I have a very slow Internet connection (5 Mbps down, and even less for upload). Given that, I always download movies at 720p, since they have low file size, which means I can download them more quickly. Also, I don’t notice much of a difference between 1080p and 720p. As for 4K, because I don’t have a screen that can display 4K, I consider it to be one of the biggest disk space wasters.
Am I the only one who has this opinion?
Not just you. Low(er) quality downloads are still a huge part of the torrent scene, see how popular most 720p YIFY uploads are even though their encoder quality is pretty garbage. Most people in general want a fast download and are viewing on a small laptop or even phone screen and don’t give a rats ass about fidelity, LQ works perfectly fine for this. Even I’ll grab a LQ once in a while if it’s something my girl and I want to watch that night and I didn’t plan ahead.
The desire for high quality uploads is more for people running home setups like Plex, where it’s better to keep a HQ source file and have it transcoded to lower resolutions by your home server setup as necessary. They generally aren’t storage constrained as an 8tb hard drive for a normal PC is fairly cheap these days. I’d wager maybe <30% of torrenters actually go after ultra HQ uploads based off seeder numbers.
Personally I stick to stuff that is at least 1080p with HDR and H265 encode preferred, because I archive most everything I download due to similar problems with internet speed. Over maybe 12 years of torrents I’ve amassed a hair over 5tb of content, and that’s a LOT of movies l, it all fits on a single $120 external HDD.
I do this with music. All of my library is stored as mp3s, which doesn’t really make a difference quality wise considering I mostly just use a cheap pair of earphones. I’m not an audiophile anyways. In addition I also store a copy of my music library in my phone for offline usage, and that’s where the compression comes in handy.
High bit rate mp3s are still good. I only really go beyond that for editing work.
I can’t hear the difference between 192 and 320, but my ears are shot – the whole library is in 320 kbps because to hell with the drive space.
Nope. I have fast internet and good displays and I still prefer 720p video. I just don’t see the benefit of multiplying the filesize by 4 to see marginally more detail. Even 4k, if I wanted to have a 4k display, I’ve seen people’s displays and after the initial disorientation and crispness, the appeal wears off. 720p is perfectly adequate.
720p is TOTALLY fine but if it’s something beautiful or something I really enjoy (say, Climax or Baraka or even animu like Your Name) there’s zero chance I’m getting a 720p version of it. Even older stuff like THE BEST SHOW EVER MADE, Six Feet Under, I’m getting the best quality possible… even if it’s 4:3.
For regular shows and movies and things that I don’t hold dear to my heart, 720p is no problem.
Stats: gigabit, tons of storage, and 1440p
I do have a 4k tv, and a 1080p one. But personally I don’t see big difference on 720p vs 1080p vs 4k. I have to be like 4 feet from the tv to notice it. 720p is sufficient.
720p is fine, but I’d prefer 1080p most of the time.
It mostly just comes down to bitrate. A 4k video at 1Mbps is probably gonna look like shit. My drone and my go pro shoot 4k footage at 60Mbps h265 and that looks amazing. But if I’m acquiring a fuck ton of movies I’m not gonna download that shit at that bitrate. As long as the video is like 1080p and 5Mbps or higher I’m happy. If the file size is >6 gigs for a movie I ain’t downloading that shit even if I can, and that’s with a 1gb symmetrical internet connection and a 30TB NAS.
Those must be tiny screens then. 4k vs 1080p is minor in difference, even in a 77" OLED screen. There is a difference, but I can do with 1080p a lot of the times. 720p is only acceptable for older shows. Otherwise it immediately shows.
But if it’s visually appealing content, then you bet I’ll take the 4k stream at the highest Bitrate I can find.
