I have a whole collection of DVDs which I copied to ISO and am streaming to my TV using XBMC on my Apple TV. I plan on going Blu-Ray, but still want to preserve my DVD collection as I had paid a lot of money for it.
I do not want to leave them as ISO images, rather I want to convert them to either .MP4 or .MKV so I can stream them though the web when I am outside my home. I am using Air Playit as the streaming server.
I want to have as high quality as possible without unnecessarily making the files too big, so I had a couple of questions. I am sure that it had been asked a million times about what bit rate should be used, but through all my searches, I couldn't really get a good grasp as for answer on that one. I ran several tests and tried 2000 to 8000 Kbps and still couldn't come up with an answer, but am thinking that I will go with 6000 Kbps, for no specific reason, so please advise.
Secondly, I understand that DVDs are 720x480, however, I have a 2nd generation Apple TV 2 which is 720p, but I will be buying the Apple TV 3 which is capable of full 1080p HD. My current TV is also 720p, but that will soon be upgraded to a full 1080p as well. So, should I keep the DVD rips in their native resolution or save them in 1280x720 or 1920x1080 to make them slightly future proof? Is there really a difference?
Basically, the ISOs are going to go and I want to keep as high a quality as I possibly can without unnecessarily burdening my storage capacity.