• AnyStream is having some DRM issues currently, Netflix is not available in HD for the time being.
    Situations like this will always happen with AnyStream: streaming providers are continuously improving their countermeasures while we try to catch up, it's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Please be patient and don't flood our support or forum with requests, we are working on it 24/7 to get it resolved. Thank you.

Discussion Best Resolution to Choose for SD TV shows on Amazon?

J

Jason90405

Well-Known Member
Thread Starter
Joined
Nov 11, 2022
Messages
65
Likes
16
I am interested in getting the classic comedy TV show Kids in the Hall on Amazon's Freevee.

I see that AnyStreams shows full 1080p version is available but that would literally be total waste of space for this Standard Definition NTSC TV show.

What's the ideal resolution to choose to have lossless versions at the most compact size?
 
That depends which one looks acceptable to you.
The Quality can differ from show to show.
Try to download some resolutions and compare directly
 
You can downscale that from 1080p to 720p with many converting programs.;)
 
Jason90405 said:
I am interested in getting the classic comedy TV show Kids in the Hall on Amazon's Freevee.

I see that AnyStreams shows full 1080p version is available but that would literally be total waste of space for this Standard Definition NTSC TV show.

What's the ideal resolution to choose to have lossless versions at the most compact size?
Click to expand...
It really varies with the show.

The Star Trek original series looked OK in 480p, but the color and detail in the 1080p version was much better. The Gunsmoke series is only at 480p, but the detail on the whole series is very good, and would probably be a waste of time and disc space to try to improve it. The Home Improvement series is only on DVD at 480p but the video is very bad. It is blurry and the detail is horrible. There is no better version to be found, so I am having to run them through an enhancer to make them viewable.

Long story short, it really depends on your preferences and the quality of the video.
 
Jason90405 said:
I am interested in getting the classic comedy TV show Kids in the Hall on Amazon's Freevee.
I see that AnyStreams shows full 1080p version is available but that would literally be total waste of space for this Standard Definition NTSC TV show.
What's the ideal resolution to choose to have lossless versions at the most compact size?
Click to expand...

since you now have a whopping 500 tokens, give each resolution a try. if it is an SD show, dont go lower than 576/480p. if 720p and 1080p are available, go for s01e01 (usually first seasons have the crappiest cameras and production, so i tend to use those for testing, although a lot depends on how good of a job provider did when transferring/encoding as well). try all four resolutions. thats measly 4 tokens. and it takes a few minutes each. then, skim through each in your preferred video player and decide which has the best balance between filesize and picture quality. rule of thumb is: if show has not been remastered, expect literally anything... from really bad (mad about you, newsradio, will and grace) to meeeh (roseanne, 3rd rock from the sun). if the show has been remastered, prepare to be wow'd (dynasty, the nanny, the virginian).

that being said, it is pointless to have the virginian in 1080p since each episode is around 4-5gb, there are 30 episodes per season and like, IIRC, 8 seasons? i am picky, but not 800gb for one show picky, lol. so, 720p is the next solution. thats about half of the 1080p. i went with 540p, it is still a few hundred gigs (ok, maybe lower 100s) and, since it has been remastered, still looks decent. also, when it comes to SD shows expect streched 4:3 AR, aliasing, weird motion artefacts (only fools and horses on britbox via AP, prime example when the camera pans... a tragic transfer from analog to digital, britbox should be ashamed of themselves, and to add insult to injuty the show is available in 1080p, lol). but those usually are not reserved for remastered SD shows, but rather the nonremastered ones.

lesson for the day: streaming providers get away with literal murder (3rd rock, frasier, will and grace, only fools and horses) and should be put to shame for providing ridiculously bad transfers of iconic sitcoms etc. on the other hand, streaming providers do a very good job. so, its a gamble. but, i for one will never forgive nor forget what britbox did to only fools. quality dvdrips look better, and i am hoping the... khm... linux distro groups will do an AI enhance of the show, like they did with 3rd rock. oh, btw... frasier is now available on bluray, so fingers crossed streaming providers update their versions.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. cheers!
 
zanetti said:
since you now have a whopping 500 tokens, give each resolution a try. if it is an SD show, dont go lower than 576/480p. if 720p and 1080p are available, go for s01e01 (usually first seasons have the crappiest cameras and production, so i tend to use those for testing, although a lot depends on how good of a job provider did when transferring/encoding as well). try all four resolutions. thats measly 4 tokens. and it takes a few minutes each. then, skim through each in your preferred video player and decide which has the best balance between filesize and picture quality. rule of thumb is: if show has not been remastered, expect literally anything... from really bad (mad about you, newsradio, will and grace) to meeeh (roseanne, 3rd rock from the sun). if the show has been remastered, prepare to be wow'd (dynasty, the nanny, the virginian).

that being said, it is pointless to have the virginian in 1080p since each episode is around 4-5gb, there are 30 episodes per season and like, IIRC, 8 seasons? i am picky, but not 800gb for one show picky, lol. so, 720p is the next solution. thats about half of the 1080p. i went with 540p, it is still a few hundred gigs (ok, maybe lower 100s) and, since it has been remastered, still looks decent. also, when it comes to SD shows expect streched 4:3 AR, aliasing, weird motion artefacts (only fools and horses on britbox via AP, prime example when the camera pans... a tragic transfer from analog to digital, britbox should be ashamed of themselves, and to add insult to injuty the show is available in 1080p, lol). but those usually are not reserved for remastered SD shows, but rather the nonremastered ones.

lesson for the day: streaming providers get away with literal murder (3rd rock, frasier, will and grace, only fools and horses) and should be put to shame for providing ridiculously bad transfers of iconic sitcoms etc. on the other hand, streaming providers do a very good job. so, its a gamble. but, i for one will never forgive nor forget what britbox did to only fools. quality dvdrips look better, and i am hoping the... khm... linux distro groups will do an AI enhance of the show, like they did with 3rd rock. oh, btw... frasier is now available on bluray, so fingers crossed streaming providers update their versions.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. cheers!
Click to expand...

