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Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 777

post #23281 of 23784
3/13/13 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

Joe,


BD-R 5 uses a single layer DVD (4.7GB), BD-R 25 is a single-layer BD (25GB) and BD-R 50 is a dual-layer BD (50GB)
Actually, it is BD-5 and BD-9 for DVD-R and DVD-DL.
But that also implies they are recorded in BDMV (BD Video) format. While that is allowed under the BD spec, I know of no BD players that will play a BD-5 or BD-9 disk. They all expect to see AVCHD on a DVD and they all play AVCHD recorded DVD's.
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post #23282 of 23784
3/13/13 at 6:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

How much HD recording time do you think you'd get on BD-R 5 (4.7 GB DVD)? A guess on my part is about 19 minutes. Doesn't seem too viable.
Generally 1-2 hr on a disk is watchable. H.264 is more efficient but not a miracle codec. In general you can get equal fidelity to MPEG-2 at 70% the size. If you compress it more, the image quality goes down, but with H.264 the degradation is much more gradual than with MPEG-2. The picture will get progressively softer rather than breakup with macro-blocks.

When I convert HDTV MPEG-2 to H.264 I use a 2-pass encoder and only reduce size by 70%.

Edit: actually, I reduce size by 30% to get an H.264 encoded fle that is 70% the size of the original MPEG-2 encoded file.
Edited by Kelson - 3/14/13 at 10:00am
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post #23283 of 23784
3/13/13 at 9:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweezil is in View Post


The $60,000 question is: what's happening with TV? I think Apple Computer for one is about ready to move in big time with something new.

Yeah, they will launch the first Display-less UHDTV. The iRadio biggrin.gif
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweezil is in View Post

I'm not going to get into what all I don't like but I will say that what I like is plain efficient channel switching with nothing added.

Plain efficient? Without fess? That's impossible in the US.
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post #23284 of 23784
3/13/13 at 10:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by profhat View Post

Plain efficient [channel switching] Without fess? That's impossible in the US.

I enter the numbers and the TV displays the channel. I touch channel-up and the channel goes up to the next channel. I touch channel-down and the channel goes down to the next channel. Hopefully, someone will come out with one of these. I'll pay whatever it costs.
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post #23285 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Actually, it is BD-5 and BD-9 for DVD-R and DVD-DL.
But that also implies they are recorded in BDMV (BD Video) format. While that is allowed under the BD spec, I know of no BD players that will play a BD-5 or BD-9 disk. They all expect to see AVCHD on a DVD and they all play AVCHD recorded DVD's.

Thanks for the nomenclature correction. However, you are incorrect that no players will play BD-5 under BDMV. Three of my five bd players will play (Sony BDP-S1000ES, Samsung BDP-2500 and my Sylvania [Funai]. Only my 2 Panasonics will not play BDMV BD-5. Also, some of my BD players will NOT play AVCHD. Additionally see below the list of compatible players.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/948496/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration
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post #23286 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Generally 1-2 hr on a disk is watchable. H.264 is more efficient but not a miracle codec. In general you can get equal fidelity to MPEG-2 at 70% the size. If you compress it more, the image quality goes down, but with H.264 the degradation is much more gradual than with MPEG-2. The picture will get progressively softer rather than breakup with macro-blocks.

When I convert HDTV MPEG-2 to H.264 I use a 2-pass encoder and only reduce size by 70%.


Isn't this resource intense in the context of a set-top home recorder?
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post #23287 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

Thanks for the nomenclature correction. However, you are incorrect that no players will play BD-5 under BDMV. Three of my five bd players will play (Sony BDP-S1000ES, Samsung BDP-2500 and my Sylvania [Funai]. Only my 2 Panasonics will not play BDMV BD-5. Also, some of my BD players will NOT play AVCHD.
Interesting, thanks. When I was looking through this years BD player models I didn't see one that would play BD Video on a DVD and conversely they all were spec'd to play AVCHD. Obviously I didn't look through all of them.
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post #23288 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

Isn't this resource intense in the context of a set-top home recorder?
No, it's just an on-the-fly encoder chip, the same as the MPEG-2 encoder chips that are in DVD recorders. There are a number of TV tuner capture cards and USB devices that have H.264 encoder chips in them already for on-the-fly transcoding (i.e. Hauppauge 1212)

As long as the encoder chip is good quality, I would think 1 hr of H.264 encoded HDTV content with 5.1 audio (TV audio is generally 380Kbps) would look pretty close to the original HD PQ. I still think it's dumb to burn HDTV to DVD.
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post #23289 of 23784
3/14/13 at 11:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

No, it's just an on-the-fly encoder chip, the same as the MPEG-2 encoder chips that are in DVD recorders. There are a number of TV tuner capture cards and USB devices that have H.264 encoder chips in them already for on-the-fly transcoding (i.e. Hauppauge 1212)

As long as the encoder chip is good quality, I would think 1 hr of H.264 encoded HDTV content with 5.1 audio (TV audio is generally 380Kbps) would look pretty close to the original HD PQ. I still think it's dumb to burn HDTV to DVD.


