DVB-T and bitrates

[prupert]

Hi There

I've been happily using GB-PVR with my Haupage Nova T USB stick for about a month now. Overall, it works pretty well.

I have a question though, and as I am very new to the whole PVR scene, it might be a very noobish question.

From what I understand, when you are using a BDA driver, which I am with my Nova T USB stick, you can't vary the bitrate of the MPG file that GB-PVR produces, since it just saves the MPG stream directly from the Digital transmission.

I was wondering if there was another method I could use to record Digital Terrestrial channels (Freeview - which I guess is DVB-T) here in the UK, but that allows me to reduce the bitrate? Do PCI cards that allow you to view UK's Freeview channels also use BDA drivers, or are BDA drivers limited to USB products only?

The main reason I ask is that I wanna reduce the file size of the recorded files, and transcoding the files afterwards fails - since they often result in an audio/video loss of sync (which I gather is due to a fault in the mpg file, which i gather is inherent when recording Digital Terrestrial channels).

Hope this all makes sense.

Basically, to watch DVB-T transmissions, can you only use cards that have BDA drivers, or are there alternatives?

[sub]

All these digital cards just capture the original bitstream, so the bitrate is set by the broadcaster. They dont have on board hardware for re-encoding these streams to other bitrates or anything like you're suggesting.

Your only option is transcoding the files.

[prupert]

thanks for the reply.

Damn, thats a shame. And am I correct in thinking that it is difficult to transcode these files due to the nature of the DVB-T source (which produces error in the recorded mpg - which messes up the transcoding process)?

[herbs]

Try running them through pvastrumento

[sub]

I'm not aware of anything that makes transcoding DVB recordings a major problem. Some people have had sync problems, but dont think that will necessarily be the case for everyone. You may want to experiment with using different muxes when recording, as some may produce better timing info for transcoding than others.

[prupert]

Thanks everyone for the replies and suggestions, I'll try out the software suggested and also mess with my muxes and see what happens.

It's nice to come across such a friendly and helpfull community!

Cheers people.