While most TV based animation is animated at sub 1080p, it in general is not animated at 540p, but there are exceptions, such as FMA:B. You are labeling an exception (not the only exception mind you, but one of them) as if it were normal. Not to mention, this post was about why modern animation (of which, once again, this is the exception that it wasn’t done at a higher resolution) wouldn’t look pristine on Blu-ray.

I didn’t explain how 1080i works in the post because it wasn’t necessary for the goal of the post, which is explaining WHY it doesn’t look great on Blu-ray.

A 1080i broadcast is one where every 1/60 seconds, half of the picture is broadcast (alternating even and odd lines – the ‘i’ stands for interlaced). 1080p (progressive) broadcasts broadcast 1080 lines every 1/60 seconds.

There are two ways that a 1080i image can be produced. The more expensive way is to record as a 1080p broadcast and then drop half of the resolution lines at every 60Hz refresh. The much cheaper way is to just produce a 540p broadcast and then shift it up and down one pixel every 60Hz refresh. The simple fact is that the human eye can’t reasonably tell the difference at most standard viewing ranges, so virtually ALL 1080i broadcasts are produced with this cheaper option.

I’d look at the caps from the BD and the DVD that I have up there and figure out what you want to do.

Personally, I’d say Blu-ray, but based on the quality of your TV and how you notice video quality, may be different for you.

1- Frame rate of PAL is different, so that introduces other problem.

2- Doing it on PAL DVD would still have to be stretched anamorphically, so you lose some of the horizontal resolution.

3- You’d lose quite a bit of fidelity from MPEG-2 encoding instead of the superior AVC that the Blu-ray uses.

4- You’d still have to stretch it vertically about 7%.

Sounds good on paper, but after you think about it… not really something I’d like to see. I’d still stick with 1080p upscaled from 540p.