New user. I have a few problems.

[polymetric]

I've been recording to my main media drive (3TB WD Green). I have a lot of other stuff on there, so I'll might just get another one just for recording. However I've been recording mostly 30 minute segments with occasional 60 minute segments for the past two days, and it's already over 70 GB. I've found that compressing to H264 with 10-16 CRF doesn't add too much compression noise and reduced a 3 hour long 720p recording I had of a livestream to only a few hundred megabytes. I've also found that when I use ffmpeg to simply copy the recorded MPEG2/AC3 streams from NextPVR (-c:v copy -c:a copy) it seems to partially repair some dropouts. I'll try doing it with postprocessing.bat just to see how well the videos hold up.

[polymetric]

update: I tried compressing with CRF 16... Apparently I forgot how compression worked. You were right, the file got bigger. I'll still do the ffmpeg copy, as it improves the integrity of the file, but not recompressing.

[Barry10]

I live in the Orlando area and receive channels clearly. Not sure where you are located but I am in the 32806 zip code and use an RCA Suburban Mini Yagi Digital Outdoor Antenna with Mast $54. I went with the Yagi design because all the stations are in Bithlo and it is a strong directional design. It is an outside antenna, would recommend you use RG6. I also get channels 56 from Melbourne little bit south 60 miles and a total of 58 channels, of which about 12 are useful. The indoor antenna did not work for me. Also I use an GE 4-Way Distribution Amplifier $18. Signal levels are excellent with this setup. I split off to 2 different rooms due to DB loss. The Pc Tuners are not as strong as TV set tuners. I use the Haupppauge quad board and can record 4 channels, works well. Hope this helps, NextPvr seems to provide everything I need.

[polymetric]

Nice setup! I just got into it so I only have the single A681 but I'm planning on getting that quad card eventually. With the current stock antenna I'm getting about 40 out of 60 channels in range, but after a few minutes it loses the far ones and comes down to 31. I just got that $30 antenna and I'm currently setting it up.

[scJohn]

Recording size depends on the bitrate used by the channel. Usually you'd get something like this:

1080i = 7-8GB/Hour
720p = 5-6GB/Hour
SD = less, maybe like 4GB/Hour

I wouldn't recommend recompressing recordings. If you're having to do this, it sounds like you need a bigger hard drive. Disk space is cheap these days.

Sub. Those GB per hour are on the high side. If a TV station is broadcasting only 1 channel then you might see those numbers. All off the stations in my area (7) uses a min of 2 sub channels. I have 2 stations that broadcast on 4 sub channels. None of my 1080I stations are even 6GB/Hour. My 720P are all over the place, from 4.5GB to 5.5GB per hour

[mvallevand]

OTA is a lot higher quality and bitrate than cable because of either provider specific compression, h264 (now) or both.

Martin

[BrettB]

Sub. Those GB per hour are on the high side. If a TV station is broadcasting only 1 channel then you might see those numbers. All off the stations in my area (7) uses a min of 2 sub channels. I have 2 stations that broadcast on 4 sub channels. None of my 1080I stations are even 6GB/Hour. My 720P are all over the place, from 4.5GB to 5.5GB per hour

NextPVR recordings only contain data for the specific program being recorded, not the entire transport stream. So, the file size will not vary based upon whether the broadcast includes sub channels.

[polymetric]

So I set up the antenna. Suddenly, I'm getting perfect, undamaged 720p MPEG2 files! They're like 600MB/hour! It's crazy how much of a difference it made. With the stock antenna it was nearly ten times that, and for a 480i file that glitched and skipped like crazy.

[polymetric]

Somehow the antenna is not picking up any signal. I'm just getting 0kb recordings now. And my Live TV mode is not working either. I don't think there's anything I could have done to cause this

[Graham]

Somehow the antenna is not picking up any signal. I'm just getting 0kb recordings now. And my Live TV mode is not working either. I don't think there's anything I could have done to cause this

It's a near certainty that this is because the tuner is not passing data to NextPVR. It's a near certainty that the tuner is not passing data to NextPVR because the tuner is not receiving a signal from the antenna.