Changing bitrate & resolution (Mode 0)

[sanderton]

Blindlemon,

As a confirmed Basic recordings man I have just finally got myself round to enabling Mode 0

Wow, one extreme to the other without passing GO!


On the Basic quality recording setting in Resource Editor does VBR (Save Disk Space) not actually operate then as the Tivo screen for Save Disk Space suggests is the case (but then it lies because as supplied VBR/Save Disk Space doesn't operate at all) or does it now operate due to our manual adjustment of settings in the Resource Editor? .

VBR does nothing on any setting of an unhacked TiVo; only by changing the settings so there are two different bitrates does it start working.

[sanderton]

Why does one need this script file at all and how is the script called on startup? What commands does this script file actually contain?

Isn't it easier just to add the line required to run iicsetw in rc.sysinit.author.edit via the Startup Editor module for TivoWeb or via the Hackman editor for this file? Or have I missed something obvious somewhere?

The script file fixes some deficiencies in the way RGB encoding is configured by default; you don't actually need it but if you're a quality freak (which most Mode 0 users are) it improves the picture.

Yes, you can call it in rc.sysint.author etc, although something in the back of my mind says it might beed to be started with a delay. Search for the very long and detailed thread about it for more.

[sanderton]

Can you recommend any different setting values for a 100hz digital scan 4:3 29" telly .

Well for one, try disabling the 100Hz mode on your TV. 100Hz processing - which adds an whole extra analogue-to-digital-to-analogue stage - can clash horribly with digital sources like TiVo, massively increasing the amount of on-screen artifacts you get.

Unless you are one of the few who are bothered by 50Hz flicker, 100Hz is best turned off.

[Pete77]

VBR does nothing on any setting of an unhacked TiVo; only by changing the settings so there are two different bitrates does it start working.

Yes I realise that VBR doesn't operate if the VBR and MAX bitrates are set exactly the same in the Resource Editor on TivoWeb on the higher quality settings but does VBR still operate even in Mode 1 recording as used by Basic? I imagine the answer is Yes? Presumably a Max Bit rate of 3000000 and a Min still of 1700000 would lead to a better quality Basic recording?

And on "Recording Quality" what options are there other than 100, 75, 55 (a Blindlemon replacement recommendation for 40 on Medium) 40 and 0. Are all values between 0 and 100 valid on a gradually sliding scale and what exactly is this value changing the actual setting of in the recording. Also does Mode 3 actually exist as a valid setting or not and if so why didn't Tivo use 1 for Basic, 2 for Medium and 3 for High?

Lastly when I watch live a program that Tivo is also recording in a lower quality setting (in this case Blindlemon's recommended Basic setting) what recording quality am I actually seeing live on the television? Is the live buffer showing me Mode 0 or does it reduce to whatever quality it is recording in if that quality is lower than Mode 0. Certainly watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at the moment it looks remarkably sharp but perhaps it is in fact still Basic in which case my eyes clearly need testing.

[sanderton]

Yes I realise that VBR doesn't operate if the VBR and MAX bitrates are set exactly the same in the Resource Editor on TivoWeb on the higher quality settings but does VBR still operate even in Mode 1 recording as used by Basic? I imagine the answer is Yes? Presumably a Max Bit rate of 3000000 and a Min still of 1700000 would lead to a better quality Basic recording?


VBR is activateable in all modes.

And on "Recording Quality" what options are there other than 100, 75, 55 (a Blindlemon replacement recommendation for 40 on Medium) 40 and 0. Are all values between 0 and 100 valid on a gradually sliding scale and what exactly is this value changing the actual setting of in the recording.

A much debated point. My view is that the number itself does nothing, it's just the internal numeric represnetation of the mode which allows the software to easily do logic based on the recording quality along the line sof "If recQual >50 then..." without having to have the names hard coded in. There may be equations in the software which change the settings on the chip to ones more appropriate for the higher settings which are triggered with a value over 50. There's a long thread where we tried to figure this out.

Also does Mode 3 actually exist as a valid setting or not and if so why didn't Tivo use 1 for Basic, 2 for Medium and 3 for High?

On a standard TiVo only two modes are in use - a low resolution for Basic and Medium and a higher one for High and Best. The two pairs of settings with the smae resolution differ in bitrates. the exact high res mode in use varies depending on what source you use, for no obvious reason - a factory tiVo recordsd Sky in higher res than Freeview.

