iTunes HD video on iPad?

[PDFierro]

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I know the iPad has a screen capable of displaying 720p, and I have seen people comment that they have put their own 720p videos on the device for viewing on the iPad.

My question is, would it be worth it to put iTunes HD video on the iPad instead of the regular SD? Can you notice the difference?

Just curious if anyone has done this. Obviously it would carry a bigger file size, but that's not really a concern.

 

[PDFierro]

Any idea?

 

[Piggie]

Remember the iPad can only display 720p in 4:3 mode.

Most people will probably watch movies in their correct ratio with black bars top and bottom, otherwise the sides of the image are being chopped off and you are missing the complete picture.

In this case the iPad cannot display 720p as you are only getting 500 or less horizontal lines of resolution on the screen.

 

[KevinC867]

I do find it worthwile to put the HD versions of videos on my iPad. Although the iPad's 1024x768 display doesn't provide full 1280x720p HD support, a 16x9 HD program will still by displayed with 576 horizontal lines, which is noticeably better than the 480 lines of the SD program.

I also find that on a lot of material I do like to zoom in to fill the vertical display. At that point, you do take full advantage of the 720P resolution of the HD source. The SD version with only 480 lines looks pretty bad when you zoom it to 768 lines. It's even worse with a 2.35:1 "Scope" movie which would only have about 360 horizontal lines in the SD version.

It can also be handy to have the HD version on the iPad and use AirPlay or a Component/HDMI cable to send it to an HDTV.