[mythtv-users] Suggested Encoding Rates

[Scott Alfter]

Neil Bird wrote:
>   I was just about to post this and a related question.  I'm running my
> PVR-350 with fairly high (normally) res. PAL settings, and a bitrate of
> ~6200 somethings.  I get images of ~2.0-2.2 Gb per hour.
> 
>   Now, I just downloaded [bittorrent] an episode of something I missed.
>  The AVI's ~364 Mb for the, I guess, ~43 mins., but is, whem played
> through MythVideo, of comparable quality to the stuff I record at 6x the
> size!

Those AVIs you downloaded probably aren't using MPEG-2, but instead use some
variant or another of MPEG-4.  That's why they can deliver the same quality in
less space.  Comparing MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 is like comparing Ogg Vorbis to MP3.

You could transcode from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 (MythTV will even do this for you),
but the transcoded recordings won't be playable through your PVR-350.  (That
assumes you're using its MPEG-2 decoder; I stopped using mine when I upgraded
to an LCD TV and switched from S-video to DVI.)

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