"pjp" wrote in message
...
I'm checking out Hauppages own WinTv software as I write. I'll check 1/2
hr recording and if it's in sync then good bye WMC for recording
purposes. I'm curious to see file size given WMC creates an 8 Gb file
for an hour recording!!!

Blimey! 8 GB for a 1-hour recording? Is that for SD or HD?

Recording from BBC One in the UK (DVB-T), a 1-hour recording is about 1.5
GB. ITV (the leading commercial channel) is quite a lot less: about 900
GB/hour. That for 720x576x25 SD (European spec), with DVB subtitles and two
sound streams (programme sound and audio description for the blind). I would
imagine that 640x480x30 (US spec) would be fairly similar. So if you are
getting 8 GB/hour, then the broadcasters must either be adding a lot of
extra streams or else only lightly compressing the signal.

HD (1920x1080x25 H264) uses more bandwidth. The recent broadcast of They
Shall Not Grow Old (colourised WWI film) is 4.1 GB for 1h 35m. But H264 is a
more efficient means of encoding, so quality is better for an equivalent
bitrate. If HD was broadcast using MPEG2 with same degree of compression as
SD, you'd expect it to be about 1.5 * (1920 x 1080 / (720x576) or 7.5
GB/hour.