Yet another WinTV-PVR150 question.

[AlecWest]

Actually, this is a two-parter. This Friday, the SciFi channel starts a 46-hour "Twilight Zone" marathon. I'd like to capture as many of them as possible. Seeing as how most of the half-hour episodes were filmed in black and white, I'm wondering how well the PVR150's "ExtraLongPlay" mode (2mbps) would capture these. Has anyone with a PVR150/250/350 used this mode ... and, if so, what should I expect quality-wise with captures of black and white programming?

Second part. Part of PVR150 ownership involves free membership in TitanTV's auto-scheduling. In theory, all you have to do is schedule a recording session and it automatically starts/stops recording. Problem is, these Twilight Zone programs are back to back ... and I'd much rather keep each program in a separate file. If anyone has used TitanTV before, how well does their scheduling work ... and will back-to-back sessions cause one or more session to "cut out" part of the show(s)?

[Forum Troll]

Color or B/W makes no difference when it comes to a DVD stream. A bit rate that low would have some serious artifacting. I'd recommend setting it for a VBR capture with 4391 average, 9570 peak, at 720x480 for the best presentation. This gives you 6 eps per 4.7 Gb disc, considering that they are about 22 minutes each after you take out the commercials. You could try using the 2 mb setting, but at full size capture, the quality would be terrible (lots of ghosting, pixelation, and macroblocks). 352x480 might work at that bitrate, it just depends on what level of quality you can accept.

[mats.hogberg]

I'd suggest creating your own Half D1 setting (352*480) @ somewhere 3-4000 kbps ave, 8000 max.
I've done some 1/2 D1 @2500 ave, and even if it's surprisingly good (better than your average VHS recording) it's still distinguishable from live TV.

/Mats

[FulciLives]

I would do Half D1 which is 352x480

I would do a VBR with a MIN of 2000kbps an AVG of 3500kbps and a MAX of 5000kbps

That should work well.

A hardware MPEG encoder that does on-the-fly real-time VBR does not like extreme MIN and MAX values relative to the AVG.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[mats.hogberg]

on-the-fly real-time VBR does not like extreme MIN and MAX values relative to the AVG.

I wasn't aware of that - could you elaborate? Always thought that giving the encoder as much room as possible was a good thing, but then, that might only apply for software non realtime encoders.

/Mats

[FulciLives]

on-the-fly real-time VBR does not like extreme MIN and MAX values relative to the AVG.

I wasn't aware of that - could you elaborate? Always thought that giving the encoder as much room as possible was a good thing, but then, that might only apply for software non realtime encoders.

/Mats

As you said it only applies to a 2-pass or multi-pass VBR not a real-time or single pass VBR.

At least that is my understanding.

Anyways going less than 2000kbps with Half D1 is bad and 5000kbps is about the MAX anyways so ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[AlecWest]

Thanks to all for the advice. There's lots of B&W stuff on the TVLand Channel. I'll perform some experiments at half-D1 VBR and go with what looks best.