Out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship

On Sat, 01 Aug 2015 10:09:06 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:

"Davey" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 20:20:27 +0100 Michael Chare
wrote:

On 30/07/2015 20:07, Davey wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:32:48 +0100 "Phi" wrote:

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are reuniting to
create an all-new car show, exclusively for Amazon Prime. The show
will be produced by the trio's long time executive producer Andy
Wilman. On working with Amazon, Jeremy Clarkson said "I feel like
I've climbed out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship." The first
show will go into production shortly and arrive exclusively on
Amazon Prime in 2016.




Do I want to spend £79 a year just to watch them? No, sorry.
I don't need Amazon Prime, I have enough unwatched stuff on the PVR
to last for years.


I have found that I am very good at filling up PVR HDs. There is never
enough space for the next recording.


That's what:
a. The Delete option,
b. The PC are for.

If you have watched it, delete it.
If you want to keep it, move it to the computer, and maybe an HDD, and
then delete it from the PVR.
There is then space available.
I have a 1TB HDD, and keep it always at 320 GB free space.
or more.

I must have something like 20TB now, 10 or so hard drives and have to
delete some crap I will never get around to watching most weeks to have
the space to record the best evenings.

That sounds like you're using external drives, rather than a NAS box.
Are you using a SATA docking station (or two) connected via USB2 or USB3
or eSATA?

I've been recording (mostly BBC) freeview broadcasts for almost a decade
now and have amassed quite a collection of recorded programmes for
posterity. Most of this material resides on a 4 disk NAS box (2+3+4+4 TB
drives in JBOD - 4 seperate disk volumes) which was, once more, starting
to run low on free space about 6 months ago.

When I was finally forced to give up MSFT's finest version of windows
(win2k) due to a radical hardware upgrade about 5 months back and install
Linux Mint v17.1 and image the old win2k into a VirtualBox VM, I
discovered the joy of Handbrake's ability to convert the existing mpg
collection into mkv, reducing the average file sizes by just over 50% for
no perceivable loss of quality.

I initially concentrated on the movie files since they were occupying
nearly 2TB of space and I was able to recover just over 1TB, allowing me
to put off a planned disk capacity upgrade indefinitely (6TB WD Green to
replace the 2TB 'tiddler', effectively a 4TB upgrade leaving me with a
retired drive I can use for archival storage).

Effectively, I'm taking full advantage of the 4 core CPU to, as it were,
"Bale out" the sinking ship I call my NAS box. I can queue up 60 to 80
GB's worth (or even more) for overnight processing (about 6 to 10 hours
run time, depending on how squashed the broadcast mpgs were from the
effects of stat muxing and bean counteritis).

I don't have to limit the video format conversion to overnight
scheduling, it's just that, since I've discovered it costs no more in
electricity to leave the desktop running 24/7 in order for Kaffeine to
fulfil it's recording schedule of BBC1, BBC2, BBC4 and CBBC (there's now
only rubbish on BBC3) than it did using a laptop to run the same
recording schedule at a cost of 30 watts mains consumption (a belt 'n'
braces arrangement) and Handbrake obligingly only uses whatever spare
system resources are left over from other tasks such as simultaneously
recording BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3 (with overlapping padding periods as may
arise), I've retired the laptop and leave the desktop (with monitor
switched off overnight) to fulfill its PVR duties and deal with any
Handbrake queues I may or may not have set up.

I have plenty more material I can shrink into MKV so will be able to
continue my "bailing out" operation for quite a while yet before I'm
finally forced to apply a capacity upgrade. I can probably stave off the
need to buy a 6TB drive for another year or two now which will see a
further drop in prices as well as a chance for some meaningful reviews on
HDDs in this size range to become available to provide me with better
guidance on model selection come 'crunch time'.

I know it might seem a little excessive to maintain a 9 or 10 terabyte
multimedia collection of BBC programmes but I prefer to watch such
broadcast programme material on my own schedule and also not to be
reliant on the Beeb doing "The Right Thing" by way of repeating the more
worthy 'Classics' that *do* stand up to the test of time.

The thing is, unless you're using a system that converts the recordings
on-the-fly into a more compressed format such as MKV or similar, you'll
be filling your hard drives with mpg standard files which are amenable to
further compression down to around half their original file sizes using
Handbrake or some other video processing software.

If you haven't already considered this option you may be able to
translate the expense of extra disk storage into a more powerful PC
capable of making short work of the video format conversion job to
achieve effectively the same end.

--
Johnny B Good

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 10:08:01 +0100, Another John wrote:

In article , "Phi"
wrote:

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are reuniting to create
an all-new car show, exclusively for Amazon Prime. The show will be
produced by the trio's long time executive producer Andy Wilman. On
working with Amazon,
Jeremy Clarkson said "I feel like I've climbed out of a bi-plane and
into a spaceship."

Ha ha - his ego is being well massaged then - just what he needed, the
poor little lamb.

In my experience -- or perhaps merely in my view -- everything that has
ever gone from the BBC to another channel has emerged worse. There's a
sort of magic about the Beeb ("quality", perhaps?); somehow linked to
the saying that some people know the price of everything, and the value
of nothing.


That's so true. If I'm ever bored enough to channel hop when watching
the kitchen/dining room TV (usually E4 for Big Bang Theory (The) and Dave
for TG and QI episodes), unless I've got time to kill due to eating a
meal, I'll just switch off rather than immediately mute the sound for the
next 5 or 6 minutes of interminable adverts.

Watching such 'classics' is pleasant enough until the next round of
adverts but I simply won't tolerate them just to see the end of a
programme I've already got archived on the NAS box.

