Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (2 Viewers)

[odysseus]

Okay, the money was finally saved up enough this past week, so today I pulled the trigger and bought a pair of Colossus cards. May I ask, as I was not able to successfully find this searching through the thread, what has been the average file size per hour for you guys? I have a 500G drive available now for recording, and while I know I will want to upgrade to a 2 or 3 terabyte eventually, I'm hoping I can get by for a couple months before I need to. The wife wanted the high def as much as me, but it was a big purchase after already spending the summer building a new PC, and I wouldn't blame her for dreading another purchase so soon.

Thanks a ton for any answers, and thanks for all the work that went into getting this card working so that users like me can have it with MP!

 

[mm1352000]

Hi odysseus

The Colossus allows you to choose the encoding quality (between 1 and 20 Mbps), so file size depends on the quality settings that you choose. A post I made recently -->here<-- would give you a good explanation of what is possible in MP. I would say that to my knowledge this feature of Colossus support has not been thoroughly tested so it may not work as expected, however that is why I'm here (I can fix it if it doesn't work) - I would encourage you to try it and see if it does work. That way you can get recording characteristics that suit your preferences.

Best regards,
mm

 

[skoka123]

Hi Odysseus,

To my surprise SD takes more space than HD.

A 4 hours HD recording consumed 13 GB.
A 36 min 35 secs SD recording consumed 2.3 GB.

These were with the HDMI input. I am yet to try with Component.

 

[odysseus]

Thanks for directing me to your post, MM. That's nice explanation of bit rates, something I haven't messed with too much. I probably won't change the defaults at first with the new cards, as this is my first tuner upgrade since I got my 150s about six years ago, so I want to make sure they just work at first. Cripes, that's a looong time between upgrades!

@ skoka - Thanks for the reply! That's not too bad at all. Hopefully, it won't make any difference with component, which I plan to use.

 

[mm1352000]

Updated WMC plugin patch now available from the first post.

 

[sjeffrey]

Hi Odysseus,

To my surprise SD takes more space than HD.

A 4 hours HD recording consumed 13 GB.
A 36 min 35 secs SD recording consumed 2.3 GB.

These were with the HDMI input. I am yet to try with Component.

The problem with SD content on Colossus and HD-PVR is that for most set top boxes they will upscale to 720 or 1080 so your recordings will be just as big as HD content.

Eventually I'm planning on getting an SD capture card so that I can record HD with Colossus and SD with the other.

 

[luci5r]

Guys -- I had a quick question. Everything's been working great so far in terms of recording using my Hauppauge Colossus with Media Portal & my Comcast box. As it's been a few months using this step, there is one hinderance that is beginning to emerge as needing solution - even if it requires some sort of investment.

Right now, the Colossus switches to the station that it needs to record - as a result, we can only watch that station that it's recording from. We'd like to be able to switch the station & watch some other channel while its recording. How can we do that? I'm sure this is not possible with the hardware I have ... so my question is ... what do I need to do to be able to record one channel but watch a different channel? Is there a different card that I need to buy? Is this even possible?

Any advice would be really helpful

Thanks!!

 

[deskwizard]

luci5r,

As far as I know,if you want to be able to watch another channel than the one you are recording, or record 2 channel, the current hardware you have will need to be doubled, since you can't tune an STB (your comcast box) to 2 channels at one.

You could also get just the STB, and plug it directly onto your monitor, but it kinda screws with the point of MP in the first place...

The first option I mentioned is the one I choose to get after I get all the rest set up correctly...

DW

 

[luci5r]

luci5r,

As far as I know,if you want to be able to watch another channel than the one you are recording, or record 2 channel, the current hardware you have will need to be doubled, since you can't tune an STB (your comcast box) to 2 channels at one.

You could also get just the STB, and plug it directly onto your monitor, but it kinda screws with the point of MP in the first place...

The first option I mentioned is the one I choose to get after I get all the rest set up correctly...

DW

So what you're saying is I need to 2 Cable Boxes??
Is there no other way? Like adding another or a different Tuner Card?

 

[deskwizard]

So what you're saying is I need to 2 Cable Boxes??
Is there no other way? Like adding another or a different Tuner Card?

Sorry to be bring you bad news, but, Like i said, as far as I know, there is none.

And by the way, you will also need another tuner ...:sorry:

I know the pain... trust me ..


Everyone else feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one...

This is just my theory here, but I don't think the collosus can tune 2 output at the same time. Lets just say i'd be surprise it does.