MPEG4 Recording Times

[Tom Bombadil]

So has anyone who is receiving true MPEG4 HD channels taken the time to monitor how much disk space they are consuming?

I'm assuming that Dish is not artifically restricting HD recording capacity to the 25 hour limit and thus would allow you to consume all of the available space.

I'm interested in learning if anyone is realizing an extra 20% or so in recording times.

 

[rhollinger]

So has anyone who is receiving true MPEG4 HD channels taken the time to monitor how much disk space they are consuming?

I'm assuming that Dish is not artifically restricting HD recording capacity to the 25 hour limit and thus would allow you to consume all of the available space.

I'm interested in learning if anyone is realizing an extra 20% or so in recording times.

Supposedly nothing is MPEG4 currently, it's MPEG2 with an MPEG4 header. I'm hoping that the 30 hours reported is the MPEG2 record time and that once MPEG4 goes live we should see much better record times. I'd say 20% is actually quite conservative as most MPEG4 movies that I've seen have been 25%-50% of the size of the MPEG2 equivalent. Maybe I'm hoping for too much, but... 30 hours isn't going to cut it once everything is HD....

 

[tawhite]

The HD lil is being reported as true mpeg-4, not just mpeg-4 headers. So, those who are getting their HD locals may be able to report on this.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Yep, there have been multiple reports that the HD Locals are true MPEG4. Don't know if this is confirmed fact.

 

[BFG]

yes, all the locals except ny & la are mpeg4

See my chart below for the bitrates they are using - http://www.satelliteguys.us/bfg/dish-hd.htm

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

This would be a great question for GOalieBob who has a 622 and also subscribers to Chicago Locals in HD which are true mepg4.

 

[dfergie]

BFG's chart shows the Albuquerque locals as having really poor bitrates Koat and Kasa (720p native abc and fox) 7 Krqe and Kob (native 1080i Cbs and Nbc) 10 and 9 respectivly...(they are multicasted in Albuqureque)

 

[BFG]

but in mpeg4, those probably aren't poor rates. The whole idea of mpeg4 is deliver the same picture with less bitrate, and so if it's working correctly that's exactly what we should see. Also the the samples I was provided with are a 1 minute sample and some of the locals weren't showing HD, so the bitrate probably wasn't as taxing

 

[dfergie]

True... look at DivX which is mpeg4...and DivX HD is stunning for the amount of space it takes up...

 

[rhollinger]

If it's true that LIL is MPEG4 (which it would appear to be) than I too am anxiously awaiting a comparison of the size of the recording. Only problem is that depending on the device's estimation may not be a very accurate report without filling up the HD see how far you can get?!?

 

[garys]

I have NY HD locals, I also have OTA and recorded some primetime network shows on both on my 622. I do not see anything to show mpeg4 uses more bandwith than mpeg2. Apperantly my OTA uses less as a one hour HD program, ABC (720p) uses just over 40 minutes whereas same program on WABC-DT uses one hour.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Yes, this exercise may require someone in an area with true MPEG4 HD LiLs to take a clean drive and record on it until it is full and then total up the hours.

Sounds like a job for GoalieBoB!

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Paging GoalieBob
Paging GoalieBob

Please come in GoalieBob!

 

[epsilon]

Looking at BFG's bitrates list, I find it odd that WLS, a 720p station, has the highest bitrate (12 Mbps), whereas 2 1080i stations, WBBM and WMAQ, are at 7 and 10 Mbps. And, looking at another market, there are stations as low as 4 Mbps.