[mythtv-users] Always use the HD PVR and retire my PVR 250, or continue to use both in same recording group

John P Poet jppoet at gmail.com
Fri Jun 25 18:43:28 UTC 2010


On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 12:27 PM, James Orr <james.orr7 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 1:46 PM, John P Poet <jppoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 9:36 AM, James Orr <james.orr7 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 7:02 PM, James Maclaren <maclaren at tulane.edu>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I have just recently bought an HDPVR - wished I had known they would be
>> >> on
>> >> sale - everything is working fine. I have a PVR 250 as well currently
>> >> on the
>> >> same feed for SD shows from directv.  Both the hdpvr and pvr 250 are in
>> >> the
>> >> same recording group.  My question is, should I just record everything
>> >> on
>> >> component to the hdpvr or keep the current configuration.  What are
>> >> other
>> >> users doing? How will the quality/size be of sd recordings compare to
>> >> that
>> >> of the pvr 250 recorded in 480i through s-video?  I have my directv box
>> >> set
>> >> to ouput 720p which is the resolution of my hdtv.
>> >> Thanks for any advice.
>> >> James
>> >>
>> > I just setup my HD-PVR yesterday and in a similar situation.
>> >
>> > Will the directv box output s-video and component at the same time?
>> >
>> > My PVR-250 recordings were about 2.2GB/hour while my HD-PVR 480i
>> > recordings
>> > are coming in at about 0.8 GB/hour so that's significantly smaller.  The
>> > quality is perhaps not quite as good but I think it's good enough.  I
>> > only
>> > have two channels I watch that aren't available in HD (comedy central
>> > and
>> > BBC America).
>>
>> If the quality via the HD-PVR is lower, you probably have the bitrate
>> on the HD-PVR set too low.
>>
> I was just looking at that actually.  Mostly because the HD recordings don't
> look quite as good as my HDHR recordings.
>
> At the moment I just have the default settings.  The bitrates are broken up
> into low, medium and high resolution, I assume that corresponds to 480, 720
> and 1080?  My high resolution bitrate is set at the max the sliders will
> allow.


Yes.


> The recording is marked as 1080 in MythTV, but the file size (about 4.5
> GB/hour) suggests the medium avg bitrate of 9000 instead of the high avg
> bitrate of 13500.


Since it is a one-pass encoding system where it has to choose on the
fly, it is not able to achieve exactly what you ask for.

If you actually want 13500 bitrate, set the max slider to be *less*
than the avg slider, and that will tell the system to switch from VBR
to CBR.

It is on my TODO list, to change that screen to have a separate
check-box for designating CBR instead of VBR.


John
-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list