Converter Box Recording Size
I saw a thread here about TV antennas and someone mentioned the Analog to Digital converter boxes that can record TV shows. I recently cut the cable and bought one of those boxes and it does record (...
Forum Discussion
Some facts about digital TV.
I was a technician at a TV station most of my working career and was involved with the installation of much of the equipment for the digital transition, so I know a bit about the subject.
All stations are broadcasting Mpeg2. The highest resolution broadcast is 1080i. The bit-rate that is broadcast is 19.39 Mb/s (Megabits per second). Stations can choose to broadcast a single program stream or multiple streams. The bit-rate of each stream must be set so that the sum of all the streams do not exceed 19.39 Mb/s. A TV station's maximum resolution tends to coincide with the network they are affiliated with. CBS, NBC, and PBS broadcast 1080i. ABC and Fox 720p. Additional program streams usually are 480i.
I own three converter boxes, a HomeWorx, an iView, and I recently purchased an eMatic. They all record the Mpeg2 program stream directly. There is no conversion. The amount of storage used while recording depends on the program source being broadcast. A high def 1080i program will use about 6 times the storage of a standard def 480i program. A USB-2 port can handle up to 480 Mb/s, so it can easily handle any TV program stream. The limiting factor is the transfer rate of the device plugged into it. When playing out from one of these boxes, the video quality is as good as when watching the program live. There are boxes that transcode the program stream to Mpeg4, but these cost a lot more. One such box is the HDHomeRun Extend.
I was a technician at a TV station most of my working career and was involved with the installation of much of the equipment for the digital transition, so I know a bit about the subject.
All stations are broadcasting Mpeg2. The highest resolution broadcast is 1080i. The bit-rate that is broadcast is 19.39 Mb/s (Megabits per second). Stations can choose to broadcast a single program stream or multiple streams. The bit-rate of each stream must be set so that the sum of all the streams do not exceed 19.39 Mb/s. A TV station's maximum resolution tends to coincide with the network they are affiliated with. CBS, NBC, and PBS broadcast 1080i. ABC and Fox 720p. Additional program streams usually are 480i.
I own three converter boxes, a HomeWorx, an iView, and I recently purchased an eMatic. They all record the Mpeg2 program stream directly. There is no conversion. The amount of storage used while recording depends on the program source being broadcast. A high def 1080i program will use about 6 times the storage of a standard def 480i program. A USB-2 port can handle up to 480 Mb/s, so it can easily handle any TV program stream. The limiting factor is the transfer rate of the device plugged into it. When playing out from one of these boxes, the video quality is as good as when watching the program live. There are boxes that transcode the program stream to Mpeg4, but these cost a lot more. One such box is the HDHomeRun Extend.