Lastly when I watch live a program that Tivo is also recording in a lower quality setting (in this case Blindlemon's recommended Basic setting) what recording quality am I actually seeing live on the television? Is the live buffer showing me Mode 0 or does it reduce to whatever quality it is recording in if that quality is lower than Mode 0. Certainly watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at the moment it looks remarkably sharp but perhaps it is in fact still Basic in which case my eyes clearly need testing.

There is only one encoder in a TiVo; if it's recording in Basic, you'll see Basic if you watch the programme "live".

I must say on a 29-inch 4:3 set - the equivalent of a 32-inch or so 16:9 set - I'm stunned that you find Basic acceptable. I've never been able to use Basic for anything bar radio. Some of the kid's shows I put in Medium as they aren't fussy.

[Pete77]

Well for one, try disabling the 100Hz mode on your TV. 100Hz processing - which adds an whole extra analogue-to-digital-to-analogue stage - can clash horribly with digital sources like TiVo, massively increasing the amount of on-screen artifacts you get.

The tv's menus (1998 Philips Matchline set) have an option for Digital Scan On or Off, which I imagine controls the 100hz mode (who knows where the manual is by now). This was set to On. I have done a lot of playing around following your comments including also the Colour, Brightness and Sharpness settings and I am one of those people who whatever my other optical failings may be can just see the flicker appear on more colourful objects when Digital Scan is turned off. And also when I turn Digital Scan off the picture doesn't seem to improve in any other way. There is also a function called Contrast Plus which testing suggests is best left Off.

I have been interested to note other comments on here lately that a Plasma telly actually works better with SD telly (and therefore an S1 Tivo) than an LCD set which is kind of a Catch 22 situation given that as I understand it HD works better with an LCD television?

If large Widescreen 32" or 36" CRT tvs were going for silly money on Ebay for £100 or less (as they ought to be given their technical obsolescence for HD and their terrible lack of convenience for movement requiring pick up in person) I would buy one of those now but for some bizarre reason any decent brand like Sony or Panasonic seems to fetch £300 to £500 whereas discounted HD Ready new 32" Plasma Tvs seem to be only around £500 on Ebay. I can't understand why people are willing to pay much more than £150 for large Widescreen CRT sets from Sony or Panasonic today circumstances given the hassle in moving them and their out of date features.

This 1998 television was repaired in Dec 2002 (some dry joint or other on a circuit board was the problem) for £90 with a 1 year guarantee when it was just about worth doing. If it packs up again it will hit the scrap heap but of course in circumstances when I would be fairly happy for it to turn up its toes I expect it will now stubbornly potter on for ages. Its so big and heavy (its also got Dolby Surround sound and a big subwoofer in the back of the set and battleship wooden cabinet with glass doors below it) it doesn't really fit in either of my bedrooms and I'm loathed to scrap a perfectly serviceable telly with a pretty good picture. And the longer I wait the cheaper HD ready tvs are becoming and I would want at least a 42" set to be broadly comparable to a 4:3 29" set in screen area.

Anyhow I see no evidence from testing that 100hz mode is making my picture worse. Unless Digital Scan On/Off relates to something else.

[sanderton]

The tv's menus (1998 Philips Matchline set) have an option for Digital Scan On or Off, which I imagine controls the 100hz mode (who knows where the manual is by now). This was set to On. I have done a lot of playing around following your comments including also the Colour, Brightness and Sharpness settings and I am one of those people who whatever my other optical failings may be can just see the flicker appear on more colourful objects when Digital Scan is turned off. And also when I turn Digital Scan off the picture doesn't seem to improve in any other way. There is also a function called Contrast Plus which testing suggests is best left Off.


You're in luck then. You're most likely to see the effects as making posterisation of skies and misty scenes much worse, and generally seeing MPEG artifacts like mosquito noise a lot more clearly.

I have been interested to note other comments on here lately that a Plasma telly actually works better with SD telly (and therefore an S1 Tivo) than an LCD set which is kind of a Catch 22 situation given that as I understand it HD works better with an LCD television?

I think you meant CRT not plasma. Yes indeed, many people who buy plasmas or LCDs for "normal" TV are disappointed with the quality. Their performace with HD makes up for it though, and with decent scaling (either through a PC, an upsaclimng DVd palyer or an external scaler) the picture with SD can be good.

If large Widescreen 32" or 36" CRT tvs were going for silly money on Ebay for £100 or less (as they ought to be given their technical obsolescence for HD and their terrible lack of convenience for movement requiring pick up in person) I would buy one of those now but for some bizarre reason any decent brand like Sony or Panasonic seems to fetch £300 to £500.

I wish. I only got £150 for my 36-inch Panansonic a few months ago!

[Pete77]

You're in luck then. You're most likely to see the effects as making posterisation of skies and misty scenes much worse, and generally seeing MPEG artifacts like mosquito noise a lot more clearly.

Do you mean that turning Digital Scan (100hz mode) off will lead to mosquito noise in the picture appearing or that turning it on will cause mosquito noise? My impression is that when I turn Digital Scan/100hz off mosquito noise appears in the brighter coloured objects in the picture but everything else remains the same.

I think you meant CRT not plasma. Yes indeed, many people who buy plasmas or LCDs for "normal" TV are disappointed with the quality

No I meant Plasma in that if you accept that the premise that you are going to upgrade to a flat screen telly you then only have Plasma or LCD to choose from and the comments I read here suggested that Plasma gave better results for SD telly than LCD did. Of course I omitted to mention that on the whole neither Plasma or LCD were thought to give an uplift in quality compared to CRT. Another of my justifications therefore for hanging on to my large Dolby Surround 4:3 as really important programs to me like F1 Racing are still in 4:3 and this telly would fetch nothing on Ebay since people aren't prepared to go to the hassle of picking up a large weighty non widescreen telly from the depths of the countryside.

Clearly I don't have the same priorities as some of you as my real priority is maximum program choice and maximum picture quality while nice is no big deal. If you had spent a few years looking at your grandmother's old crungy black and white set at University in the early 1980s then even a 29" 100hz 4:3 telly seems like luxurt and a widescreen HD tv seems like a very small uplift given that I'm not a DVD or HD-DVD buyer and a lot of the telly I will be watching will only be in SD for some time to come.

I wish. I only got £150 for my 36-inch Panansonic a few months ago!

I wish you had said you were selling as that sounds a very good price. Quite a few Panasonic and Sony 36" sets seem to make well over £300 when I have been tracking Ebay auctions lately.

[Pete77]

On a standard TiVo only two modes are in use - a low resolution for Basic and Medium and a higher one for High and Best. The two pairs of settings with the smae resolution differ in bitrates. the exact high res mode in use varies depending on what source you use, for no obvious reason - a factory tiVo recordsd Sky in higher res than Freeview.

Strange because my original Resources Editor settings on TivoWeb showed the following:-

DBS:-

Best:- 5960000/5960000 Mode 4
High:- 3660000/3660000 Mode 2
Medium:- 2760000/2760000 Mode 1
Basic:- 1700000/1700000 Mode 1

CATV and Rooftop:-

Best:- 5960000/5960000 Mode 2
High:- 3660000/3660000 Mode 2
Medium:- 2760000/2760000 Mode 1
Basic:- 1700000/1700000 Mode 1

The only difference across all the platform types is that they use 3 Modes for Digital Satellite but only 2 Modes but the same bitrates for cable/DTT/Aerial. For some reason DSat is considered capable of Mode 4 at 5960000/Best while Cable, DTT & Aerial are only thought worthy of Mode 2 at the same Bit rate. I would have to test setting up my Tivo at 5960000 in Mode 4, Mode 2, Mode 1 and Mode 0 to see what the impact of different Modes at the same Bitrate is on the number of recording hours thought to be available.

I would be intrigued to know what effect being in different Modes at the same Bitrate has on how the recordings are physically made and the resulting picture quality of the recording.

[sanderton]

Strange because my original Resources Editor settings on TivoWeb showed the following:-

DBS:-

Best:- 5960000/5960000 Mode 4
High:- 3660000/3660000 Mode 2
Medium:- 2760000/2760000 Mode 1
Basic:- 1700000/1700000 Mode 1

CATV and Rooftop:-

Best:- 5960000/5960000 Mode 2
High:- 3660000/3660000 Mode 2
Medium:- 2760000/2760000 Mode 1
Basic:- 1700000/1700000 Mode 1

The only difference across all the platform types is that they use 3 Modes for Digital Satellite but only 2 Modes but the same bitrates for cable/DTT/Aerial. For some reason DSat is considered capable of Mode 4 at 5960000/Best while Cable, DTT & Aerial are only thought worthy of Mode 2 at the same Bit rate. I would have to test setting up my Tivo at 5960000 in Mode 4, Mode 2, Mode 1 and Mode 0 to see what the impact of different Modes at the same Bitrate is on the number of recording hours thought to be available.

I would be intrigued to know what effect being in different Modes at the same Bitrate has on how the recordings are physically made and the resulting picture quality of the recording.

My memory playing tricks on me there!

The modes differ only in their resolutions. If your run a higher resolution at the same bitrate you get m,ore artifacts as more compression has to be applied. At the same bitrate, the number of recording hors will be the same, by definition.

[sanderton]

Do you mean that turning Digital Scan (100hz mode) off will lead to mosquito noise in the picture appearing or that turning it on will cause mosquito noise? My impression is that when I turn Digital Scan/100hz off mosquito noise appears in the brighter coloured objects in the picture but everything else remains the same.

No I mean (in my experience) 100Hz processing emphasises the mosquito noise which is already there.



No I meant Plasma in that if you accept that the premise that you are going to upgrade to a flat screen telly you then only have Plasma or LCD to choose from and the comments I read here suggested that Plasma gave better results for SD telly than LCD did.



Different HDTVs give different resolts for SD pictures, but I wouldn't say plasma was better or worse at SD than LCD. Depends on the scaling quality, not the image technology.

If you had spent a few years looking at your grandmother's old crungy black and white set at University in the early 1980s then even a 29" 100hz 4:3 telly seems like luxurt .

When I was a student in the early 80s we couldn't afford any kind of TV!

[Pete77]

When I was a student in the early 80s we couldn't afford any kind of TV!

Well the tv was free because my grandmother had died in 1979 and it had been sitting in the garage till I took it to University with me in 1982. I seem to recall living in constant dread of the appearance of the tv licence men although no one who had a telly in their room at Uni got one as the law at that stage was still ambiguous. The general feeling back then was that if they caught you as a student nothing would happen as long as you went out and bought a licence straight away.

I think subsequently the law was tightened to make it even clearer that it was a definite offence not to have a licence for a telly in student halls and they may now even be prosecuting students who don't have a licence without giving them a chance to buy one.

Perhaps you are making up for all those years of student deprivation now by constantly ensuring that you are always at the bleeding edge of technological development. ;)

[blindlemon]

My view is that the [RQ] number itself does nothing, it's just the internal numeric represnetation of the mode which allows the software to easily do logic based on the recording qualityI initially disagreed with this, thinking that, eg. 95 would give a better quality than 75.

However, my initial experiments overlooked the fact that I was playing around with a quality setting (medium or basic) that previously had one of the two lowest RQ numbers (default 40 and 0) and setting the RQ for that quality to 95 thus making that quality have one of the two highest RQ numbers (now 100 & 95). This made those recordings sharper, hence my assertion that the RQ was in itself a significant parameter.

However, I eventually realized (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2730638&&#post2730638) that there are only 2 sharpness settings (controlled by the RQ parameter): fuzzy or sharp. You could set 1,3,5 and 9 if you liked and the result would be that 1 & 3 would be fuzzy while 5 & 9 were sharp, or you could set 0,40,75 and 100 (the defaults) and get the same effect for 0 & 40 (fuzzy) and 75 & 100 (sharp). This seems to apply regardless of the mode setting (ie. the resolution), and is obviously intended to improve the appearance of lower resolution, lower bitrate recordings by applying a deliberate "blurring" effect to smooth over jaggies and blockiness that might otherwise be evident.

[Pete77]

However,

I eventually realized (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2730638&&#post2730638) that there are only 2 sharpness settings (controlled by the RQ parameter): fuzzy or sharp. You could set 1,3,5 and 9 if you liked and the result would be that 1 & 3 would be fuzzy while 5 & 9 were sharp, or you could set 0,40,75 and 100 (the defaults) and get the same effect for 0 & 40 (fuzzy) and 75 & 100 (sharp). This seems to apply regardless of the mode setting (ie. the resolution), and is obviously intended to improve the appearance of lower resolution, lower bitrate recordings by applying a deliberate "blurring" effect to smooth over jaggies and blockiness that might otherwise be evident.

