544x480, etc: changing recording resolution

[bgreen]

Bryan I don't know if you've stated your viewing gear--I've decided I really don't like 352x480 on my 60" HDTV (they were fine on my earlier 41" analog RPTV), and when I've loaned my homemade 352x480 Tivo DVDs to my sister, she & her husband are happy with them on their 32" analog Sony Wega FWIW.

Hate to say this, cuz I've had more fun w/Tivo the last few years than any toy I've ever owned, but HDTV monitors, modern "enhanced widescreen" DVDs, and OTA HD broadcasts are rendering standalone Tivo as unacceptable to me as my 1500+ laserdisc collection.

I'm viewing on an analog Toshiba 35" tube. A nice TV but not an HD monitor so I don't see every freckle as you do. My Tivo has been a great toy too but lately, I find myself just downloading HD bit torrents of my favorite shows as much as I'm downloading them from my Tivo. They look better and the MPEG4 compression is FAR superior to the MPEG2 I get from the Tivo (ie carry up to 4 X the programming with me on the laptop as I can fit from Tivo.)

[laserfan]

I know whereof you speak. I have lately been converting many of my favorite Tivo & store-bought DVDs to Xvid, for HDD storage and streaming to a Pinnacle ShowCenter, and despite that they are further compressed by 10x or so, they still look great, and least on a conventional TV.

I haven't gotten on the "bit torrent" highway yet, no doubt my download-limited Satellite internet service couldn't deal with it. But with the recent retirement of "NYPD Blue" we are down to watching only a couple shows a week on tv anyway...

[Justin Thyme]

There are reports in the UK of hacking a Tivo to output to SDI (serial digital interface- soldered to the pinouts of the decoder chip)- resulting in remarkable clarity on digital displays- comparable to the original signal.

Thread can be found at

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...&highlight=sdi

Why? When used in conjunction with Mode 0 settings it was reported to remove white flashing.

[k63]

Just some tools for my "network-less" (no TivoWeb) friends.
These scripts allow display/editing of the Best/High/Medium/Basic record profile parameters. No GUI here, but it gets the job done with only serial-bash.

S1-SA-3.0, k63

[panjabi]

where do you put this file, i mean you have to ftp it to some folder somewhere in the tivo, what folder or what location?

[phoenixZed]

I have been pulling 720x480 off my S1 SA for a while now with tweaked bit rates to make the most of the DVDR space. I want to do this with my SA S2 as well, but I get the same "jumpiness" others describe at the 720x480 resolution. It's not the tweaked bit rates, changing them alone doesn't have this effect, it's strictly the new resolution.

My SA S2 is still running 4.0.1b and the video source is digital cable (via set top box). My question is has anyone with a SA S2 been able to consistently pull "smooth" 720x480 video and if so, what version of the SSW are you running? If others are having success with newer SSW, maybe I'll try upgrading to 7.1 or 7.2.

I know this thread is in the Series 1 Support, but scouring the board, it seemed like the best place to ask...

--pZ

[Mudshark517]

I plan to be a bit long winded and post some thoughts related to a running discussion started way back in 2002 about bit rate editing to change resolution.

I made the quote smaller because they were so big, but this should be made FAQ for explaining how to change Quality, Resolution, and Bitrate using Tivoweb for DVD burning. Thank you so much for the help.

I guess the only thing I would change is the resolution seeting for Medium quality. If indeed '3' is 352x240, then it stands to reason that with this setting, and with 'medium' recording, one could use it for 'small and dirty' DVD recording.

Cheers mate....nice one!

[ciper]

Based on the information in the link Hepsnark posted I have come up with what should be the most efficient settings for each resolution. What do you guys think?

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/bitrate.html
From this page you can find information for two of the resolutions available on the tivo (720 and 352). I then used these resolution/bitrate combinations to extrapolate the other two resolutions.


resolution number 0 720x480
max based chart = 7800
vbr based chart = 6300

resolution number 1 352x480
max based chart = 4000
vbr based chart = 3200

resolution number 4 544x480
max 720 based (544 / 720) * 7800 = 5893
max 352 based (544 / 352) * 4000 = 6181
vbr 720 based (544 / 720) * 6300 = 4760
vbr 352 based (544 / 352) * 3200 = 4945

2 Med/ 480x480
max 720 based (480 / 720) * 7800 = 5200
max 352 based (480 / 352) * 4000 = 5454
vbr 720 based (480 / 720) * 6300 = 4200
vbr 352 based (480 / 352) * 3200 = 4363

I could have averaged those together but they already seemed quite high compared to what others were using. Instead I decided to take the calculated numbers based on 720x480 and round down to come up with the following settings.

*BestVBRBitrate 6300000
*BestMAXBitrate 7800000
*BestResolution 0
*HighVBRBitrate 4700000
*HighMAXBitrate 5800000
*HighResolution 4
*MediumVBRBitrate 4200000
*MediumMAXBitrate 5200000
*MediumResolution 2
*BasicVBRBitrate 3200000
*BasicMAXBitrate 4000000
*BasicResolution 1

Edit:
Im very happy with the results so far. Before making any recordings I noticed an immediate difference in clarity on "live" shows. I had configured my tivo to use cable + satelite even though I only have cable. This was to enable the video inputs on the back. I then configured only one channel on the satelite feed (channel 100 "pay-per-view previews). I connect the video out of my computer to the tivos video in and when i choose channel 100 i can see the computers output. I played the intoduction to the price is right (which usually has a ton of artifacts) and the picture was alot better. Combine this with the 1 hour live tv buffer i just enabled and Im very happy
DefaultLiveRecordQuality 100

[laserfan]

...I have come up with what should be the most efficient settings for each resolution. What do you guys think?...

