[mythtv-users] transcoding necessary if later output goes only to a HW MPEG-2 decoder (PVR 350)

Nick Morrott knowledgejunkie at gmail.com
Sun Jun 3 21:52:19 UTC 2007


On 03/06/07, Dr. Johannes Zellner <johannes at zellner.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've two Hauppauge cards (PVR 150 / PVR 350) and watch recorded shows
> via the PVR 350 s-video output.  Currently I use no transcoding at
> all, as the MPEG-2 recordings can be sent directly to the HW decoder
> of the PVR 350 card.
>
> My question: is it benefitial to transcode the recordings anyway and
> what would be the optimal transcoding settings?
> I guess the transcoded recording should still be MPEG-2 so it can be
> sent directly to the HW decoder of the PVR 350 card when viewing it,
> shouldn't it?

If there is no problem with storage space, I would *not* transcode any
material recorded from your PVR cards for playback through the
PVR-350. The PVR-350 optimally accelerates MPEG-2 video (and goes a
fine job) - playback of XVID/DivX content is nowhere near as good.
Personally I don't transcode any material recorded from our PVR cards
- unless it's a series I'm archiving to DVD as XVID) as I only have SD
recordings (PVR-x%0 cards and DVB-T) and enough storage for our needs,
even if we're away for a couple of weeks.

You could losslessly commflag/transcode to just remove advertisements
and keep the resulting recordings in their native MPEG-2 format, but I
just use different playback groups for different types of recording
and use custom rew/ffw/jump amounts to achieve the same ends.

-- 
Nick

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