I wish I had realised this whole Resource Editor business was as much about playing with settings for Basic as for Mode 0 and I might have had a go rather earlier. Also there were some rather dire warnings about burning about the encoder chip and so on which I now imagine is just the usual case of people covering their backs.

I notice that increasing the Max BitRate has a big impact on the forecast hours available for each recording type but as long as your VBR Bitrate is a lot lower than the Max rate the actual space consumed by a recording by a particular quality type is little different from before. For instance with Basic now set to VBR Bitrate of 1500000 and Max Bitrate set to 2500000 compared to 1700000 for both before and with Save Disk Space (VBR) switched on (as confirmed in tvlog data) the total disk space consumed by a typical 60 minute recording is about the same as before - namely about 735MB. I really should switch over to Mode 0 and high bit rates for everything but that would mean deleting acres of recordings. To be honest to run at Mode 0 with 7500000/9000000 I would definitely need 2 x 500Gb hard drives as that would then be about 280 hours of recording with VBR enabled.

The other thing is that I tried to install your iicsetw script files to run the iicsetw utility to stop the oversaturated RGB display as per your checksetrgb.zip file set at http://archive2.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=102371&page=3&pp=30
and it just caused the machine to keep rebooting about 50 seconds or so after it appeared to have finished its startup routine and had gone to Live Tv. I see there is actually code in one of the two sh files to make the machine reboot up to five times though if it has an error condition. Is this out of some sadistic wish to try and clear out our whole /var directory? ;) :eek:

I managed to disable the two script files from Startup Editor the fourth time round before it rebooted the next time as I was terrified I was going to lose the whole /var directory but I assume the rebooting would in fact have stopped the next time. What exactly would have been causing the repeated reboots as I thought iicsetw didn't have the reboot problem of iicset?

Well its certainly been an interesting exercise. Is there any reason my VBR and Max range for Basic is too far apart now (1500000 and 2500000)? And do you think the much higher figure for Max is likely to cut out the very occasional heavy blockiness I observed before on some fast movement under Basic.

As to White Flashes I'm just not getting any from my Sky Digibox on Live Tv when its in Mode 0 (i.e. not recording in my case) but I was getting them on my BT Netgem IPlayer Freeview box feed on Channel Five. I think this may be because the SDN Multiplex signal here is the weakest anyway and there is a heavy wind here tonight rattling about the aerial. As Tivo only trust CATV for Mode2 rather than Mode 4 shouldn't a lower Max bit rate be used here than for satellite?

Any thoughts comments on this would be appreciated.

[blindlemon]

Iit just caused the machine to keep rebootingThis is because checksetrgb.sh is designed to reboot the machine if setrgb.sh failed to set the colour or luminosity due to a hang in iicset. Did you look at the code?

However, iicsetw doesn't suffer from this problem so checksetrgb.sh is now pretty much redundant and I have removed the attachment to prevent anybody else using it undavisedly. I was going to edit the post as well, but that's in the archive so it's readonly :(

[blindlemon]

Iit just caused the machine to keep rebootingThis is because checksetrgb.sh is designed to reboot the machine if setrgb.sh failed to set the colour or luminosity due to a hang in iicset. Did you look at the code?

However, iicsetw doesn't suffer from this problem so checksetrgb.sh is now pretty much redundant.

I would have edited my original post and removed the attachment to prevent anybody else using it undavisedly, but the thread is now archived so I can't - mods, can you help with this?

[Pete77]

This is because checksetrgb.sh is designed to reboot the machine if setrgb.sh failed to set the colour or luminosity due to a hang in iicset. Did you look at the code?

However, iicsetw doesn't suffer from this problem so checksetrgb.sh is now pretty much redundant.

So in my rc.sysinit.author.edit file edited via Startup Editor you would only recommend having the line that calls the setrgb.sh script and checksetrgb.sh script is unnecessary now? Also what about the sleep time before it runs which seemed to be a critical factor?

