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i mostly agree except...the quality is better? not even slightly true. itunes will just mass encode batches of files they receive from studios with carefully ch
by ubercow13 13y ago
i mostly agree except...the quality is better? not even slightly true. itunes will just mass encode batches of files they receive from studios with carefully chosen but probably speed-optimised encoder settings using GPUs probably. many people who encode pirated movies spend hours or days, or for tv series even weeks or more, on a single movie or show, tailoring the encoder settings to squeeze every last bit of quality they can manage out of the filesize they are aiming for, and some will even encode different scenes using different setting and then stitch them together. its not even close. not to mention you can easily pirate full Bluray discs without any reencoding.
- forrestthewoods 13y agoStraight blu-ray rip is currently the best quality. But very few torrents are for the full 50gb disc. It's usually an 8-12gb 1080p or ~4.5gb 720p re-encode of the blu-ray encoding. Painstakingly done to the best that can be done, but it's still a double compression. iTunes on the other hand is encoding off raw source material so it can get higher quality at smaller size than what you see on torrents.
- ubercow13 13y agoIt just doesn't make a difference though, blu ray is easily high enough quality that the recompression matters much less than the specifics of the encoding when the iTunes files are about the same size