Does NPVR have support for changing recording quality?

[jcjefferies]

Its not clear what you are trying to do. If you want to record at lower quality is there not an SD version broadcast of what you want to record? Are you saying everything in USA is only broadcast in HD! On the other hand if you want to record HD but cannot view it at the moment NPVR with a video card have the ability to upscale or downscale the output resolution to screen. I have a 1360 X 780 TV which obviously wont display HD but my NPVR computer runs at native resolution so both a SD or HD recording would both be displayed at 1360 X 780.

[liskinator]

what am i try to do?
well the computer is to old to play HD flawless, i just get over the air broadcasts, and they are only in HD, yes.

the tv tuner cant record in lower resolutions since it is HD data, not like the analoug tuners where they have the on board mpeg2 encoder and can change the resolution on the fly.

so i have a HD only source and the computer cant handle HD, what do i do?
the tv only plays 480i so whats the point anyways.

[mvallevand]

You could use a remote NMT extender to NPVR ($105) which will downconvert the HD material to SD on the fly (even live tv) for playback via composite or svideo and analog audio out. It will stretch full screen, if you don't like the black bars.

Martin

[Reddwarf]

Well, a single core 2.8 P4 IS a bit weak for HD, but much depends also on the graphic card. Perhaps a new graphic card would solve the whole issue. What card are you using at the moment

[liskinator]

i know, the a 2.8 is fine for sd, and i thought i could tell it to record HD at a lower resolution (onthefly) without converting and everything when i first started looking at tvtuners a few weeks ago.

now i realize that i cant do onthefly with HD like SD, so i may just put my computer on the tv. my computer is a amd Phenom II X6 @ 2.8GHZ with a ATI HD 5850. (surely i wouldnt have any issues playing HD with that !!)

But before i hook up my comp ill try converting and see how long it takes. the current tv tuner comp has an x1300 ati in it as i said earlier.

this is a great Project, thanks for all the help.

[sub]

If you dont have enough PC grunt to do HD the normal way, then you definitely dont have enough grunt to transcode on-the-fly to a lower resolution (even though GBPVR/NPVR doesnt have this type of functionality). To this you'd need to be able to decoder ATSC to raw video frames, then encode those those 1080i etc frames to 480i MPEG2, all in faster-than-real times, and your PC definitely does not have enough grunt to do that. Most software encoders specify you need a 2.8GHz P4 or higher to encoder raw analog frames to SD MPEG2. On top of this you'd also need to be able to do the step of decoding the original ATSC signal.

Sorry, but when it comes to digital in GBPVR/NPVR, you can only get what the broadcaster gives you in terms of bitrate and resolution. As others have suggested, you can setup your own post-processing conversion scripts to convert to SD. Transcoding a 60 minute recording will likely take more than 60 minutes, and of course wont help with Live TV though.

Basically it sounds like your machine is not up to HD. Sorry

(That said, I'm pretty sure a 2.8GHz machine could usually to HD the normal way with an appropriate video card)

[Reddwarf]

`So perhaps you don't need to scrap the P4-2.8, just buy an ATI 3450 or better (My AthlonX6000 works fine with a 3450 card)

[liskinator]

i had so much hope for a free computer...just if it could still overthe fly convert in HD...

alright, thanks for all the help, i think this thread is pretty much closed

[Reddwarf]

i had so much hope for a free computer...just if it could still overthe fly convert in HD...

alright, thanks for all the help, i think this thread is pretty much closed

With a better graphic card you still might be able to watch HD resized to SD in the graphic cards GPU, so worth a try.

[liskinator]

eh whatever, this comp only has pci so their arent really any good GFX cards anymore in pci unless a ati HD 5450 or geforce 8400 is considered good?! lol i guess they could work but im going to hook up my PC first before i go off buying YA-GFX (yet another)

edit: i have another question: i know hdmi to component and dvi to component cables are available and they dont have any special circuits or anything, just an hdmi cable split into the component ends, or DVI split to component ends, will these work just by hooking them up to my comps DVI or hdmi port or are they not really worth anything since they don't have the conversion circuits like other converters do?
my good comp only has DVI HDMI AND mini display port so have to find a new way to connect to my TV

hdmi to component
http://www.blogcdn.com/hd.engadget.com/m...ent_sm.jpg


dvi to component
http://www.optimization-world.com/img/pr...female.jpg

answered myself next page!!