[mythtv-users] Optimum encoding for remote mythtv

[Johnny Lee]

>
>
>
>
> About nine months ago, I setup a mythtv box. Using Jarod's instructions, I
> had no difficulty setting up mythtv running on Red Hat 9.0 using a P4 2.5
> GHz, 512MB of RAM and a PVR-250.
>
> The purpose was nothing short of survival. I currently live in Europe but
> setup the box at a friend's house in the USA so that I could record and
> download my favorite TV shows (How could I live without Curb Your
> Enthusiasm?). This has worked just fine. The only downside is that, even
> with my friend's "business" cable connection that provides about 40kbps
> upstream, downloading a 30 minute show is about 3-4 hours using my current
> encoding profile settings.
>
> Those settings are currently 720x480 with a max bitrate of 3000 and audio
> at 48000 and 96k. There is only an analog cable input to the PVR-250, so I
> am sure those settings are overkill and are making the files larger than
> they need to be for the quality I would find acceptable.
>
> My question is can someone suggest better settings? Obviously, I can test
> a
> variety of encoding settings but it's not so painless because I then have
> to download the file before visually inspecting it.
>
> Currently, my idea is to drop the resolution to NTSC level (approx
> 352x525)
> while leaving the max bitrate at 3000. Am I heading in the right direction
> with this change?
>
> Also, I would like to define the Low Quality profile for recording
> animated
> shows like The Simpsons or South Park. Any ideas what settings I should
> use
> for that?
>
> Should I look at transcoding to something other than MPEG files? If so,
> what? I know I cannot yet use the commercial cut functionality on MPEG
> files, so that will have to wait.
>
> All help, advice, feedback, criticisms, and monetary donations are
> appreciated.
>
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>


mpeg4 files are a lot smaller than mpeg2 files. The only issue is I think
it takes longer to encode an mpeg2 file to mpeg4 than just grabbing it raw
like on a bttv card and having it on the fly converted to mpeg4 in the
first place. I use 640x480 @ 5000bps mpeg4 but even my 480x480 @ 3000 bps
was pretty nice.

Johnny Lee