[mythtv-users] Codecs on PVR-250

[John Goerzen]

[ lots of snipping ]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 11:24:22AM -0700, Jarod Wilson wrote:
> On Thursday 08 July 2004 06:53, John Goerzen wrote:
> > > uses, and thus is the one that gets the most attention in the firmware.
> > > Its generally recommended as the best one to use (I use it myself on
> > > all my cards).
> >
> > Does that hold for both high and low bitrates?
> 
> Not absolutely certain. I did all my visual comparison with 8000/16000 for my 
> HQ stuff, 4500/6000 for my LQ stuff, and it looks pretty damned good with 
> both of them... Best thing to do is try it out yourself, and see what you 
> like best, I think.

I set my bitrates substantially lower than that, going about 6000/6500
for HQ and around 2000 for LQ, with 720x480 on the former and 320x480 on
the latter.  The quality off this PVR-250 is really amazing, and after
being used to the quality of the ReplayTV, even this LQ setting looks
great.  I use Default most of the time, which sits at about 4000/5000 on
720x480.

> > However, that still doesn't address everything.  Should I use the MPEG-2
> > PS, MPEG-2 TS, DVD, DVD-Special 1, or DVD-Special 2 codec when
> > capturing, or does it even matter?
> 
> I believe any of them should work, because they're all a form of MPEG2, but 
> I'd use DVD-Special 2, and a resolution of 720x480. Commercial DVD movies are 
> typically 720x480 (in NTSC land), possibly anamorphic, possibly not (you'd 
> not be creating anamorphic). I haven't really paid attention on the audio 
> side, I always use 5.1(+) channel AC3 audio when ripping 'em. I'm very happy 
> with the audio quality on my recordings, which are 48000Hz and (I believe) 
> 192kbps on audio.

I've been using those audio settings, but I've noticed that it distorts
things like "s" sounds, so I'm bumping my audio bitrate up a bit.

-- John