[mythtv-users] Biggest Mythtv setup

[Alasdair Macdonald]

On 11 April 2010 12:56, Another Sillyname <anothersname at googlemail.com> wrote:

> In the past for testing/interest I've recorded movies from both the
> BBC and ITV using both the DVB-T and DVB-S feeds simultaneously and
> found the same movie will have a massively different bitrate off the
> DVB-S feed (sometimes as much as twice the DVB-T bitrate).  BBC HD off
> Freesat currently outputs at about 6.5GB per hour, as no-one has
> released a DVB-T2 card yet AFAIK I don't know the BBC HD bitrate of
> DVB-T2.

Not only do the DVB-T and DVB-T bitrates differ, but the bitrates for
the BBC regions differ; of the 4 BBC2 varieties England has the lowest
bitrate (and long GOPs); Wales / Scotland / NI have the highest
bitrates (4297kbps) that are commonly seen of any DVB-S SD broadcast -
although they used to be higher, up until August - ish 2009 IIRC. (At
the same time the BBC HD bitrate dropped massively too).

BBC1 comes in more varieties, but again Wales / Scotland / NI have
higher bitrates (also 4297). The difference is noticeable, if you are
looking for it. All of the BBC1 & BBC2 bitrates seem to be
near-constant; all other stations that I've looked at are variable.
BBC3 & BBC4 occasionally broadcast at even higher bitrates than the
highest BBC1 & BBC2 broadcasts; I've even seen some BBCi (red button)
stuff come in at 6000kbps - that's the highest I've ever seen for SD.

>
> If anyone wants to record movies from ITV off Freesat use the West
> Country feed as it usually has the best bitrate and screen format.

So this is the same principle as the variation in BBC described above.
I wasn't aware of this particular variation; thanks for the info.