This seems like a basic question, but after searching all over I just can't find it discussed anywhere! I'm converting some of my DVDs to XVID using AutoGK with a target quality of 75 (the default) instead of using 2 pass encoding for a specific file size. These files will reside on a HTPC connected to a 720p TV. For horizontal resolution am I better off going with 640 or 720 given that the files will only be played back on the HTPC at a horizontal resolution of 1280? AutoGK defaults to 720, which would normally be a higher quality file (I'm not worried about the size being somewhat larger). In this case I'm not so sure because doing so seems to result in two resizing steps (from DVD720 to XVID720 when I encode and then from XVID720 to 1280 when I play the files). If I encode my files to 640 then there are still two resizing steps, but the second is from 640 to 1280, which is an exact multiple. It seems to me that I'd actually lose less quality going with the 640 resolution even thought the file would be smaller. What do you guys think? Also, if a few years down the road I upgraded to 1080p would this still be true (the horizontal resolution would now be 3x640)? Thanks in advance for your opinions!
I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. Best to try it and see what gives the best result. I would lean towards 720 as it retains the whole dvd resolution. The TV should be able to scale it easily.
