[mythtv-users] Non-HD recordings via HD-PVR are huge; can anything be done?

[freedenizen]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 6:17 PM, Matt Emmott <memmott at gmail.com> wrote:
> My primary tuner on my system is an HD-PVR hooked to a Scientific
> Atlanta HD cable box (SA4250HDC, I think) via component cable. 90% of
> my recordings are through this tuner; the other 10% are through my
> HDHomeRun. Certain channels, like Comedy Central in this example,
> don't broadcast in HD in my area, so I record the SD stream. The
> problem is, these recordings are the same size as my 1080i recordings
> - A half hour Daily Show episode, for example, is about 2.7GB. All
> attempts to transcode thus far have failed, and from what I can tell
> from searching the mailing list archives, this is the norm.
>
> Is there anything I can do to shrink these files, either during the
> recording or after the fact? In addition to shrinking the files for
> general sanity, I'd love to get mythexport working so I could export
> some shows to my iPod but if transcoding is a no-no at this time, I
> guess that functionality would not work at this time, correct? Is
> anybody else watching HD-PVR recordings on their iProducts?

As has been stated by others, the HD-PVR records at whatever
resolution it is given.  I have 2 of them, one connected to a motorola
6200, the other to a Pace RNG-110.  The 6200 always outputs HD
resolution regardless of the channel (and hence large files are
encoded), the RNG-110 changes its output resolution depending on the
content.  It is possible that there is a setting in your cable box to
change that setting, or maybe your cable company has a different model
they could provide that has that functionality.