[mythtv-users] General transcoding help

[Phill Edwards]

> I guess my problem is, I don't know how the whole transcoding thing works. 
> I've played around with the options in Myth trying to figure it out but I
> don't know the differences between RTJPEG and MPEG4.  I record some stuff in
> HD, is one standard better than another for encoding for space / quality?

RTJPEG isn't compressed so it's quality should be quite good
(depending on your original recording, of course), but it uses up a
lot of disk space. MPEG4, however, is compressed so some quality might
be lost but it uses a lot less disk space.

Also, because MPEG4 has to handle compression it can chew CPU more than RTJPEG.

Regards,
Phill