[mythtv-users] new stuff to understand

[Robin Gilks]

> Hey All
>
> ok.. so I've been running a myth box for a couple of years now I think -
> and over this time I've learnt quite a bit about how myth works and
> learnt even more about linux!
>
> over this time I've got through various pieces of kit for upgrades - new
> mb, more memory, more hd etc etc..
>
> now I've made a *big* difference - I've switched from a 878 based card
> to a new PVR-250.
>
> it's taken a week or so for me to get this thing running and I've
> continued to learn a few things about how these cards work but it's been
> *really* worth it - I thought I had the 878 card working near original
> source quality but hell, this is now damn perfect and the quality is
> amazing.
>
> i'm still having  a few problems in terms of stability of the
> machine/myth but I need to look into things further to provide more info.
>
> so - to the purpose of this email.
>
> I never got my head around "transcoding" as I figured I never needed to
> with the old card. now I'm recording with the 250 I figured I'd better
> know more about this transcoding thing.
>
> what is it? why does it matter? how will it affect how I use my mythbox?
> is there settings I need to know about? am I right in thinking it's more
> of an issue now I'm on a 250?
>
> I have mtd running as a daemon on startup but I don't know what it's
> there for! lol
>
> can someone shed light?
>
> thanks
>
> Craig
>
Hi Craig

I would imagine that the 878 card would record with a "disk burn rate" of
about 4G per hour (thats what I get) whereas the PVR card, being mpeg2
should be a quarter of that (about 1G per hour). By transcoding to mpeg4,
that can be further reduced, without loosing much quality, to about 300M
per hour. Its all about balancing CPU cycles against diskspace!

-- 
Robin Gilks