How to preserve resolution/maximum quality?

[davidw89]

I'm mostly riping MKV BluRay rips with resolution of either 720p or 1080p. I'm riping them to m4v files so that i can catalogue them in iTunes (later remux with soft sub). However the preset Universal cuts the resolution significantly and the preset High profile cuts the length(or width) to "anamorphic". What's the best setting in my case? If i change it in picture setting do i just change the resolution and that's it?
Also constant quality around 60%??

[rhester]

Apple Universal uses the maximum capabilities of the lowest-common-denominator device (iPhone), which is *NOT* capable of HD at all. The Apple TV preset has more capabilities (higher resolution/b-frames, etc.), but is still not capable of full HD.

Rodney

[davidw89]

Ok if it was purely for archieving, how would you go about doing this? DO not need AppleTV/iPhone/iPod compatibility, as i can convert it down the road.

[rhester]

Archiving usually assumes you will be archiving the unmodified source and converting *it* to the desired device-specific target format...otherwise, what's the point? By encoding a lossy source (H.264 Blu-Ray/HD) into a lossy format (H.264 main or high profile) to convert a third time to a lossy format (H.264 baseline), you're just throwing away quality for no good reason.

Rodney