What's the point if everything is 720P? (UPDATED)

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#1

I have used Channels before with my cable tuner card and it was nice but I got emby working so I no longer needed it but I am tired of the cable company and the high prices and low quality signal that keeps messing up my movies.

I am trying DirectTV Stream now and I got it set up in no time with Channels then made it work through emby for a seamless integration but now I am noticing that all the channels I actually care about are coming in at 720P?

What is the point in all this then? It is 2025 and almost all TVs of any size worth watching have been 4K for almost a decade so why should I save a few bucks a month for low quality?

I was really excited about using Channels with a streaming service since I only need a few channels that I like to record, TCM being the most important, but if the movies are going to be low quality then there really isn't much point.

UPDATE

I did some testing with recording TCM movies, editing out the beginning and ending fluff and then encoding with HEVC using my custom settings, but because these are 720P and not 1080i I did not have to Inverse Telecine them.

The results are actually surprising to me but I am very happy. The recorded 720P content actually looks better played back on my TV than the 1080i or it is so close I can't tell. I parallel recorded the exact same movies both streaming and with my cable card. Then edited and encoded them then compared them playing back on my TV.

There are several all positive takeaways from this test. Editing the streamed content takes less time and the encoding takes way less time since I do not have to Inverse Telecine. The big difference is file size. The encoded streamed content is typically 35-40% smaller with the same or better quality than the same from 1080i source.

Examples for comarison below are just the video portion of the MKV file that results from encoding using my custom HEVC settings:

Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968) Streaming 720P - 905,917KB, Cable 1080i - 2,261,109KB

The Night Digger (1971) Streaming 720P - 415,134KB, Cable 1080i - 919,808KB

Just like when I encode a move recorded from cable and Blu-Ray the one from BR is always smaller because the better the source the smaller the resulting file once encoded. This is expected and presented here with the 720P vs the 1080i sources.

I cannot complain with these results and am happy. The only difference is that the TCM movies from cable come with 5.1 surround sound but since almost all content on this station is old enough to have never had original 5.1 surround audio it is faux 5.1 and manufactured and my 7.1 AV receiver can do the same thing in real time. The 720P encoded files are even smaller for this reason since they only have 1 stereo track AAC instead of a 1 stereo AC3 and 1 5.1 AC3 sound track. This is why for file size I compared only the video track.

I will be happily dumping my super expensive cable that has hundreds of useless channels that I pay a fortune for just because the 8-10 stations I watch are strategically placed on different tiers forcing many into the top tier with all channels so they can steal you blind. The few channels I am loosing going to streaming I really don't care about.

#2

Many broadcast TV stations are 720p and cable simply picks them up and retransmits them the same. 720p and 1080i are much the same resolution and 1080i relied on phosphor decay time to make you see the extra lines. Yes or TVs are better yet you need a source for 1080p and 4k (many variants).

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#3

I will just have to do some testing. I will reencode the TS files to HEVC using my custom parameters and then watch a movie I really love in both cable recorded and compressed and TVE recorded and compressed. If I can't tell much difference then I really don't care and I'll take the smaller file size as a plus.

On the drive home from dropping of one of my daughters to school I thought about what are the differences between 1080i and 720p and since I am not an expert on this I didn't really know but I was thinking in the end since interlaced only shows half scan at a time then maybe there would be little quality difference.

Thank you

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#4

It's a good question. I feel most of us Channels users are either a) trying to find the best OTA DVR, and/or b) wanting to aggregate the various content providers into something we can manage, watch, and archive in one app. Highest invented resolution may not be the most important thing for many. (don't forget that bitrate matters A LOT). I find 720p OTA and PlayOn Home looks great for me. I record a lot of old shows and reality tv so it's really not an issue. If you want the highest quality then Blu-Rays, YTTV, or highest tier subscriptions to HBO Max and Netflix might be in order. Add ADBtuner with YouTube TV into Channels as an option for recording directly from the streamer at the full resolution.
You may find this thread interesting: (TV resolutions)

#5

The bitrate is just as, or more important than, the numbers in my estimation. I base this on what my eyes see. Give me high bitrate 1080p over 4K YouTube any day.

Fox, ABC/ESPN broadcast in 720p, likely because back in the day it was better considering their equipment and infrastructure for delivering the signal. It looks fine here upscaled to 4K on my cheap to middle of the road 7-year-old TCL television.

Go by what your eyes see, not some silly numbers the provider uses for marketing.

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#6

FYI
When you see
Native resolution 1920 x 1080 in the stream Specs
Is that 1080i or 1080p??
The frame rate answers the question.
29.97 fps = 1080i, 59.94 fps = 1080p

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#7

Yeah...Channels can only give you what the broadcaster provide TVE-wise and thats usually 720p. Sometimes there's 4K but that's for select sporting events only.

If you're looking to just watch 4K content and...thats about it, then you should consider stream links and getting a streaming service that provides 4K content. There's only a handful of 24/7 4K channels at most but they're just either Bloomberg TV+, upscaled random clips or on a low powered station in Idaho

#8

1080p can also be delivered at 29.97 fps, can't it? Or even 24fps for that matter, yes?

#9

The thread should be titled "What is the point if everything is from a crappy source"

I see lots of streaming 4k/1080p/720p that is made from a crappy source, so it still looks bad. There's a lot more to video quality than the number of pixels that have been made from the source.

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#10

This thread reminded me that I have not updated my Excel sheet in a very long time:

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#11

Agreed, it's not the resolution it's how bad the source looks. For my provider ABC is the worst, muddy and fuzzy as all get out. Yeah it's 720p but ESPN is also and it looks way better.

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#12

I have friends that worked for ABC. They always produce video at the highest resolution and sound quality available at the time. This increases the syndication value.

#13

But their OTA broadcast is 720p. I'm sure the bitrate and overall quality varies by market. There was a point around 2008 where the ABC affiliate here was sending 540i and NBA basketball was unwatchable. They were called out on it in the AVS Forum thread for my city and admitted they had hardware issues and that was the best they could do for the time being.

I'm guessing in another 10-15 years there will no longer be local affiliates sending signals from expensive high-powered towers. The writing is on the wall, streaming is going to be the standard, unfortunately.

#14

Not from what I've seen, it was horrible in Atlanta and it's horrible in Orlando. I'm specifically talking about sports events like college football games. ESPN is way better and I don't know why.

#15

I stated what they record, not what they transmit. If you are using an antenna or coax based cable, then there are other factors in play as well.

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#16

Well they need to get a grip on their affiliates because they have the absolute worst in sports.

#17

Have you contacted them and informed them of your quality issues?

#18

Yep. They don't care.

#19

That's a shame

#20

To be fair, they're dealing with a wider pop that thinks that widescreen 480p is HD. So I get it when the engineers blow people off.

I usually just get a boilerplate response (if any), and then when you try to call them there's no way to reach engineering. My latest attempt was a year or more ago when my local Fox affiliate stopped their TVE stream. But that probably wasn't them, it was probably Fox. They are Fox owned.