.
First, you have no technical barrier to 1080 playback. According to you, your PC is more than powerful enough. For the future, you will probably always have this option. That is a powerful argument in favor of 1080 for an archive.
Second, you say you will upgrade to a better monitor. What do you have in mind?
I watch everything on a 24" monitor, and I can tell you that almost never does a 1080 look better than 720. If I was watching on a 27" or larger monitor (2560x1600 resolution), or if I was watching on a 32" or larger HDTV, I expect there might be slightly more noticeable quality difference. If I ever have a 50" ultra-HDTV, I think that 1080 will sometimes/often be necessary, or even owning original bluray disks.
BTW, a 21" monitor can be bought for about $100 USD, although better quality ones are ~$120-$140, while high quality can still be ~$180-$200. I consider 24"-25" to be optimum for desktop use, and they run from ~$160 to $400. I doubt I will ever buy anything so small as 22" or less again, and I will always look for 1920 x 1200 as the minimum resolution.
Consider also the audio. If you have a really good home theater possibility, then examine the audio quality when you must make a decision. Often the 1080 has higher quality audio ... but, not always.
At this point, realize that you must make this decision for each anime that you wish to archive. Sometimes a 1080 encode is better because the source is really good. Other times (most of the time) the source really is not better than 720, so the 1080 version doesn't have noticeable quality improvement. For anime more than ~3 years old this is
usually more true, for more recent anime this can be less true.
Pay attention to DVD source or bluray source. If DVD, sometimes there is not much difference even from 480 encode. 10-bit encodes are almost always better because they are made very recently. The encoders that know how to use 10-bit are doing much better jobs (
usually! =/=
always!) than older encodes. 8-bit can still be very good, even as good as 10-bit, but they will be larger filesizes. It is just one small detail that may help when you must evaluate an encode.
Read the comments for each torrent offer, and this sub-forum is getting some good content to also help:
» BakaBT » Uploaders' Forum » Release ComparisonYou say that archive is important. You should also look carefully at the translation. Some groups do a better job than others. So, an one encode might be very slightly better for visual quality, but another might be slightly better for audio or translation. Again, each anime must be researched.
Disk space: 3 TB is not so huge as you might think. If you fill the drive with 1080, you maybe can save 1200 or 1500 1080 encodes. But, you maybe can store 3000 or 3500 720 encodes. For true archiving, you will want to consider. I have ~ 8 TB of storage space, about 7TB is used, and about 5 TB of it is anime, anime soundtrack (in FLAC format) and manga.
I'm pretty serious about archiving anime. I almost never delete it, and a lot of the titles I have are in several alternate encodes. About 75%-80% is in 720 wit hth rest in 480 or 1080.
For you, maybe watch an anime in 480, then decide if you like it so much that you want it in your archive, then download again in 1080 (if available) or the best 720 you can find. Consider if you can burn backup copies to bluray media to make more space available on your hard drive. I've tried to keep an archive on DVD, but 4.7 GB DVD is getting to be small storage these days. Still useful, but 25 GB bluray media is much more convenient.
Final thought. You have bandwidth concerns to plan around. Remember to seed always. For this concern, 1080 encodes are a good friend for you because they do not hurt your ratio, only help. If you watch an anime and don't like it, seed it for a couple months until it is 1:1 or better ratio, then you can delete it.
On one hand, 720 is very excellent quality, especially the encodes that are accepted at BakBT. Sometimes the 1080 is a little better, very rarely they are a lot better. It is not always video quality alone that is important.
On the other hand, you want these for your permanent archive. there is no telling what you will watch these on in 5 or 8 years. Quite amazing video & audio hardware will be avilable then and maybe the 1080 is worth it some day.
Also, BakaBT has a
blacklist for licensed anime (also
watch this topic). Because it is available today does not mean it is available tomorrow, so getting the best copy today is sometimes a good strategy.
So. I did not tell you which encode is "better." You must decide for yourself. But these thoughts should help you to evaluate your choice for each anime.
