The Race For Retina

[wrkactjob]

I use my iPad mostly for entertainment on my daily train journey commute in London Waterloo. Its a 50 minute journey perfect for an episode of the Sopranos or 6 Feet Under or The Wire so thanks HBO.

Using Handbrake the results are great but will video look much better with a Retina type screen?...or will it really come into play when it comes to text enhancement only?...

There is a possibility that screen resolution will be the only real factor differentiating the next available iPad and I'm not sure it will be worth it?

Are we expecting great things?....

 

[mmmtastybusch]

Retina won't effect the videos you're talking about too awful much. With something like that the video can only be as good as the file is. On the current iPad 2 screen you can get a pretty damn crystal clear video if the file is HD. Try downloading .mkv files, I've found they're usually the best quality

 

[wrkactjob]

Retina won't effect the videos you're talking about too awful much. With something like that the video can only be as good as the file is. On the current iPad 2 screen you can get a pretty damn crystal clear video if the file is HD. Try downloading .mkv files, I've found they're usually the best quality

Must admit the Handbrake quality on the ipad is good but not really DVD quality, it would be nice to get it a bit better. I just use the iPad profile on Handbrake, not sure if you can tweak that as presumably it is reducing the file size considerably?

 

[jamesryanbell]

The ipad2 to ipad3 change will be significantly more important than ipad1 to ipad2. Retina display will make a MASSIVE difference? Disagree? Search the forum about it and look how many people are waiting for this particular change before they pull the trigger. It's massive.

 

[vixducis]

I don't know what you guys use a source for those videos but if you use untouched blurays, the quality will get better. In the advanced tab of handbrake, try cranking up these settings:

• Reference frames to a maximum of 10
• maximum b-frames all the way to 16
• adaptive b-frames to optimal
• adaptive direct mode to automatic
• ME method to UMH
• Sub ME & Mode decision to 11
• partition types to All
• trellis to always (except for animated movies)

All these settings will improve video quality in bitrate mode or shrink file size for the same quality in crf mode (default). You only have to sacrifice (a lot of) encoding time. If you're using crf, just lower the number for better quality. Using these settings with crf=17 will almost always yield transparent encodes (except for very grainy sources).

The iPad 3 will probably feature a higher resolution display, able to display full HD video. This will look better than videos on the current iPad.

 

[poloponies]

Must admit the Handbrake quality on the ipad is good but not really DVD quality, it would be nice to get it a bit better. I just use the iPad profile on Handbrake, not sure if you can tweak that as presumably it is reducing the file size considerably?

You can control the settings on handbrake and if you're ripping from a DVD then there's no reason you can't get near-DVD quality but the file will be needlessly large for iPad viewing.

 

[Aidoneus]

Must admit the Handbrake quality on the ipad is good but not really DVD quality, it would be nice to get it a bit better. I just use the iPad profile on Handbrake, not sure if you can tweak that as presumably it is reducing the file size considerably?

Using the Apple TV 2 preset will get you a picture that is nearly indistinguishable from the DVD source, and will play fine on any iPad or iPhone.

 

[santaliqueur]

Must admit the Handbrake quality on the ipad is good but not really DVD quality, it would be nice to get it a bit better. I just use the iPad profile on Handbrake, not sure if you can tweak that as presumably it is reducing the file size considerably?

The problem is likely your rip. The iPad's resolution is 1024x768, while DVD resolution is 720x480. DVD has a lower resolution than your iPad.

 

[redscull]

Like others have said, depends on your source and how you encode. If your source is DVD (or iTunes), the iPad 1 and 2 already support a higher resolution than even a perfect DVD rip match. So DVD rips cannot possibly look better on a retina iPad than they already do. If you're ripping from BluRays, a retina iPad would enable you to view a higher quality video than an iPad 1 or 2, but you'd have to rip at a higher resolution and compression quality than you'd probably want to spend the disk space on. And even if you did, I'm betting you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference on a 9.7" screen.

 

[fertilized-egg]

I'm betting you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference on a 9.7" screen.

With the movies the viewing distance really comes into play so I think the utility of the Retina display for the movies will depend a lot on the viewing style of the individual user. Some watch their shows with the iPad really up close to their eyes, others watch it with the iPad on the kitchen table, etc.

 

[Nothlit]

Honestly, I wouldn't expect a retina iPad to make a WOW OMG difference in video quality, largely because of the way our brains interpret video differently from static images. A lot of people can't easily tell the difference between 720p and 1080p video playing back on identically-sized screens, unless they are doing a direct side-by-side comparison or are uber video geeks.

I do think a retina iPad will make a noticeable difference when it comes to static things like photos and text legibility, however. Less of a "screen door" effect (i.e., how if you look closely you can see gaps between the pixels on the iPad 2).