[mythtv-users] Tutorial on Encoding (mostly re: file sizes)

[Mark Kundinger]

Others have done a good job of talking about higher end, so let me talk
about the lower end.

I have Dish network coming in through an anlog line, into my tuner, and
out to a 20" regular TV.  So my source resolution is lowish, but my
line is very clean, and my output device isn't very picky. :)

My defualt setting is 480x480, 2000Kbps (the only thing I changed in
the MPEG2 profile was bitrate, nothing else).  This gets me just under
1 gig per hour, and if I sit 6 feet away, there's really no perceptible
degradation.  My "high quality" is 544x480, 3500Mbps (1.8 gig/hr). 
"Live TV" is 640x480, 4500Kbps.

I've also got a Matrox Marvel G400.  I have to capture at 352x480,
because 720x480 will bog down my system.  Quality is still just fine,
comparable to the PVR-250, although the file size can be about 10
gig/hr (I transcode these to about 1800Kbps).

If I had a bigger, fancier TV, I might be more picky.

Earlier, before I sorted out my coaxial cable problems, I had some
noise on the line, and it did really bad things to the picture quality.



--- Tony McDowell <svet-am at cableone.net> wrote:

> i'm buying some of the parts I will need for the MythTV box in the
> next few 
> days.  Our rig will use a primary hard disk for actually running the
> OS on 
> and a secondary hard disk that will be exclusively for storing data 
> on.  Since the main purpose of our machine is for recording /
> encoding 
> video for playback *only* on our TV, what are some good encoding
> settings?
> 
> I am pretty sure that I will encode at 640x480 but don't know about
> any 
> other settings or how they will affect file size.  For a normal
> 1-hour show 
> (most of our favorites are this long), what kind of file sizes am I
> looking 
> at?  This will affect the size of the hard disk I buy for the
> storage.
> 
> I'm not expecting folks to just hand out information here, but a good
> site 
> for tutorials on this topic where I can research it myself would be
> greatly 
> appreciated since I know little about how MythTV encodes and the
> official 
> How-To was a bit slim on this topic.
> 
> thanks!
> .tony
> 
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