[mythtv-users] Digital Broadcast Bitrates?

[Brad Templeton]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 11:47:07AM -0400, Joel Anderson wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Could anyone share what bitrates they typically see when capturing
> pure digital SD and HD signals such as via HD3000, DVB-S, or cable STB
> ala firewire?  I found quite a bit of info in the archives regarding
> resolutions that are seen, but not much mention of the bitrates.
> 
> Really I'm trying to figure out what kind of file sizes would be
> typical of such recordings, to plan for drive space and other hardware
> considerations.

1080i recordings, around 6 to 7 gigabytes per hour.

720p recordings, sometimes 6 gb/hour (60fps), sometimes just 3.5 gb/hour
(presumably 24fps ones)

DTV STDV recordings -- can vary a lot, but often aruond 1.6 gb/hour

Transcode 1080i HD recordings to 1280x540px30fps in mpeg 4, thus
holding 75% of the pixels of 1280x720 (my tv's native resolution) --
as little as 1.4gb per hour and still looks pretty good.  The 540 lines
is to allow trivial de-interlace.