Farscape

Just been looking at yesterday's Farscape recorded from Sky One, and I
noticed it's taking up 16% on my Sky+. This seems like a lot compared to
other recordings of a similar or longer length. Anybody know what the
bit rate was during transmission.

I'm not complaining. It did look great, and it had a very cinematic
quality to it. Especially the scenes in space.

Looking forward to the conclusion next week.

Renko

Renko wrote:

Anybody know what the bit rate was during transmission.

It's been mentioned on some other lists. It seems Sky have upped the
bit rate for Sky 1, but no one seems to know if it's just a test or
permanent. Sky so far haven't commented on it, so it's all speculation
at the moment.

Someone worked out the bit rate to now be about 900 instead of the
usual 600. Channel 5 is about 700 and as such is the highest terrestrial
broadcaster. Some, such as E4, can drop to 400 or so.

Two-edged sword, of course. If you recorded nothing but Sky 1 at this
elevated bit rate you'll find your standard Sky+ will now only manage
about 11 hours instead of the quoted 20 hours that Sky say a standard
40Gb drive would provide.

Regards

Mark

"Mark A" wrote in message
...
Renko wrote:

Anybody know what the bit rate was during transmission.

It's been mentioned on some other lists. It seems Sky have upped the
bit rate for Sky 1, but no one seems to know if it's just a test or
permanent. Sky so far haven't commented on it, so it's all speculation
at the moment.

Someone worked out the bit rate to now be about 900 instead of the
usual 600. Channel 5 is about 700 and as such is the highest terrestrial
broadcaster. Some, such as E4, can drop to 400 or so.

Two-edged sword, of course. If you recorded nothing but Sky 1 at this
elevated bit rate you'll find your standard Sky+ will now only manage
about 11 hours instead of the quoted 20 hours that Sky say a standard
40Gb drive would provide.

I noticed last week that Stargate now uses about 9% of the disc space, it
used to be 5 or 6.


Regards

Mark

I noticed this too - it applied to both the latest ep of SG1 and
Atlantis.
One solution (for those whose Sky+ boxes are filling up) is to record
the repeats on Sky Mix for now - I did last night's episode of Proof
Positive on there, and it took up the more usual 6%.
Is this increase in bit rate something to do with preparations for
HDTV?
Whatever, I wonder if Sky could produce a software upgrade for those of
us with 40Gb Sky+s that will allow us to set the quality of recording
(like Tivo used to).

["Followup-To:" header set to uk.tech.tv.sky.]
On 19 Jan 2005 01:03:31 -0800, ) said:
Whatever, I wonder if Sky could produce a software upgrade for those of
us with 40Gb Sky+s that will allow us to set the quality of recording
(like Tivo used to).

Not practical, I suspect. I would imagine the stream is recorded directly
without any re-encoding or anything (probably still encrypted as well). To
change the quality would require something called "transcoding", which would
be far too much work for the box.

Ta-ra,
Julie

--
Julie Brandon http://www.computergeeks.co.uk/
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

On 19 Jan 2005 13:35:07 GMT, Julie Brandon
wrote:

["Followup-To:" header set to uk.tech.tv.sky.]
On 19 Jan 2005 01:03:31 -0800, ) said:
Whatever, I wonder if Sky could produce a software upgrade for those of
us with 40Gb Sky+s that will allow us to set the quality of recording
(like Tivo used to).

Not practical, I suspect. I would imagine the stream is recorded directly
without any re-encoding or anything (probably still encrypted as well). To
change the quality would require something called "transcoding", which would
be far too much work for the box.

Ta-ra,
Julie

Correct. It is recorded directly to disk & it is encrypted which is why there is
only one decoder in a Sky+ box but two tuners. It's only on playback that it's
decrypted.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur