SD digital capacity question (Tivo HD)

1062 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Deanq4, Dec 13, 2007

busyba

Discussion Starter · Oct 1, 2007

Just got a TiVo HD (stock drive for now).

The "default recording quality" screen has a note on it that says something along the lines of recording from digital sources are not affected by that setting.

My only input into the TiVo is a digital cable line. When I try to record anything from any channel (High-Def, Standard-Def, premium cable, NBC... any channel at all), I don't even have the recording quality option visible.

So, I guess the capacity values (45, 74, 96 and 180 hours) only apply to the analog recordings. I don't have any of those. The capacity for HD content is supposed to be 20 hours. What's the capacity for SD content that is digital?

From what I can tell, the answer depends on the compression used by the cable company. I'm using Time Warner Cable of NYC. But a ballpark figure is fine.

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CCourtney

· #2 · Oct 1, 2007

That really depends on the provider - but I'll give you an idea based on typical providers.

Most fit about 13 digital SD channels on 1 6MHz channel band at about 38Mbps of capacity on the band -> 2.92Mbps or 1.32GB/hr -> ~120Hrs of digital SD content.

CCourtney

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AlphaDelta

· #3 · Oct 1, 2007

I would guess around 2GB per hour, roughly 1/4 of the 8GB per hour of a 1080i broadcast. Check the Info screen of a recording to see how big it is; after a while you should be able gauge what bit rate they're using.

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moyekj

· #4 · Oct 1, 2007

As stated it varies quite a lot according to who your provider is, what channels you record from and what individual shows you record, but for several 1 hour SD shows I have checked they seem to average around 1.5GBytes/hour.

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Deanq4

· #5 · Dec 13, 2007

Anybody have an estimate for Fios content in SD hours?

How is the quality if it is compressed that much? (in general) better or worse than Analog? Does the digital quality compare to any of the recordings from analog sources (IE looks like analog at "best")

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bkdtv

· #6 · Dec 13, 2007

Deanq4 said:
Anybody have an estimate for Fios content in SD hours?

How is the quality if it is compressed that much? (in general) better or worse than Analog? Does the digital quality compare to any of the recordings from analog sources (IE looks like analog at "best")

Verizon allocates 7-9 SD channels per QAM, as compared to 11-12 for most other providers. This results in higher quality on SD channels -- the best available from any major provider -- but it also means less storage capacity.

A few FiOS SD channels take as little as 1Gb per hour while others take as much as 2Gb per hour. The average FiOS SD channel probably consumes 1.5Gb per hour. The TivoHD has a 152Gb hard drive (160 million bytes), so you can figure capacity from that.

I would strongly recommend an internal drive upgrade or an eSATA drive to expand capacity. The built-in storage capacity on the TivoHD really doesn't cut it, especially for FiOS.

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Deanq4

· #7 · Dec 13, 2007

thanks,

that is likely my next move, just want to wait for the ninety day warranty (return policy) to expire.

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