I decided to take the plunge and purchase with some spare Amazon gift card money one episode from season 1, that being "Attack of the Mousers". I was pleasantly surprised to find that the video quality is practically the same as the previous DVD rip that I had before.
The most apparent thing about the video is that it includes the bumpers for commercial breaks. I know some people find this annoying, but personally it doesn't bother me. Also, there is no TV-Y7 FV rating on the upper left hand corner. This may be different with other episodes though, so I have to buy those later to make sure. For some reason, I feared that the credits wouldn't be in the video because they weren't on nick.com, but they are fully intact here, with the intro playing on the left side of the screen and the credits rolling on the right, along with the Mirage logo and original 4Kids logo at the end. Aside from the video cover art, no Nickelodeon branding is present.
Here's the somewhat bad news. While watching, significant artifacts appear at the bottom of the screen along with loud screeching noises from 06:36-06:38. I emailed Amazon, they refunded me, and are making sure to resolve the issue soon, so props to Amazon there. Another problem is that the list for Season 2, which I have yet to purchase, is missing the episodes "Secret Origins - Part 1", and "Big Brawl - Part 3". I also asked Amazon about this, and they assume that it's a decision from the content provider, and not a fault on their end, since both Google/YouTube and iTunes have those two episodes. I need to get back to them later about this issue.
The colors are the same, the picture looks the same, yet both versions of the video have their own very faint signs of macroblocking, pixelation, or aliasing that are noticeable if you actually take the time to pause the video, so it's nothing to fuss over. Some of it has to do with the original source from 4Kids, which is unfortunate. In some places, the video from Amazon looks better, in some places the DVD rip I have looks better, but it's barely noticeable. Also, the video from Amazon (and I believe iTunes as well) has like less than half a cm cut off on the sides of the picture, but it's no big deal.
Here's a collection of screenshots that I took to compare. The screenshot from the Amazon video is the first image you will see in a series of 2 images each. I would have taken native screenshots, but Amazon has DRM in place so you can only play the videos using Amazon's Instant Video player online and Windows Media Player or Amazon's Unbox player offline. Remember, I am comparing the Amazon version. I don't know what exactly the full iTunes version looks like, aside from the previews.
http://imgur.com/a/cWoTa
Also, some information for any videophiles out there.
Amazon
General
Format : Windows Media
File size : 424 MiB
Duration : 21mn 53s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 707 Kbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 6 270 Kbps
Encryption : http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/licen...uXAObEyOY40Q==
Encoded date : UTC 2015-02-19 07:02:04.672
WM/ContentDistributor : Amazon.com
Amazon/ASIN : B00UFECWMK
Amazon/Type : Content
Video
ID : 2
Format : VC-1
Format profile : Advanced@L3
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Description of the codec : Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile
Duration : 21mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 500 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.339
Stream size : 391 MiB (92%)
Encryption : Encrypted
Audio
ID : 1
Format : WMA
Format profile : Pro
Codec ID : 162
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio 10 Professional - 192 kbps, 48 kHz, 2 channel 24 bit 2-pass VBR
Duration : 21mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 30.0 MiB (7%)
Encryption : Encrypted
DVD rip
General
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 174 MiB
Duration : 21mn 16s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 145 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:39:25
Tagged date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:39:25
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 13 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 21mn 16s
Bit rate : 942 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 094 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Original display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.091
Stream size : 143 MiB (82%)
Title : Video
Writing library : x264 core 57 svn-700
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=10 / deblock=1:-2:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=6 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=942 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30
Encoded date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:39:25
Tagged date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:40:02
Audio
ID : 3
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 21mn 16s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 101 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 108 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 15.4 MiB (9%)
Title : English
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:40:01
Tagged date : UTC 2007-12-03 14:40:02