If I'd gotten round to setting up a streaming media player for the
kitchen/dining room TV, I wouldn't have to resort to channel hopping when
the Beeb have unconscionably replaced "Two Tribes" and Eggheads" with
"Sport" or other "Big Event TV" interlopers.

The last time I "Hired" such a media streaming box from Aldi, I
discovered its interface was so ****e, I'd have done much better using a
laptop with a wireless keyboard/trackball on the dining table and disable
the DLNA/UPnP service altogether in preference to just navigating the
file system using explorer.

One of these days, I just might get around to using the latest Raspberry
Pi as a media streaming box with the dining and living room TV sets.


--
Johnny B Good

On 01/08/2015 10:04, Martin wrote:
BBC's coverage of the America's Cup yacht races at Portsmouth last weekend was
awful. For a start the summary wasn't shown until Monday afternoon. Because bad
weather led to the cancellation of 2 out of the 4 races, they could have shown
almost the whole of each race, instead the races were edited and all sorts of
crap was inserted during what was shown of each race. BBC's coverage of the
sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games was excellent.

I found myself turning up the volume to listen to Frank Cammas. Then
realising that half the trouble was the "background" music was louder
than he was...

Andy

On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 04:29:18 GMT
Johnny B Good wrote:


I must have something like 20TB now, 10 or so hard drives and have
to delete some crap I will never get around to watching most weeks
to have the space to record the best evenings.

That sounds like you're using external drives, rather than a NAS
box. Are you using a SATA docking station (or two) connected via USB2
or USB3 or eSATA?

I've been recording (mostly BBC) freeview broadcasts for almost a
decade now and have amassed quite a collection of recorded programmes
for posterity. Most of this material resides on a 4 disk NAS box
(2+3+4+4 TB drives in JBOD - 4 seperate disk volumes) which was, once
more, starting to run low on free space about 6 months ago.

When I was finally forced to give up MSFT's finest version of
windows (win2k) due to a radical hardware upgrade about 5 months back
and install Linux Mint v17.1 and image the old win2k into a
VirtualBox VM, I discovered the joy of Handbrake's ability to convert
the existing mpg collection into mkv, reducing the average file sizes
by just over 50% for no perceivable loss of quality.

I initially concentrated on the movie files since they were
occupying nearly 2TB of space and I was able to recover just over
1TB, allowing me to put off a planned disk capacity upgrade
indefinitely (6TB WD Green to replace the 2TB 'tiddler', effectively
a 4TB upgrade leaving me with a retired drive I can use for archival
storage).

Effectively, I'm taking full advantage of the 4 core CPU to, as it
were, "Bale out" the sinking ship I call my NAS box. I can queue up
60 to 80 GB's worth (or even more) for overnight processing (about 6
to 10 hours run time, depending on how squashed the broadcast mpgs
were from the effects of stat muxing and bean counteritis).

I don't have to limit the video format conversion to overnight
scheduling, it's just that, since I've discovered it costs no more in
electricity to leave the desktop running 24/7 in order for Kaffeine
to fulfil it's recording schedule of BBC1, BBC2, BBC4 and CBBC
(there's now only rubbish on BBC3) than it did using a laptop to run
the same recording schedule at a cost of 30 watts mains consumption
(a belt 'n' braces arrangement) and Handbrake obligingly only uses
whatever spare system resources are left over from other tasks such
as simultaneously recording BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3 (with overlapping
padding periods as may arise), I've retired the laptop and leave the
desktop (with monitor switched off overnight) to fulfill its PVR
duties and deal with any Handbrake queues I may or may not have set
up.

I have plenty more material I can shrink into MKV so will be able to
continue my "bailing out" operation for quite a while yet before I'm
finally forced to apply a capacity upgrade. I can probably stave off
the need to buy a 6TB drive for another year or two now which will
see a further drop in prices as well as a chance for some meaningful
reviews on HDDs in this size range to become available to provide me
with better guidance on model selection come 'crunch time'.

I know it might seem a little excessive to maintain a 9 or 10
terabyte multimedia collection of BBC programmes but I prefer to
watch such broadcast programme material on my own schedule and also
not to be reliant on the Beeb doing "The Right Thing" by way of
repeating the more worthy 'Classics' that *do* stand up to the test
of time.

The thing is, unless you're using a system that converts the
recordings on-the-fly into a more compressed format such as MKV or
similar, you'll be filling your hard drives with mpg standard files
which are amenable to further compression down to around half their
original file sizes using Handbrake or some other video processing
software.

If you haven't already considered this option you may be able to
translate the expense of extra disk storage into a more powerful PC
capable of making short work of the video format conversion job to
achieve effectively the same end.


Interesting. I know about Handbrake, having used it to make PC-recorded
programmes suitable for the PVR. I had not noticed that it shrank the
file size as well, at the time, I had plenty of space available, so
that was not a concern.
My technique for archiving at the moment is to Decrypt while on the PVR,
copy the resulting files to the PC, check the program is ok (there is
the occasional fubar event), copy the files to a backup HDD, and then
restore the original encrypted file on the PVR to its rightful place. I
could well dispense with that, but I always believe in leaving an
original file where it came from, that from years doing Testing and
Measurement at work. Always leave the original intact, then you can go
back to the beginning if something goes wrong.
From what you say, using Handbrake would result in a reduction in HDD
space used, with no loss of quality. Worth looking at.
I download programs with get-iplayer, with subtitles, and they just
copy straight over to the PVR in a playable mode, without any
conversion.

--
Davey.