Protecting a movie caused my jaw to drop

ohioankev

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 25, 2007
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Sharknado recorded from SYFY takes 16.445 GB of space for 2hours 4minutes of HD video.
The Dark Knight Rises recorded from HBO only takes 5.040GB of space for 2hours 49minutes of HD video.

HBO HD is severely compressed? If that is the case it seems wrong since people pay a $18 premium for HBO but then again we don't even get all the premiums in HD.
:confused:

Btw it's a Hopper 2000 still on S246 so it's not caused by the resent upgrade.
 

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Something screwy on your Hopper.

Mine shows Sharknado at roughly 4Gb of space.

That is what I figured. This is the first time I have ever seen ANY recording take up this much space. I haven't had any issues with my Hopper regarding stability,etc. It runs like a champ. However it looks like I am stuck with this recording for a while because a quick scan of the program guide says it's not airing anytime soon.

Edit: I take that back just checked out some other recordings this week after and it they had this issue. Tuesday Paranormal Witness, 9.8GB, Continuum 15.8GB. Strangely this all involves shows on the SYFY channel. Everything else on every other channel has space used in the "normal range". I just restarted my Hopper, and I'm going to record Continuum again and see what happens.
 
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I thought someone had posted it was reshowing on 7/18.

I watched it, it is hilarious to watch. So many screwups in many scenes, I laughed myself silly.

...or was that the Mike's Hard Lemonade? :)
 
If HBO is compressed more than SYFY, I would say to immediately compress SYFY the same way. HBO consistently has a better PQ than most regular channels.
 
The problem with attempting to find bit rate via the file sizes is that Dish uses VBR and with the file size numbers all you can calculate is the ABR.

Shows/movies with less action don't need as high of a bit rate to still look good.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using Forum Runner
 
But even with VBR there shouldn't be discrepancies like what was reported. Something appears to be wrong.
 
But even with VBR there shouldn't be discrepancies like what was reported. Something appears to be wrong.

It is possible that the TP that SyFy is on was underutilized at the time causing a lot more of the TP's bandwidth to be dedicated to the channel temporarily. Typically Dish has anywhere from 8-9 HD channels per TP (and one or two have had 10.) With about 42Mbps per TP, it is very well possible for that file size when other channels are inactive. That's only about 18Mbps ABR.
 
I have seen recently a couple of shows at 4X the "normal" size. So far I have found other copies which are not so big so I have let their names past from memory. I monitor this by checking the size before it goes to the EHD and I add it to my spreadsheet. It becomes important when you have 1000's of recordings. Any show having more than 2500 MB/hr is suspect, except OTA may be up to 4000, even 6000. Most are now 1400 to 2000 MB/hr. Any below 1300 are likely SD, which are usually 650 to 800 WA MPEG2.
-Ken
 
HD space is not sent compressed. But dish is MP4, which is compression. If there is more action in one thing than another, that item will take much more space as there is not as much repeated scenes which means less space to store it. Remember MP4 is in use, not 6 meg of space like ota to a off air receiver.
 

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