*BestVBRBitrate 6300000
*BestMAXBitrate 7800000
*BestResolution 0

...Im very happy

Well, as has been discussed many times in this thread, there are many of us who see "twitchyness" and artifacts when using Res 0 (720x480). If you don't see them, I won't argue with you--maybe you have a better encoder chip in your Tivo.

As nice as the bitrate chart is, it doesn't take into account the limitations of the Tivo's encoding hardware.

[jmayes]

I read all 11 pages of this thread and see others also seem to have this problem, you put in all the right numbers in all three areas (dbs,catv,rooftop) and dup everything in alt-bitrates and still tivo will not deliver 720x480. Well it seems I am one of the unlucky ones. I have spent many, many hours plugging in all combinations of numbers and still it won't deliver more then 544x480 which my new DVD player hates. Used Ken's great info and numbers and tried cipers numbers too, still no-joy. Yes, I hit enter after every change and yes I reloaded the pages to be sure everything took and yes I rebooted after every number changing session.

Here are my final numbers (in the attachment jpg), by all accounts "Best" should be 720x480 but it's still just giving my 544x480

Using Tivoweb 1.94, I have seen some posts of another s2 res file but 1.94 should be as old as my 2.51 software and I am seeing all the right numbers from mfs so I can only assume that is not my problem, but.....

Please if someone else can add anything for us users with "stuck" tivos that won't res-up, please chime in.

Thankx all for the help!
Jmayes

[jmayes]

I just looked at my attachment in the previous post and explorer makes it too small to read by default. To fix it just hover over the pix until an icon apears in the lower right hand corner (the one with the out-going arrows) and click on it to recover the full size of the picture, then you can read everything.

Thankx agian all!
JM

[artships]

Huh. Well. See, few of your numbers match mine. I'm using my first generation Sony 2k between me and off-air and Echostar satelite. I really, really doubt you're getting 544x400 resolution - My default highest-quality is 544x480. In short, these old TiVo's can't do high bitrate AND high resolution. Make one too high: it goes back to defaults. Hmm... Are you a Brit? Their TiVo's are different.

Anyway, my settings look like this

[jmayes]

I am in USA, the Tivo is NTSC.

Only in my last test did I go for the higher bitrate ciper was using (vbr-6300000,btrt-7800000), until that point I always used the standard best bit-rate settings (5215000,5960000). The curious part is that my medium settings are set at res-2 and only delivers 352x480 (instead of 480x480 which is res-2), I can only guess it shifted down because the bitrates were set too LOW. (@3202500,36600000). Alternately I used those same lower bitrates with res-0 in best and still only got 544x480.

This is what I am getting with the following numbers
Best 544x480 Res=0* 6300000,7800000 & 5215000,5960000 & 3202500,3660000
High 480x480 Res=2 5215000,5960000
Med 352x480 Res=2* 3202500,3660000
Bas 352x480 Res=1 1630000,1630000 (orginal oem numbers)

*Res did not take (I get down shifted to next lower res)

I can assume there is a bitrate window that each res must fit in (upper and lower limit) and have tried all three bitrate settings for res-0, still no joy.

Thankx again all!
JM

[jmayes]

Sorry, made many typo's saying 400, the correct number is 480- yes the tivo will not do 400, sorry for the confusion.

Now, I have been thinking about my med res only giving me 480x352 so I upped the bitrate and quality to match high but no change, still getting res-1 in med even though it is set to res-2. I don't think anything I type is changing a thing, everything continues to work as if I made NO changes.

Next I checked the res files in tivoweb (1.94), It has 3, one for 2.0, one for 2.5 and one for 3.0. After comparing them I find only the 2.0 is changed, 2.5 and 3.0 are the same. I also found a command line utility to dump 3.0 res settings and I get all the numbers I have plugged in. The only question left is 2.50 and 2.51 the same?? I have 2.51. At this point I don't think TIVO is reading the numbers I am pluggin in.

I also used a copy of tivoweb 1.93 and still get the same results.

JM

[hepsnark]

I'm a bit rusty. cuz I got the results I need and stopped. I see that there has been extensive refinement of the concept.

Per Jmayes: Perhaps we need to redefine the problem. Is TiVo saving the chANGES? Are we modifying the active partition? Tried rebooting TiVo?

"Alternately I used those same lower bitrates with res-0 in best and still only got 544x480."

I assume when you change resolution to "0" it stays "0" when you go back to look at it. Is it defaulting to 544x480 because it does not recognize the ASCII "0"? ie when you input, is it in a form that TiVo uses? Remember all the coders that were surprised that upper case did mean a damn when you were on a Unix system?

Perhaps either your input is corrupt or not being saved to the proper area?

Just thoughts you might test - Im rusty.