I only have iicsetw plus iicsetw.c files in my /var/hack/bin directory and I don't have iicset anywhere. Do I need iicsetw.c? It came in the zip file with iicsetw.

I wonder if checksetrgb.sh was looking for iicsetw in the wrong directory or something and so failing. Must have a look at the code and try and work out.

Any recommendations on the best settings for use with a 4:3 29" CRT display with 100hz digital scan (turning 100hz digital scan off makes the picture a lot worse contrary to what sanderton expected).

[blindlemon]

Checksetrgb.sh is now redundant as I have never seen iicsetw hang, so you can remove it. There's no harm leaving the sleep time, although IIRC that was most likely also introduced to try to avoid a hang in iicset.

You only need to use setrgb.sh in the first place if you are a) using RBG and b) the colour and/or contrast from your TiVo are too overblown for your TV. This is less likely to be a problem with a good CRT, IMHO, than with a plasma/LCD as CRTs have a higher contrast range anyway.

I can't advise the 'best' settings as all TiVos seem to be slightly different and the optimum setting will depend on the signal coming from your STB, your TiVo and your TV. If you aren't happy with the results then try reducing the contrast/luminosity value in setrgb.sh by 1 or 2 and rebooting. If it looks better then keep it or reduce the value some more; if it looks worse then put it back as it was. Only you can tell.

[sanderton]

As Tivo only trust CATV for Mode2 rather than Mode 4 shouldn't a lower Max bit rate be used here than for satellite?.

FWIW, I think CATV being set to Mode 2 is a mistake, probaly because they initially tested it using an analogye cable boxes RF input. Same as VBR not being active!

[Pete77]

You only need to use setrgb.sh in the first place if you are a) using RBG and b) the colour and/or contrast from your TiVo are too overblown for your TV. This is less likely to be a problem with a good CRT, IMHO, than with a plasma/LCD as CRTs have a higher contrast range anyway.

Got it working now and I really can't any longer tell a difference between the Tivo live buffer and the direct feed from the Sky box using Aux. Before I got setrgb.sh working there was quite a significant different with the Tivo live buffer being a lot more saturated and overblown.

Presumably setrgb.fl is only a temporary flag file created while the setrgb.sh script file is running?

Any views on what is the maximum acceptable ratio between the VBR Bitrate and the Max Bitrate is for each quality setting? Your recommended Medium setting ratio is over 2:1 so presumably no reson why 1700000 and 3400000 wouldn't be acceptable for Basic and Mode 1? Or would that stress the encoder too much for some reason? Is 9000000 considered to be the largest Max bitrate the encoder can run without a danger of frying it or is safe Max Bitrate for the encoder also dependent on the Mode the encoder is running in? So would 3400000 still place it under a lot of demand in Mode 1? Also presumably a high Max bitrate is more acceptable with VBR as long as the VBR rate is considerably lower than the Max bitrate?

[Pete77]

FWIW, I think CATV being set to Mode 2 is a mistake, probaly because they initially tested it using an analogye cable boxes RF input. Same as VBR not being active!

If they really believed they should be using Mode 2 for CATV/Freeview etc then their Bitrate settings ought to have been lower than those they use for Mode 4 on satellite I agree.

For what its worth 7500000/9000000 is giving me no white flashes at all on my satellite box feed even on BBC1 but is giving me white flashes on various Freeview box channels as I have a dual feed setup. Of course my Freeview box is coming in via the RF socket (and a standalone Scart to RF modulator before that) which obviously vastly reduces quality and probably does point in the direct of my using only Mode 2 and lower bit rate settings for Freeview? I agree that for those with only a Freeview box and a Scart feed the settings can probably be as high as for satellite.

[blindlemon]

IMHO the encoder will only get stressed (if indeed such a concept is valid) when it's required to run at a very high bitrate.

With VBR the bitrate varies around (including lower than) the VBRBitrate setting, going up to the MaxBitrate value only in moment of extreme need. Therefore using VBR at all will almost certainly cause the encoder to run at much lass than the maximum bitrate for 99% of the time.

