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[shAf]

I'm trying to get MC9.0.180 to record TV programs with my ATI AIW 9700Pro ... and I'm getting the follow results for (e.g.) a half-hour program ... (1) a 35Gb AVI file in the directory as setup with MC Scheduler ... AND ... (2) a 35Gb temporary file which I believe is a result of the ATI driver.  The result, of course, would be 'not enough space' for any recording recorded longer.

And, I'm not sure this half-hour test because MC will not play the resulting AVI.

I've re-configured TV tuner settings ... trying to find a way recording a compressed video file ... and recording 15 minutes of the womans' soccer.

What are others using? ... and, especially for those who might be using a ATI Radeon AIW, how are you dealing with the temporary file?

For users of MC9.1 ... how has recording TV changed?

tia  

[shAf]

The result of the 15 minute test was (1) a 15Gb AVI file which MC will play ... and (2) a 15Gb temp file (... which as I read MC help, is a result of MC TV recording).

I thought I changed the format over to a compressed variety of "Windows Media" format ... but I still end up with huge files ... and how do I avoid the temp file being so large?

ATI software capture resulted in ~6Gb/hour files.  Isn't there some type of equivilent for MC (or MC9.1?)

[sraymond]

shAf,

I raised this question myself a while ago...  before the days of MC allowing more than just PCM for audio encoding.  

I don't remember when audio codecs were introduced, but I'd bet a six-pack it's since 9.1.  PCM encoded audio is not very good!  Take a look at the final product using something like VirtualDub and see what the video and audio bitrates are.  I think you'll find the audio is way bigger than you'd like.

I haven't played with it in a while (or since the new audio encoding), but maybe I'll get some time in the next week or so.

When ripping my DVDs, I aim for 6 MB/minute - which is about 100 Kbps.  Needless to point out, but 1 GB/minute is *way*, *way* more than my target of 6 MB/minute.

You have a few choices...  
1)  Pick a more aggressive codec/codec settings.  I suggest you try DivX or XVid (both MPEG4 variants)...  JRiver claims that their codec is just as good (or better), but not based on MPEG4.  Call me a cynic - but I'm a bit leery that JRiver can do better than MPEG4.  Of course, you're limited by processing power because you're encoding real-time.

2) Recompress using VirtualDub.  The benefit is that you can do much more aggressive compression because it's not real-time.  The downside:  recompressing a lossy compression further reduces quality.

If I get a chance to do some testing, I'll let you know what the results are.  By the way, what are you trying to compress?  Movies, sports, cartoons, etc?

Scott-

[shAf]

2) Recompress using VirtualDub.  The benefit is that you can do much more aggressive compression because it's not real-time.  The downside:  recompressing a lossy compression further reduces quality.

Thanx for your response ... but a very important isuue is still the very large temporary file.  I could understand these being large with respect to ripping DVD, but TV?

I'll be investigating MC9.1 soon, but I hope JRiver has come up with something comparable to recording/encoding with MPEGx. (... as much as I'd like MC to be my do-it-all ('cept DTS/DD DVD) player.

[Yaobing]

asAf,

The temparary file is "needed" for recording in AVI only. If you have enough disk space, you would preallocate a large space for holding temp file. This preallocation would reduce chances of error during recording. After preallocation, you would leave that file on your disk and use it again and again. As you can see this does take up a huge disk space that is seemingly wasted.  I am debating with myself whether I should get rid of the temp file all together.

Meanwhile, choose WMV format. It does not use the temp file (so you can delete TempCaptureFile.AVI). To choose between AVI and WMV formats, you need to select a proper Recording Profile, or create a custom Recording Profile.

If you can tolerate the temp file taking up a large chunk of your space and want to use AVI format, you can adjust video and audio compression settings to lower disk space usage.

[Yaobing]

Also, your numbers seem to suggest that your recording was done without compression.

I did a quick test, using JRiver Video Codec for video compression, at Quality setting of 7, and video size 640 x 240, and WMA audio compression at 160kbps, a ten minute recording takes up 2 GB for the temp file, and 2 GB for the final destination file. That is about 12 GB / hour (much smaller than 70GB/hour in your case).

[shAf]

Also, your numbers seem to suggest that your recording was done without compression.[...]

I tried to duplicate your procedure, but could not ... and again ended up with an uncompressed AVI file.  Maybe I haven't yet found the right combination (... there are so many permutations ...), but having selected Windows Media, I ended up with no option for the file being WMV ... but rather, I was prompted to save the file as an AVI, and it was the only option ...

Are you still using v9.0? (... seeing the lack of support, and no more builds for 9.0 ... I suppose it's time to upgrade to 9.1 and try to figure this out from there(?) ...)

[JimH]

Are you still using v9.0? (... seeing the lack of support, and no more builds for 9.0 ... I suppose it's time to upgrade to 9.1 and try to figure this out from there(?) ...)

Please try 9.1.  That's what Yaobing thought you had.

[Yaobing]

I tried to post a reply earlier today, but was not able to as the server seemed to be down.  All my typing was wasted  .

The only major difference between TV in 9.0 and TV in 9.1 is the compression of audio in recording. In 9.0 audio is recorded in PCM format only. In 9.1 audio can be recorded in various formats of your liking.

You should be able to configure recording to WMV format, or in AVI format with video compression, in either 9.0 or 9.1 though.

If you are viewing TV already, use right-click menu, and select "TV Options" | "Configure TV ...". Otherwise bring up TV Options (by clicking the "Options" button on TV channel pad window) dialog box and click "Advanced" button.

Now click "Recording" tab. Under "Recording/Timeshifting Profile", select a profile. There are four preset profiles that are not editable, one of them uses Windows Media format. In your case you would want to create a custom profile, by clicking Add button. This will bring up a wizard that takes you through three (MC 9.0) or four (MC 9.1) steps. In the first step, you are to choose a name for your custom profile, AND select recording format, AVI or Windows Media. If you select Windows Media in the first step, then the second and third (9.1) step(s) are for timeshifting only, and would not concern recording. The last step concern recording quality, where you can choose "Best", "Good" and "Space Saver". On the other hand, if you select AVI recording, then you would pay more attention to the second and third (9.1 only) steps and select how recording is to be done. And you could just accept the default selections in the last step.