GEOSATpro Recording Quality

[wyomingfly]

about 6 weeks ago I got a MicroHD and its the best receiver I have used since my first dish back in the early 1980's.

One issue though is recording quality. It takes up 4 GB for 38 minutes of recording.

Is there any way to set the recording quality or in some other way reduce the file size?

 

[Mr Tony]

since it records it directly from the stream recording size depends on a few factors but mainly how much bandwidth the channel takes

SD will take less than HD
The higher the symbol rate (if only one channel on that TP) the more it gobbles up

A few examples
-When I recorded UND or NDSU football games (North Dakota) they were SD with a symbol rate of 6617. A 3 hour game took up about 10GB
-When NDSU played in Colorado the feed was HD. That same 3 hours took up over 58GB on the drive
-I also recorded hockey games that were on the Alaska Mux (137W C-Band)...there is 9 channels on that mux so 2 1/2 hours took about 4GB. Conversely when I recorded UND hockey games (again the 6617 symbol rate) it was about 7 1/2 GB for the same 2 1/2 hour game

There is no way to change the recording quality

 

[Babadem]

about 6 weeks ago I got a MicroHD and its the best receiver I have used since my first dish back in the early 1980's.

One issue though is recording quality. It takes up 4 GB for 38 minutes of recording.

Is there any way to set the recording quality or in some other way reduce the file size?

Ice said it all. HD recordings will always take up more recording space as it contains more data.

 

[skysurfer]

Is there any way to set the recording quality or in some other way reduce the file size?

yes, run the video out of the receiver and into an external recording device (DVD burner, hard drive recorder, PC tuner card) so you can control the quality of the recording like a cable or DBS company does when they take high quality master feeds and reprocess it to lower the bandwidth needed and thus quality for their subscribers.

 

[Tron]

The above posts say it all. The micro simply records the stream directly from the satellite, so the bitrate of the recording (and therefore the space used) depends on the uplinker. Remember that lower bitrates will result in a lower picture quality.

 

[primestar31]

You can always record it as it is, then import the file into an editing program, and shrink it as needed to your taste.

 

[Mr Tony]

I dont get why folks would compress the file especially if the feed looks real good

 

[primestar31]

Me neither, but that's what the OP asked for, and I explained how he could do it. Drivespace is CHEAP nowadays, just get a larger drive.

1TB should be large enough for enough video for a long, long time. I have a drive dock for my MicroHD, and for my Dish VIP722k, and another for my WDTVLIVE, and a whole slew of 3.5" 1TB drives. I can eject them at will, and pop in another one in a few seconds.

 

[jdbob]

I dont get why folks would compress the file especially if the feed looks real good

The reason I do it is to add it to my home theater PC. I keep everything on an external 2TB drive. I recorded "Nova - Earth from Space" back in February which was 2 hours long so I bet the original was 20GB or so. I used Handbrake and compressed it down to 5GB before adding to my video collection. Sure, the quality isn't as high but it means I can keep a lot more shows on that drive.

 

[kittyhas1000legs]

The reason I do it is to add it to my home theater PC. I keep everything on an external 2TB drive. I recorded "Nova - Earth from Space" back in February which was 2 hours long so I bet the original was 20GB or so. I used Handbrake and compressed it down to 5GB before adding to my video collection. Sure, the quality isn't as high but it means I can keep a lot more shows on that drive.

Handbrake has been my go-to for video conversion for a while. It's great for DVD to .mkv or .mp4, and is one of the few programs that can handle .wtv files (recorded from Windows Media Center in Win7). If you have a slower/older computer, it may take a while to convert depending on the settings (MPEG to MPEG vs MPEG to h264, audio compression, single-pass vs. 2-pass, etc). Files also take a lot longer if they're HD.

As an example, converting a DVD to .mkv with h.264 video and ac3 audio can take an hour or so. Converting my copy of "Nova - Earth from Space" (thanks for the reminder, jdbob) just started, and is expected to take eight hours. This was recorded OTA from the local station, so I'm converting MPEG-2 to h.264, original audio, staying at 1080i. I guess when I get back from work tonight I'll be able to see the picture quality and file size.