BitRate to capture from DVR

[Ed McCauley]

My Capture Card is an elgato HD60 S+. I'm capturing 1080p video from a DVR for editing. The elGato software allows me to set the capture bit rate but provides no data regarding the incoming bitstream rate. There is no setting to capture at the incoming bit rate. Is there any software that could measure the incoming bit rate? I don't want to lose data by setting the rate too high, or create excessively large video files.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Tom

[jagabo]

Is there any software that could measure the incoming bit rate?

No. What comes over the HDMI cable is uncompressed video.

The only thing you know for sure is the hardware encoders are generally pretty mediocre and higher the bitrate you use more faithful your cap will be to what came over the HDMI cable.

[Ed McCauley]

Thanks for the response, Jagabo.

Is there any software that could measure the incoming bit rate?

No. What comes over the HDMI cable is uncompressed video.

Just to betray my ignorance here... I thought the cable company compressed the video, sent it out via the cable, and the DVR recorded the compressed video. Are you saying the DVR decompresses the video and sends it out via the HDMI cable to the capture card?

The only thing you know for sure is the hardware encoders are generally pretty mediocre and higher the bitrate you use more faithful your cap will be to what came over the HDMI cable.

In the past I've seen statements that Spectrum (my cable company) broadcasts 13Mbps, but I can't find any recent data. Any thoughts as to what capture bps I should use?

I don't think it's bps related but I get occasional freezes or dropped frames during playback of "perfect" video. This seems to be the player rather than the capture. VLC is the worst, Media Player somewhat better, and now I'm trying PotPlayer.

Tom

[jagabo]

I thought the cable company compressed the video, sent it out via the cable, and the DVR recorded the compressed video.

Yes.

Are you saying the DVR decompresses the video and sends it out via the HDMI cable to the capture card?

Yes. Information about the bitrate used within the DVR cannot be retrieved via the HDMI cable. There is software that lets you copy files from the DVR to the computer -- but it required that you remove the hard drive from the DVR and put it in the computer (or a USB enclosure). Most DVRs these days encrypt the contents of the drive (except for unprotected over-the-air content) so this is not as easy as it used to be.

In the past I've seen statements that Spectrum (my cable company) broadcasts 13Mbps, but I can't find any recent data. Any thoughts as to what capture bps I should use?

I'm not familiar with your capture device so all I can suggest is try different bitrates for yourself. Maybe find a show that's going to be on several times and record it at different bitrates.

I don't think it's bps related but I get occasional freezes or dropped frames during playback of "perfect" video. This seems to be the player rather than the capture. VLC is the worst, Media Player somewhat better, and now I'm trying PotPlayer.

What codecs, frame sizes, and frame rates are you recording? More complex codecs (HEVC vs AVC, for example), larger frame sizes, higher frame rates, and higher bitrates are more difficult to play. What CPU/GPU do you have?

[dellsam34]

The only way to get exactly what's on the hard drive is to dump the hard drive contents. Using HDMI out, everything gets decompressed and then recompressed again by your HDMI capture device's software.