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>>>(I guess this would also depend on compression methods used)

Correct.

Record 1 hr program using myth and your compression of choice
filesize * 80 = ~space required for 80 hours.

Sorry. I don't mean to be a smartass. I was born that way. :)

MPEG2 @ 12Mbit @720x480 will take A LOT more space that low res DivX or
nu(i)pple.




----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Davis
To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 12:33 PM
Subject: [mythtv-users] "Normal" storage requirements?


This is more of a poll to see what kind of storage you all have on your myth
boxes, and also the total amount of recording hours you've got, whether it
be on one box or several boxes networked together.

TIVO boasts being able to record up to 80 hours. What would it take to do
80 hours on a Myth Box? (I guess this would also depend on compression
methods used)



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At 11:33 AM 6/4/2003 -0500, Ben Davis wrote:
>This is more of a poll to see what kind of storage you all have on your
>myth boxes, and also the total amount of recording hours you've got,
>whether it be on one box or several boxes networked together.
>
>TIVO boasts being able to record up to 80 hours. What would it take to do
>80 hours on a Myth Box? (I guess this would also depend on compression
>methods used)

Actually, TiVo's "up to" phrasing is a signal that on a TiVo, it also
depends on the compression (quality level) chosen.

MPEG4 encoding on a Myth host can range from roughly 600 MB/hr to 2000 MB
(2 GB)/hr. From that, you (or anyone) can do the storage arithmetic.
(Someone else will have to help with the other capture formats -- RTJPEG
and MPEG2/ivtv.) I'm pretty sure that Myth's lowest quality (associated
with those MPEG4 numbers) is far better than the quality level TiVo assumes
for 80 hours ... but I don't own a TiVo so have not been able to do
like-to-like comparisons, so that comment is more a guess than a firm opinion.

My Myth host has 120 GB of storage (/home/mythtv) on hdc (it has a second,
small hard drive on hda that holds everything except /home) . The one I'm
building for a colleague has 180 GB (set up the same way as my host). So
far, I only use these for short-term, time-shifting storage; I haven't done
the work yet to transform Myth captures into edited, "keeper" video. Each
of these hosts has room for 2 more drives, when money permits and the need
arises.

My non-Myth recording host has roughly 450 GB of video storage, spread over
3 drives (added incrementally), holding DivX captures done at about 500 MB/hr.

There is no such thing as "normal" here, though. It all depends on your
purpose (and the size of your wallet).

Roby Adams (hypykesub@bellsouth.net) wrote:

> MPEG2 @ 12Mbit @720x480 will take A LOT more space that low res DivX or
> nu(i)pple.

I'm still in the process of getting my machine set up, so forgive the
naivete -- given the number of PVR-250 cards out there recording to larger
MPEG2 files, would there be any benefit to a background (and severely
niced, presumably) task to go through and transcode the MPEG2 shows into
something smaller?

Although once one starts re-encoding shows using one's main CPU, the entire
point of having the PVR-250 card vanishes. Given how cheap storage is
these days anyhow, I suppose there wouldn't be much of a point... unless
one then wants to burn shows off to CDs, at which point smaller becomes
better again.

Adam

--
You think it's a conspiracy [by] the networks to put bad shows on TV. But
the shows are bad because that's what people want. It's not like Windows
users don't have any power. I think they are happy with Windows, and
that's an incredibly depressing thought. -S. Jobs <adam@baz.org>

Ben Davis wrote:

> This is more of a poll to see what kind of storage you all have on
> your myth boxes, and also the total amount of recording hours you've
> got, whether it be on one box or several boxes networked together.
>
> TIVO boasts being able to record up to 80 hours. What would it take
> to do 80 hours on a Myth Box? (I guess this would also depend on
> compression methods used)
>
>
>
I have 331 GB of RAID-5 for my Myth systems (and other things) and
currently have about 50 GB of Myth-recorded video. I average about 500
MB/hr (I have to use low-quality settings because my frontends are all
weak boxes) so I have the capacity for about 660 hours.

Ben Davis wrote:
> This is more of a poll to see what kind of storage you all have on your
> myth boxes, and also the total amount of recording hours you've got,
> whether it be on one box or several boxes networked together.
>
> TIVO boasts being able to record up to 80 hours. What would it take to
> do 80 hours on a Myth Box? (I guess this would also depend on
> compression methods used)
>
With MPEG-4 320x480 High-Quality, each hour is about 440 megs. It looks
great on my 20" TV, but a big blocky on my bigger, older 27" TV. If I
remove the High-Quality option, each hour is 480 megs. I can get about
30 hours of storage on my 20 Gig drive; but I record much more than that
per week, and I'm struggling to watch it all, currently I have to move
the biggest files to other hosts until I can watch them :( 20 gigs
definitely isn't enough - I'll be buying something at least 80 gigs
soon, hopefully more!


Pete