divx/xvid quality for hd-ready tv

Hi,
when i download movies/TV episodes I see in the file name HDTV.
What is the meaning of this? what is the quality that i should download in order to get a good quality for an HD-ready TV?
Most of the file sizes for episodes in 45 minutes length are 350mb. is this good quality? or should i look for something better?

Hi,
when i download movies/TV episodes I see in the file name HDTV.
What is the meaning of this? what is the quality that i should download in order to get a good quality for an HD-ready TV?
Most of the file sizes for episodes in 45 minutes length are 350mb. is this good quality? or should i look for something better?

True HD will consume about 9-10 GB per hour. A 350 Mb file for a 45 minute episode is so far off it just can't be HD.

Usually it means the source of the original is/was a high definition format. That could mean broadcast 720p or 1080i or a HD disk rip of 1080p... Given that you're dealing with a 350 meg file you can be sure that compression techniques are unlikely to include all the data of the original.

IMHO: I have seen the same file, at

350 megs
1.2 gigs
4.5 gigs

For the most part, I find the 1.2 gig file vs 4.5 gig file hard compressed with 264 codecs pretty close, with some artifacting on both, but the 4.5 gig file has smoother gradients in the dark areas. An mpeg2 HD file of that length would run around 7 gigs and I doubt there would be much PQ improvement.

The 350 meg file falls between STD and DVD. At this point it's a question of download bandwidth, program type and priorities as to which flavour to download.

True HD will consume about 9-10 GB per hour. A 350 Mb file for a 45 minute episode is so far off it just can't be HD.Before someone jumps on this "True HD" thing and starts something, the 9-10 GB per hour would be about right for Blu-ray or HD DVD. OTA HD using mpeg2 compression the files work out to be more like 5-7 GB per hour that depends on the source being 720p or 1080i. The 1080i files are a bit larger. U-verse HD files are in the 3-4 GB per hour using a compression that is more like mpeg4 and the H.254 file made by the HD PVR capture device so far have been right at 4 GB per hour using a 1080i input. I haven't tried a 720p input yet.

All of those could be considered "true HD" so as Loves said if you are dealing with a file that works out to be smaller than 1 GB per hour, it may have started as a HD source, but it will be so compressed that it would be hard pressed to be considered any kind of HD, "true" or not.

Hi,
when i download movies/TV episodes I see in the file name HDTV.
What is the meaning of this? what is the quality that i should download in order to get a good quality for an HD-ready TV?
Most of the file sizes for episodes in 45 minutes length are 350mb. is this good quality? or should i look for something better?

A lot of those HDTV are PDTV smaller HDTV quality is very good but can be playback on any 480i/p network media player or HDD media player.