HorribleSubs: 480p, 720p, and 1080p - The Truth Behind the Difference!

TheHMFreak

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So you all know HorribleSubs rip their Naruto Shippuden episodes from CrunchyRoll who releases them in SD, 480p, 720p, and 1080p. I've been downloading the 720p versions since...forever.

We all know 1080p versions are just 720p up-scales. But what about 480p? I always noticed that the 720p was never really that impressive. However, there must have been some quality improvement, I thought.

So, I decided to do a test. Here are the results...


This is 480p watched in full-screen (1280x720) on VLC Player, compared to 720p watched in its original size (1280x720 too):

Here is another comparison between the two:

Please ignore some parts of the screenshot. VLC tends to get choppy sometimes...


Now here is how 480p would look if someone ACTUALLY up-scaled it to 720p, compared to the supposed "real" 720p:

I must say... VERY little difference.


Now I tested another anime. To check if it was HorribleSubs/CrunchyRoll or the creators who are up-scaling the 480p videos into 720p and 1080p. Here's what I found.


This is from the anime Another, also released by HorribleSubs who ripped it from Crunchyroll. This is a 480p up-scaled to 720p version compared to the original 720p version:

Now I must say, there's significant difference!


I feel cheated for downloading 720p this whole time. And my dilemma is this: downloading 720p has a very tiny quality boost, however, it's double the size of 480p. Downloading 480p version ensures small file size, but there is also a very small quality loss.

Sigh... don't what to do. :sy: Anyway, I just felt I should let others know.
 
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Οdin

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I also have no problem with this. I download 1080p all the time. It only takes me about 3 minutes to download... so I don't have a problem with file size...
 

teravita9

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If you have an encoder you can just encode the 1080p episode to a size about 120 mb.
That is what I m doing.
 
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Loome

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My HDD lets me download 1080p when I make an AMV. I would love if Studio Pierrot will actually render them in 1080p, but anyway, this up-scaled 720p in 1080p just fits for my AMVs.
 
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