeerGoggleVision to everyone and a top rung where it looks flawless to everyone, but where that 'good enough' mark is can't be determined since different people notice things differently.

[BeesKnees]

It also depends on the original. A less than desirable video can take up as much space as a good one.

I compress and de-interlace all movies at the highest quality. TV shows I rip a couple of episodes only de-interlaced, watch them, and adjust accordingly.

Your opinion and the opinion of anyone else in your home watching your media are the only opinions that matter.

[choekstr]

I store almost exclusively 720p content and try to keep bitrates around 2-3Mbps bitrate if at all possible and will often re-encode to ensure so. I find for the wife, friends, and family they can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p and at this bitrate it is hard to differentiate quality unless pixel peeping and freeze framing. This also results in around a 2GB filesize for 720p which is nice and economical on my fileserver.

A quick script to show all my bitrates and a brief pass through excel shows my average just under 3000Kbps. The highest bitrates on the chart around 6-7Mbps is the standard 4.7MB DVD disc size for those 720p movies that I just haven't re-encoded down to the 2GB filesize yet.

Vertical axis is Kbps. Horizontal axis is number of movies. Average is line in red.