WinTV2000 recording files bigger than 4 gb? How about no...

[cchen921]

Hello, does anyone know how to record in wintv2000 with files bigger than 4gb? I record with "DVD standard play" as the quality, and I record about 6 and half hours everyday. With WinTV2000, it breaks into several files, each 4 gb big. Anyone know how to stop this? Also, does anyone know how to record with Wintv2000 with NO sound? I just need to record the images of my computer, I don't need the sound, maybe the files will be a lot smaller if there was no sound? I think the software thinks there is sound, but there is no sound. When the recording is finished, it is like 20gb, but shrinked down to like 1.10 gb when I encode it to Xvid with no sound. Please tell me where to click, as I am still a newbie to all this video editing. THANKS!!!

[jagabo]

Are you using the FAT file system? That has a file size limit of 4GB. I record on an NTFS disk and routinely get files over 4GB.

Audio is typically 1/10 the size of the video. So recording without audio won't save you much. I don't know of any way to turn off the audio recording. But you if you really want to minimize the audio you can use a low bitrate. Just create your own recording template and use that:

Click on PREF -> Movies -> Advanced. Select one of the existing templates as a starting point. Go to the Audio tab and set a low bitrate. Then go back to the Configurations tab, type in a filename and press Save New Config. Close the Advanced (Property Sheet) dialog and select the setting you just saved as the Quality Level.

If you're converting everything to Xvid AVI, consider recording with the 12 Mbit/sec setting. You'll get better quality. You can create your own 15 Mbit/sec template and get even better results. Of course your MPEG files will get much larger!

[mikiem]

Might also consider recording directly into Xvid. jagabo is very correct that max bitrate will give you more data to your encoder and so better quality, but don't know how important quality vs time is to what you're doing.

[jagabo]

He can't go directly to Xvid -- the PVR USB2 (listed in his computer profile) is a hardware MPEG2 encoder.

In any case, from what I've seen, realtime MPEG4 encoding isn't all that great.

[cchen921]

I think my hard drive is a FAT. Is there a way you can format it to NTFS? I don't even know the differences. How would you guys record directly into Xvid...with what type of hardware or software? I do need good quality images, because I need to read what is on the screen. VCD quality is terrible recording from the computer screen. But 6 and half hours gave me only 1.1 GB of video! Perfect quality, the tiring thing is that it gives me 20GB first, in 5 files, so I have to convert 5 files individually myself (Or I can use a macro), but if it is just 1 file, it would make life a lot easier, or better, if it can record and encode directly to Xvid, that be the best! Any help would be great, THANKS...

[jagabo]

Windows XP has a built in FAT to NTFS converter. It can perform the job without having to reformat and reinstall Windows. Of course they warn you to back up your system, just in case.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx

I've done the conversion of my boot drive using CONVERT.EXE a few times myself and had no problems.