I watch a fair amount of series, but I’m not a data hoarder. I see the value in 2GB episodes, but I watch most series on my laptop, my simple 1920x1080 tv or even my phone where that value doesn’t make a difference. If I want to have a theater experience, I’ll go to the theater.
Most of the times I just want to enjoy a good story and relax before I go to bed.
I don’t have infinite storage and I hate when I want to download something new, but Im out of storage, so I have to delete stuff first.
500mb 1080p HEVC for most shows on a 75" TV, but if it’s a space sci-fi show with lots of dark scenes I need that 1GB-2GB episode.
Some shows get by on 200MB, but it depends how static the scenes are and how much lighting there is.
Surely at that size you would notice the artifacts. Just for my sake can you try a Bluray remux. I expect it’s 4k so you could just grab a 4k web-DL and see if you can notice the difference.