[mythtv-users] Size of the MPEG-2 files vs. TiVo & TV output quality

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Monday, Sep 1, 2003, at 02:12 US/Pacific, Ian Forde wrote:

> On Mon, 2003-09-01 at 01:08, Jeremy Palenchar wrote:
>> So,
>>
>> 1) Why does Tivo use 1 gig per hour of recorded TV and the MythTv w/ 
>> WinTV
>> 250 use 4gig per hour? This is troublesome to me. Shouldn't we be 
>> able to
>> get as good or better compression?
>
> Heh - who said that Tivo is 1 gig per hour?  That's only true if you 
> use
> basic quality.  If you use the highest quality setting for recordings,
> you can count on 2-4 gigs per hour...

And even at its highest quality settings, TiVo has a lower resolution 
than the PVR-x50's max resolution. And yes, it is possible to get 
better compression. You can lower your bitrate and resolution 
(personally, I refuse to) and you can also transcode to MPEG-4 when 
recordings finish.

>> 2) I have read posts that output quality to the TV can be 
>> problematic. I
>> have seen recommendations for the GeForce 4 cards. Any specific 
>> reason for
>> this? Any specific recommendations on a cheap implementation of a 
>> card that
>> produces good results?
>
> Can't help you here - I've got a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 that I can't get
> overscan to work with at all.  (I'm using the NVidia driver.)

I've had nothing but excellent results with a number of GeForce 4 MX 
cards, as well as a Ti 4400. All of them output excellent pictures, and 
overscan works just like it should. The only card I've had any issues 
with was a REALLY cheap Jaton GF4MX, which produced a noticeable moire 
on screen. Both of my Chaintech cards have been excellent (I especially 
like the latest one; a fanless 8x AGP Chaintech GeForce 4 MX 440 that I 
got for about $40), and no complaints about my MSI or PNY cards either.

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

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