Recording options

[Hairy Steve]

I was going to use a PC as a recording device with my dbox. PC would be downstairs and probably sitting behind the telly.

On reading over the forum regarding wireless, is it reasonable to expect i would be able to record over my wireless network? By getting a wireless bridge and sticking it on my dbox would i be able to do this?

What kind of data rates does recording need?
Would 802.11b cut the mustard?

I find it hard to believe i could successfully record and playback with the bandwidth limitations of wireless, especially 802.11b

Any and all input appreciated.:Cheers:

 

[Speedy2206]

Well the dbox itself only has a limited bandwidth, just 10MBps... I've managed to successfully stream and record over a wireless B connection several times in the past; and all you will need is a wireless bridge.

 

[Hairy Steve]

Is that the way that you record all the time? Or is there a better way?

Also, is it worthwhile getting my dbox online?

 

[Speedy2206]

Is that the way that you record all the time? Or is there a better way?

Also, is it worthwhile getting my dbox online?

I dont tend to record very much any more; and I sold my wireless bridge as I needed the money. It works just as well if you are using a plain crossover cable instead of a wireless connection.

Its DEFINATELY worth getting your dbox online... there are so many plugins that you can install to add loads of features, etc; a dbox when connected to a home network with internet capabilities if absolutely awesome.

Liam.

 

[Hairy Steve]

Out of interest.

What size are the output files when recording programs? For example, how much HDD space would i need for a 90 minute movie?

 

[señor ding dong]

Out of interest.

What size are the output files when recording programs? For example, how much HDD space would i need for a 90 minute movie?

Depends on the channel and programme. Each channel uses their own variable bitrate, but you will typically be looking at an average of 3-4mbit, so 90 minutes would probably be somewhere between 2-3gb, give or take. The cool thing is that it's MPEG2 with standard 48khz MPEG audio, and can be put straight on a DVD without re-encoding or loss of quality, giving you a 100% identical copy to the original broadcast, as opposed to DVD recorders, TIVOs and various other digital recorders that recompress and give you bigger files at lower quality.

 

[ivorhooper]

Just like to dd that I use a wireless bridge and recording straight to my pcs hard drive is fine but when it comes to streaming the recording to the dbox, thats a different matter.
It will play fine for a couple of seconds, then I get a glitch which knocks out the lip sync and then more glitches and it becomes unplayable after about 1 minute.
I watch my recordings on my pc or put them on DVD-RW to watch on my tele.

cheers

 

[loady]

@senor ding ding:

Your good self and i have had a mini debate on this subject of dbox and dvd recorders, surely there are models that can have settings changed on them to disabled encoding ?

Personally i am going to wait for the next enigma Liam is working on as it will auto setup everything for recording.

 

[señor ding dong]

@senor ding ding:

Your good self and i have had a mini debate on this subject of dbox and dvd recorders, surely there are models that can have settings changed on them to disabled encoding ?

Not that I am aware of. The DVD recorder would need to be able to tune and decrypt the channels itself, just like a Dbox to be able to save the raw stream. Currently the recorder gets the signal via scart or composite, and there is no option but to re-encode to MPEG, as such a signal could not be recorded to a compliant DVD format in any other way.

There is no reason why it wouldn't be possible to create a device that could record a digital MPEG2/TS stream via ethernet directly to DVD, much like we can record to a PC HD, but I don't know that such a thing exists, and there would still be compliance issues with channels that use non-standard GOPs, non-standard resolutions, or non-standard audio, so it would need a real-time authentification, muxing and possibly transcoding system, and the files would need to be buffered to a HD first. It would be possible, but very messy, and such a device would really only appeal to people with pirat boxes anyway, and it's certainly not the kind of mainstream consumer device you would pick up at your local Comet's.

 

[Hairy Steve]

Just like to dd that I use a wireless bridge and recording straight to my pcs hard drive is fine but when it comes to streaming the recording to the dbox, thats a different matter.
It will play fine for a couple of seconds, then I get a glitch which knocks out the lip sync and then more glitches and it becomes unplayable after about 1 minute.
I watch my recordings on my pc or put them on DVD-RW to watch on my tele.

cheers

That is strange, you would expect that if you can record over wireless without error, you should be able to stream it back without error.

Have you tried this using cabled ethernet to rule out the wireless network as a problem?