Did you know when the Virginian premiered on Starz in 1080p....they were 7-8gb's an episode?
Frasier rips are also 4-5gb's...
 
I would never go lower than 480p as that is the resolution of old DVDs, not Bluray.;)
 
Also each streamer seems to have difference source materials.

Did you know the original episodes of @WillAndGrace the widescreen episodes starts on Season 3 on @roku
Ep2 of Season 5 on @PrimeVideo
and Ep 10 of Season 7 on @hulu

Most of SD episodes on Hulu has a fuzzy/out of focus center spot. Such issue isn't on the Amazon and Roku.

I wonder why some old series get HD remaster (like Friends, MASH) and some don't.
 
Jason90405 said:
Also each streamer seems to have difference source materials.

Did you know the original episodes of @WillAndGrace the widescreen episodes starts on Season 3 on @roku
Ep2 of Season 5 on @PrimeVideo
and Ep 10 of Season 7 on @hulu

Most of SD episodes on Hulu has a fuzzy/out of focus center spot. Such issue isn't on the Amazon and Roku.

I wonder why some old series get HD remasters (like Friends, MASH) and some don't.
Click to expand...
To be blunt some old series arent worth the money to remaster, even if some people like them its not a good investment for the studios. It is called marketing analytics.;)
 
mmdavis said:
The Gunsmoke series is only at 480p, but the detail on the whole series is very good, and would probably be a waste of time and disc space to try to improve it.
Click to expand...

Gunsmoke looks much better in high definition. Pluto TV has seasons 7-20 in 720p, and Paramount+ has almost all of seasons 7-20 in 1080p on YouTube (but only seasons 7 and 8 on their site, and none through Amazon, strangely). The rest may be in HD on INSP.
 
Sodium Hypobromite said:
Maybe they used the same high-bitrate files that were used for the German Blu-rays.
Click to expand...
Yeah...they were definitely from the masters....but very unusual to see an older series broadcast in such a high quality.

Germany has a couple very good companies that produce high quality releases.
 
A number of elusive classic shows still sit in network or studio warehouses in videotape format, some only in “syndicated versions” which lop off several minutes to fit it more ads. Some were made with second or third generation copies of the master and show it. With so many studio ownership changes, it is not unusual for shows you watched on NBC to be distributed today by CBS and vice-versa. As studios and networks develop their own in-house streaming services, they are paying more attention to quality and are doing at least rudimentary restoration work or finding better source copies (or the masters if they can find them) on a growing number of titles. Previously, they treated outside DVD sellers that licensed their material or other streaming services like crap unless they were willing to pay the much higher costs to access the masters, assuming the studio can locate them (you could pay them to search believe it or not). If you look at reviews of some of the DVD box sets of older CBS shows like Cannon (1970s detective series) many trashed the release because video and audio quality was uneven or poor. Taking a closer look, it was obvious the studio provided the folks working on the DVDs a mix of episodes taken from second generation videotape, episodes recut for syndication and sent out on film to TV stations that aired them in the late 70s or early 80z, and a few that literally looked like home VHS copies (very low resolution, compressed sound). Nobody bothered to clean these up. Sometimes the end credits were in such lousy shape, they just borrowed end credits from another episode (!) and slapped them on.

The two things that are changing the decrepit state of a lot of classic TV titles being re-released:

American diginets like Me-TV that have paid extra for some series with the understanding the studio found best source material and cleaned things up. Those restored titles eventually turn up somewhere for streaming.

Studios and networks signing or holding exclusive license deals. There is a financial incentive to give subscribers a good viewing experience of the material they have now brought back in-house. With improving tools, it is not nearly as expensive to clean things up as it used to be. There are limits, which is why you may not see BJ and the Bear or Super Train on streamers anytime soon. :)
 
RedFox 1 said:
I am still looking for Carroll Oconnor's" Archie Bunker" from the 70s and no one has it.:(
Click to expand...
Do you mean "All in the Family"? Amazon has the DVD box set for 100 bucks and I am seriously thinking about buying it. I will wait for a little longer to see if AP makes it available to stream.
 
Lone Raven said:
Do you mean "All in the Family"? Amazon has the DVD box set for 100 bucks and I am seriously thinking about buying it. I will wait for a little longer to see if AP makes it available to stream.
Click to expand...
Yes that's exactly what I mean, where I live it will never be available if it's not streaming LOL.
 
Water Faucet said:
I have all episodes of M*A*S*H* in 1280x720 and they all look great. It is a very good transfer to digital with a pretty high bit rate for 720P
Click to expand...
So D0 I and they look excellent! Hulu has the whole M*A*S*H series.
 
Last edited:
Lone Raven said:
Do you mean "All in the Family"? Amazon has the DVD box set for 100 bucks and I am seriously thinking about buying it. I will wait for a little longer to see if AP makes it available to stream.
Click to expand...
All in the Family is on Amazon Freevee; All nine seasons!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top