[mythtv-users] American Idol Finale

[Bruce Markey]

Tonight is the American Idol Finale. Having re-watched last
year's finale a few days ago, I was reminded of a few things
to be aware of that others may want to consider.

- Record this even of you don't think you care.

- Add at least 15 minutes of End Late time. I'd recommend 29.

- Consider using a profile with a higher max bitrate and max audio.

Even if you think AI is tacky, one of the nice things about a
DVR is that you can painlessly record things then delete even if
you don't watch (I always record more stuff than I actually watch).
If something happens that friends and co-workers talk about, you
can FF to see it for yourself. The finale last year was spectacular
with many unannounced guests including Prince (on American Idol?).
Even if you don't care who wins, there may be bands or singers
you do want to see. If you've got enough cards and disk space,
there's no reason not to record it. The same holds true for the
Super Bowl, Academy Awards, etc.

Fox is flexible with the timing like an awards show. If they run
late, the local news can wait. I believe last year ran ~11min
over (now that I've said that, they'll probably end on time ;-).
15min should be enough to cover any slip but if you're into the
next time slot, might as well add 29. this is about a half hour
without intruding on shows that start on the next half hour. I
usually use 29 or 59 for sports. The show is two hours and adding
another half hour shouldn't matter if you have hundreds of GB of
disk space.

It's best to set the extra time ahead of time and look at the
"Upcoming Recordings" page to see how things will fit. However,
if a show is already recording when you realize that you may need
more time, you can go to the upcoming page or any other scheduling
page and press Enter then select "Change Ending Time" then add
more time on the fly.

I used to think that a camera panning following a football player
running down a green field was a lot of motion and it is but this
is nothing compared to thousands of pieces of confetti swirling
all over the screen. This is hard to compress and looks like crap
unless the maximum bitrate is high enough to somewhat show the
scene without too much losiness. Therefore, for hardware encoders,
you should use a profile where the "Max. Bitrate" is at least double
the average "Bitrate" so it can do a better job during the confetti
drop and pyrotechnics at the end. Because this is a music show, it
makes sense to use the max audio bitrate. This wouldn't increase
the file size too much but may (or may not) improve audio fidelity.

If you make changes to a profile, make sure to do a test recording
first to be sure there are no unwelcome surprises.

--  bjm