For someone who like watching video, the most essential part of the video that appeals to them most varies from one to another. Someone would treat the quality of the video as the most critical part while others might not think so. Some might lay more importance on the speed of video playing for sacrificing some quality on the video. As long as the video quality is concerned, the topic of the article is brought up to discuss the difference of the video quality -- SD vs HD and what parameter the video quality is measured with.

What is SD vs HD?

For most of us regardless of the specialists working on data process, the standards of the video can only be roughly regarded as high or low. Few of us knows the specifications of the video such as resolutions, pixels, frames and something like that. Here the SD and HD can roughly equate to the common standards and high standards. If you want to get into it, just follow the next part.

What is SD?

Standard-definition television can be shortened as SDTV or to be simplified as SD. It is a television system that uses a relatively low resolution and not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. Have you ever paid attention to the difference between the movies shoot in the earlier era and the movies shoot nowadays? The most recognizable part is the image quality of it. That well explains the difference between SD and HD. In the mid to late-20th century, "Standard" refers to the fact that it was the prevailing specification for broadcast (and later, cable) television.

What is HD?

HD normally refers to High-definition video (HDTV Video or HD video) with higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. HD conceptually implicates videos with high standards but there is no standardized meaning for high-definition. Generally, any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines (North America) or 576 vertical lines (Europe) is considered high-definition. 480 scan lines is the minimum standard of high-definition videos even though the majority of systems greatly exceed that. In some contexts, the images of standard resolution which are captured by a high-speed camera at rates faster than normal (60 frames/second North America, 50 fps Europe) may be considered high-definition.

Difference Between SD and HD

From the parts above, we know the most significant difference between SD and HD is the video standard or detailed as resolutions, pixels or vertical scan lines. For more specific comparisons between the two factors, you can check it here.

For many of us, 480p, 780p, 1080p and etc are just numbers. The way to measure the video quality is by comparing the number, the higher, the better. But that’s far from enough for us to learn the difference between them.

SD vs. HD Video: How they are compared?

Before comparing the SD and HD, we need to bring up another definition, pixel, which can be shortened as p. They are the little dots that make up an image, displaying its color. The number 1080 in 1080p refers to the pixels comprising the resolutions of the video. The more pixels imply the better quality of the videos.

Standard definition starts at 240p and ends at 480p which the high definition starts at. 1080p is full-strength HD while 720p is semi-HD. For the pixels higher than 1080p is regarded as ultra-HD.

SD vs. HD Video: Data and battery life

Before the use of Wi-Fi is popularized, people countdown to the amount of data which is included in the monthly mobile package. It is calculated that the burning of data for watching HD videos can be doubled or tripled as much as that of watching SD videos. And talking about the battery life consuming, all the video streaming has big impact on the mobile battery since the screen must be on continuously and the internet connections must be active. Streaming in higher definitions consumes more energy of the battery as they decode the video and further draining battery life.

How to Switch from HD to SD on Dish via Leawo Video Converter?

To watch the HD videos seems to be a luxury to some extensions as it requires the much higher performance of the battery and the mobile inner processor as well as the big data consumption. Then how to switch HD to SD on dish via some effective app? Try the Leawo Video Converter.

Step 1: Import Video Files into the Converter

After the installation phase, you will open the software suite called Leawo Prof. Media. Enter the main interface and tap the“Video Downloader”to activate the module. Then just click the“Add Blu-ray/DVD” icon on the top bar of the software and from the drop-down box there are some options. Just choose to drag only one file or several files in a combination for importing. Alternatively, you can also drag the profiles and put them into the program.

Step 2: Choose Output Format

On the left side of the “Convert” button there is a “MP4 Video” button for changing the output format. The videos of high-definition, standard-definition or 4k can be changed through it. Just find it on the top bar of the software and click it. You can see a drop-down box, right in the middle there is a “Change“icon. Click it to set the output format for the video. Talking about the format of the video, if the source file format is M4V, the format developed by Apple and is similar to MP4, sometimes the user doesn’t know how to watch it due to the DRM protection on it. You might need to check the article of how to convert M4V to MP4.

You could select from "Format" and "Device" groups, or use the profile search bar to search desired profile in an instant way.

Step 3: Set Video Parameters

Video Codec, Quality, Video Size, Bit Rate, Frame Rate, Aspect Ratio as well as Audio Codec, Quality, Bit Rate, Sample Rate, Channels, etc. can all be set in this step. On the same drop-down box of the “MP4 Video”in Step 2, What next to the “Change” button is an “Edit” button. Just click it to adjust the output video parameters. Don’t forget to save the setting by clicking the “OK” button. Within a few steps’ setting for the video parameters, the user might encounter a problem of the video size. Since the higher standard of the video, the bigger size the video. So how to reduce the video size without losing its quality? Just check it.

Step 4: Set Output Directory

After all the steps are done and return to the main interface, just click the big green “Convert” button to enter the conversion process. And before the process is actually working, the program will lead you to the intersectional step to set the output directory to make sure the output file be well reserved. The new interface with a directory setting sidebar will pop up and you just need to set the output directory for it in the “Save to” box.

Step 5: Start to Convert Video

Still linking up with the fourth step, click the “Convert” button on the bottom of the directory setting panel and start the conversion process. The program will simultaneously jump to a new interface and you can see the converting in progress. All the converting videos are packed in one interface for easy checking. For any video that is finished conversion, it can be found from the pre-set output directory.

The Leawo Video Converter is a professional video converter that enables the users to convert video/audio files between 180+ formats, such as MP4 to MKV, MP4 to AVI, MKV to MP4, MKV to MP3, MP3 to AAC, etc. Whatever video formats can be dealt with by Leawo Video Converter. Just try it for now.

How to Switch from HD to SD on Dish Online?

It is an easier online app to be used for video converting with just a few steps. And what’s to be highly promoted is its feature of supporting all size of the files. That is to say, no matter how big the file size is, the online converting app can nail it. Just check it out here. However, even though the file size is not limited on the online service, the app still sincerely recommends you to use the latest version of the Google Chrome web browser for better stability and compatibility.

Just follow the simple steps:

  1. Upload source files (no file size limit)
  2. Select video format: mp4(MP4 format is the designated output format for conversion)
  3. Select video quality: from low 240p to 720p, 1080p HD and Ultra HD 4k quality
  4. Adjust video settings: codec, bitrate, etc.
  5. Enable notification (setup notification before start converting)
  6. Select converting mp4 for FREE or with PREMIUM
  7. Convert video to mp4

We insist the point that different apps will have different services for the users. It is meaningless if we speak highly of one and crack down another to interfere with the judgement of the users. Any converting app worth a shot by the user to decide which one to be picked up.