Just choose values that give you an acceptable tradeoff between PQ and filesize. The ones mentioned in this thread work for many people but aren't by any means prescriptive - so tinker away and enjoy! :)

[Pete77]

Just choose values that give you an acceptable tradeoff between PQ and filesize. The ones mentioned in this thread work for many people but aren't by any means prescriptive - so tinker away and enjoy! :)

As a confirmed Basic man I rather like the idea of giving it a significantly higher Max BitRate so that any blockiness is reduced or avoided. Its obviously a sad commentary on my eyesight that I don't regard Basic's blurryness when viewing on a 29" CRT is unacceptable. Ultimately I clearly need those 2 x 500Gb hard drives so I can record more stuff in Mode 0 and still keep a large program choice on tap.

Any idea about Mode 3 and whether it actually exists or not and if not why not?

It rather appears Tivo UK must have decided to stick us with only CBR perhaps so that there weren't any awkward questions to customer services about the number of hours estimated for the various program qualities and them not actually synching up with the actual number of hours recorded?

Well that seems to leave me with only replacing the power supply left as an upgrade unless I fancy trying to tackle the DailyMailJazz or Digiguide comparison modules, both of which appear to be far more trouble than they are actually worth to get working and to maintain in comparison to the use I would actually get out of them. Compare that with Highlights which is just such a brilliant module that I get so much use out of that I can't even begin to sing the praises of its author highly enough. :up: :up: :up:

[Pete77]

During tonight's live showing of Two Pints..... on BBC Three 115 on Sky the white flashes were appearing very regularly at the bottom of the screen but I have not seen them on any other Sky channel up to now. However I really can't think how you guys could possibly imagine these flashes are worth suffering for a very small uplift in absolute picture quality from Mode 4 Best. Obviously Tivo had their reasons for not offering Mode 0 although I suppose lack of disk space could obviously have been a serious consideration at the time of product design.

I will try lowering my Mode 0 VBR rate from 7500000 to 450000 while leaving the Max Bitrate at 9000000 in line with a suggestion made by another forum member for getting rid of the white flashes. It is very windy here tonight but that really shouldn't affect the communal Sky dish which is in a very well sheltered position up on a roof valley here. It would be affecting the conventional aerial supporting Freeview which is on the top of a huge and rickety pole.

My improved Basic mode at 1700000/2300000 Mode 1 seems to be running faultlessly with no significant increase in file size (less than 5%) compared to standard Basic but with a noticeable elimination of any blocking tendencies on fast motion.

[blindlemon]

The low bitrates on BBC3 combined with the digital sharpening the BBC always seem to apply to their channels will be what's causing your white flashes.

Lowering your VBRBitrate that far at Best will definitely impact the baseline quality of the recording, although if you've lived with Basic for all these years I don't suppose you'll notice it.

If you haven't seen any white flashes on other channels then you will appreciate how it's not difficult for those of us who very rarely watch BBC3 to 'live' with them ;)

[Pete77]

The low bitrates on BBC3 combined with the digital sharpening the BBC always seem to apply to their channels will be what's causing your white flashes.

If you haven't seen any white flashes on other channels then you will appreciate how it's not difficult for those of us who very rarely watch BBC3 to 'live' with them ;)
Would that be the same BBC who said they couldn't fit full screen BBC Parliament on Freeview because of the need to protect perfect picture quality. ;) :rolleyes:

I don't actually watch much BBC Three or the Two Pints program normally but I do record quite a bit of stuff on BBC Four. Is that probably also low bitrate and affected by the white flashes problem then? I would have thought that on digital satellite there was enough bandwidth available for adequate bitrates compared to Freeview?

[hbls00190]

Hi there. I've been running Mode0 on my Tivo for just on a year now. At the start of the month I got a spanky nice 40" hi def sony telly. But I've noticed that the picture from sky as seen through the tivo is slightly "zoomed". Basically, using the same piccy on sky, the Tivo has the same bottom and left edges. But the top appears about a finger's width below where it should be. So there's about a finger's width of content off the top of the screen. This makes the whole screen look like it is slightly zoomed in. I'm using LJ's fpga fix, but was wondering if any of the registers can adjust the "top" of the screen and leave the "bottom" where is is..? Any help appreciated! Ta!

[markabuckley]

no zoom problems .. BUT

have noticed a HUGE difference in number of white flashes since moving the Tivo out of the AV cabinet and into "free air" ....

internal temp has dropped from 44C to 33C average

[ciper]

Does anyone know the right bitrate to use for Mode0 to best match a DVD?