What's the best bitrate to record live broadcasts?

[GEOLINK]

I have the Elgato HD and I'm able to record captures at 30Mbps.

I recorded about 2 hours of T.V. and the final size of the video file is 25 gigs!

I know live broadcast most likely stream at a much lower bitrate.

I was wondering what's the best or recommended bitrate to record live broadcasts?

[PuzZLeR]

I don't have an Elgato, but if you're talking HD video at close to 30mbps, then it really depends on the program.

If the "live broadcast" is a talk show, then it may be a bit much. However, if it's a sporting event, such as a football or hockey game that has lots of fast motion scenes, then you may need all the bitrate you can afford if you want the most quality possible (assuming the Elgato does 1080).

There are too many variables here, including your television provider, package and the station itself. There is no clear answer to your question.

[yoda313]

Tb harddrives are a lot less expensive these days. And with the holiday shopping season here look around for deals.

That way you can capture at a very high rate and not have to worry about the file size for awhile.

For offloading either split the captured file so you can burn to multiple dvdrs or look into a bluray burner also. Then you can burn your original captured file as data and no need for authoring for archiving purposes - but keep the original on the harrdrive unless you've really maxed out and can't get another drive right away.

But then you can encode them to a h264 file at a lower bitrate (unless you are already capturing to h264, I'm not sure what format the elegato captures into).

But as was previously mentioned it's kind of a shot in the dark with so many variables that you haven't specified - like what event, 720p/1080i, etc.

[vhelp]

here's my thing about capturing video. it all depends. when you feed a video source (of any kind) to a capture device, then from the device point of view, it is receiving a "lossless" source and as such will convert it to its final destination (in your case, h264) even though the source originates as or from a compressed source--your cable provider. so, whether your input video source is from a dvd player, laserdisc, vhs, directv/satellite, cabletv, tivo, bluray player, wdtv player, and so on and so forth, from your capture device point of view, theses sources are lossless, and it will do its best to convert (compress) it to h264 or avc at the given bitrate you give it with respect to the video resolution and framerate.

the other thing to take into consideration is the rate of quality the source is in that you want to capture. all these providers sources entail some compression artifacts, pixelation, and so on. some more than others. so when you give a certain amount of bitrate to your capture, you must realize that at best, you will retain the sources original quality level, give or take--because no hardware encoder is going to match a source quality perfectly, maybe very close, maybe unperceivable, who knows.

i don't have the elgato nor the content you want to capture. so i really can't say what is best.

so, whats the best or right amount of bitrate to use ? since it depends on the device(s) you are capturing from, the content, sports; news; documentary; infomercials; film; interlace; resolution, framerate, and so on...who knows. thus, you are left with only one way: through trial and error.

tip 1:
consider what the providers use for standards as a guide --> 8Mbps, 15Mbps, 20Mbps.

tip 2:
if there is a particular content you watch, then consider capturing the same episode three times using the above bitrate. there are some good commercials that repeat for ever, and since they are short, they might be a good start to get familiar with this aspect of review. but do consider that commercials don't truely represent best bitrate since they are not what you want to archve with best quality. its the shows you are after. anyway. as i was saying..then try to compare each, for compression artifacts and pixelation in the same scenes that you will choose as a gauge. review still scenes and motion scenes. note, that there are different ways to open your capture files in order to review them more closely.

tip 3:
if all the above sounds like too much work, then you are left with "eyeing" each capture in order to choose quickly what is best. my suggestion would be to start with 9Mbps to 15Mbps as the minimum.