1080p vs 720p comparison outside of resolution

OblivionLord

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
168
I'm not concerned about the visual difference from 720 to 1080 at a certain distance. My question is, if 1080p rips naturally have higher bitrates then wouldn't you see a quality difference just in that itself compared to the lower bitrates in 720 variants if both are done from the same group?

For instance...

A.Fistful.Of.Dollars.1964.1080p.BluRay.x264-CiNEFiLE
Video.......: x264 @ 10500 kbps

A.Fistful.Of.Dollars.1964.720p.BluRay.x264-CiNEFiLE
Video.......: x264 @ 5425 kbps
 
1080p has roughly twice the amount of pixels as 720p, therefore to keep the same compression level, twice the bitrate is needed (assuming same frame rate).

Therefore a 1080p 10500 kbps movie is compressed with approximately the same quality as a 720p 5425 kbps movie.
 
Unfortunately that's not quite correct.

It will depend on the material. A scene with a great deal of high frequency detail (e.g. forest with trees and leaves all moving in the wind) will require a large amount of bandwidth and 720p will look better than 1080p assuming similar bitrate. On the other hand, a scene with fewer large objects may show smoother, sharper edges at 1080p on a 1080 display than upconverted 720p of the same bitrate.
 
A scene with a great deal of high frequency detail (e.g. forest with trees and leaves all moving in the wind) will require a large amount of bandwidth and 720p will look better than 1080p assuming similar bitrate.
That's not correct either. It's a toss-up.

On one hand, the higher resolution of the 1080p version will look closer to the (1080p) source than a 720p version of the same bitrate as data is lost when you resize down.
 
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