I don't know what the original quality is, but for TV, there are usually 2 or 3 release formats (excluding webrips): standard quality (about half the height/width of 720p), 720p, and 1080p. The standard quality and 720p are usually posted a few minutes after the show airs, and the 1080p usually comes a long time later. Sometimes, episodes are even posted before the show airs in your region.
But how are they doing the rips? Are they getting the original encoded stream, doing analog capture and reencoding, or what? If DRM forces them to do a less than perfect copy of the stream, that's a big win for the content producer.
Sorry for the late response; I don't usually check threads. According to someone I asked on IRC, House of Cards apparently airs somewhere offshore (I think it was Germany), but that is where the non-webrip episodes are coming from. It also explains why there are only six different non-webrip episodes released.
BTW, the webrips are the ones that are coming from DVI or from captured + decrypted video streams.
Right, but then you decode -> re-encode which decreases quality. At the aggressive bit-rates used for HD content online, that can be substantial. So as long as DRM forces re-encoding, content producers can say: "buy it for the best quality" and that's a win for them.
