Question - What Are Your Settings?

[lonecrow]

My most sincere apologizes to Sub. First I didnt know you were the only one here... In that case, I should say: Sorry to have asked that question, but I couldnt find anything by searche with " best decoders, deinterlacing...". Thing is, your answer was actually accurate, but I found it a bit cold. Now I do understand that I wouldnt even bother answering if I were at your place, so I guess I must apologize.

And sorry if I seemed like bashing you, but English is not my mother thongue, so Im trying my best, but sometimes I looks a bit akward!

Thanks for all the work you're putting through this!

ps: I did search for a lot of other things, it's just that I couldnt find my answer on this one. Sorry again!

[5%NationofCasiotone]

Apparently things work differently for everybody but in general what recording settings do you use (Low, Med, High, Cutsom1, Custom2)? I find that Low works fine, but I'm still at about 665 MB for a half hour recording. Is there any way to cut down on size without signficant quality loss?

[nemulate]

lol And to think I asked this only few days ago!

[gEd]

Apparently things work differently for everybody but in general what recording settings do you use (Low, Med, High, Cutsom1, Custom2)? I find that Low works fine, but I'm still at about 665 MB for a half hour recording. Is there any way to cut down on size without signficant quality loss?

Strictly speaking this is off topic but:-

The quality of your mpeg recordings is directly proportional that the amount of data that you record. (no free lunch!). You can try lowering your "low" settings to see if this still gives you acceptable image quality.

I also depends on the type of programs that you watch. fast moving images require more data in order to record the transitions correctly. Set the bit rate too low and you will see blurring during quickly changing passages.

Converting your mpeg files to divx/xvid can save ~30% space but can take an age to convert.

I was initially shocked to see that I had recordings from 1-5Gb in size) but that is the deal. True TV recordings are much bigger (and better) than those you may have downloaded offf the web. fact: If you want to store lots of recordings, you need a big disk. I watch some stuff and then delete it immediately. Good films get burned onto dvd and then deleted.

[5%NationofCasiotone]

Converting your mpeg files to divx/xvid can save ~30% space but can take an age to convert.

Maybe I'll try this. I'm used to downloading TV shows that are about 370 MB per hour and look slightly better than my 1.2 GB an hour recordings. How long is "forever" and in GBPVR, it warns that converting is very experimental, what are the possibly side effects (They say "you have been warned" makes it sound like I'm getting in to something pretty bad).

[gEd]

well only an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 will do it in a "respectable" time. I have an old Athlon XP @ 1.7Ghz and it can take 4-5x program duration to convert to xvid - i just can;t be bothered!

Xvid conversion is pretty reliable now, it is divx that is dodgy.

another method is described here

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=10606.

This is off the original topic, so it would be better if you opened a new thread with any further questions that you may have on this matter.

hth

[5%NationofCasiotone]

Back to the settings question - I tried taping something on High Quality, but was dissapointed that the picture was still grainy and a little bit too light. Any reccomendations to help?

[djtaylor]

Back to the settings question - I tried taping something on High Quality, but was dissapointed that the picture was still grainy and a little bit too light. Any reccomendations to help?

I don't recall you posting your hardware details? Are you recording off an analogue source? I have 2 digital tuners receiving a DVB-T broadcast without any problems whatsoever but then it's a digital broadcast and all that really happens is that the broadcast stream gets saved to disc.

If you're using an analogue capture card, even taking the input from say a cable TV source, you've got a whole load of other variables to deal with.

David.

[5%NationofCasiotone]

I don't recall you posting your hardware details? Are you recording off an analogue source? I have 2 digital tuners receiving a DVB-T broadcast without any problems whatsoever but then it's a digital broadcast and all that really happens is that the broadcast stream gets saved to disc.

If you're using an analogue capture card, even taking the input from say a cable TV source, you've got a whole load of other variables to deal with.

David.

I'm using the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2 and I'm recording off of analog cable (I presume, it's what I have at school so I don't really have a choice).

[djtaylor]

I'm using the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2 and I'm recording off of analog cable (I presume, it's what I have at school so I don't really have a choice).

There you go so yes, I am absolutely no use to you whatsoever because I just save the broadcast stream with the digital tuners I have.

On the other hand, you'll have plenty of settings to play with to adjust sharpness, brightness, contrast, bitrate etc.

David.