So if 1-2 hours worth of approximately HD quality can fit on a single-layer DVD (which I've bought for about 10 cents), then why do you think it's dumb to burn assuming decent compatibility with a BD player?
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post #23290 of 23784
3/14/13 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

So if 1-2 hours worth of approximately HD quality . . . .
Because I don't want approximately HD quality -- I want the as-broadcast HD/5.1 quality, which means I generally don't recode or compress the MPEG-2 transport stream. My feeling is, if you are gong to compress the HD video and diminish quality, why bother with an HD recorder -- you might as well just stay with an SD DVDR. Putting 1 HD episode (without commercials) on a DVD-R is pretty worthless -- I would rather put 5 on a BD-R. When I burned DVD-R regularly I paid $0.25 - 0.30/disk for T-Y Premium 8X; now I pay around $1/disk for BD-R with 5X the capacity.
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post #23291 of 23784
3/14/13 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Because I don't want approximately HD quality -- I want the as-broadcast HD/5.1 quality, which means I generally don't recode or compress the MPEG-2 transport stream. My feeling is, if you are gong to compress the HD video and diminish quality, why bother with an HD recorder -- you might as well just stay with an SD DVDR. Putting 1 HD episode (without commercials) on a DVD-R is pretty worthless -- I would rather put 5 on a BD-R. When I burned DVD-R regularly I paid $0.25 - 0.30/disk for T-Y Premium 8X; now I pay around $1/disk for BD-R with 5X the capacity.


Well, I thought you were making a strong case for the adequacy of compressing down to BD5 or 9, but I guess I misread you. What I do is put my BD backups (not compressed) in iso form on an HDD which is installed in a Pivos Aios which also plays back HD audio..
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post #23292 of 23784
3/14/13 at 3:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLely View Post

Well, I thought you were making a strong case for the adequacy of compressing down to BD5 or 9, but I guess I misread you. What I do is put my BD backups (not compressed) in iso form on an HDD which is installed in a Pivos Aios which also plays back HD audio..
No, sorry, I never advocate compression -- I'm morally opposed to it. My comments were in the context of the exchange between JoeKustra and myself about the possible compromises I speculate that a funai HD recorder would likely make to keep the cost down. One of those would be the lack of BD-R recording which would necessitate encoding everything to H.264 in order to burn to DVD-R as AVCHD.

Personally, all my HDTV/5.1 recordings get commercial edited and go on my server farm (14TB) for streaming throughout the house (WDTV Live players). Everything stays as the original MPEG-2 HD/5.1 stream in .m2ts format. For those recordings I decide I really want to keep, I author to BD-R for archiving. I never play my disks any more. They are just my pristine archival copies in case a server disk crashes.

Sounds like we are on the same page.
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post #23293 of 23784
3/14/13 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Sounds like we are on the same page.

Talking about HD recording to removable media was getting a bit astray. I would like to finish with two facts from the beginning. It would probably be cheaper to keep the DVD player as it is now, and that $399 is the MSRP of the 537H. Done.
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post #23294 of 23784
3/14/13 at 3:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

I never play my disks any more. They are just my pristine archival copies in case a server disk crashes.

Kept pristine how? Paper sleeves? Plastic sleeves? Jewel cases? And where are whichever of those kept/contained?

To prevent any possibility of scraping against any possible detritus putting in or out of a sleeve, including from fingers, I use slim jewel cases @ $5/25 from Big Lots, a little more expensive than about $18/100 at Sam's but more convenient to acquire, and about half or less of the prices charged elsewhere. I keep the cases in Unitz/KoolKrates often unavailable anywhere but last found 2 weeks ago at Office Depo @ $2.19 per, stock number 785-190, for the last 6 in stock among stores within reasonable driving distance.
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post #23295 of 23784
3/14/13 at 8:49pm
Jim and Kelson and Joe,

The video codec and all discussion was great. I wish it wasn't over my head.

What if the burner was dropped in place of USB3 in/out?

I think Funai could use larger hard drives to accommodate HD recording although users may want to record HD judiciously unless they buy two or more units.

I think the priorities for Funai (everyone have a good laugh) should be: 1) fix the tuner, 2) determine if cable-card is feasible, 3) HD recording (if there was cable-card, this might be on equal footing), 4) add USB3 in/out and remove DVD.

What I don't like about STB's is that I want my TV vanilla the majority of the time. If I want to know what time it is, if I want info on the programs, if I want their listing over half of my screen, if I want their help with anything, I want to ask for it. Otherwise I want nothing but a quick display of the new channel number and maximum speed in changing channels. (everyone have a good laugh)
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post #23296 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmazda View Post

Kept pristine how? Paper sleeves? Plastic sleeves? Jewel cases? And where are whichever of those kept/contained?
Disks go in spun-bond polypropylene sleeves. Stored in Snap-n-Store boxes, both from Office Depot. I get over 150 disks in a box. They go in the sleeve right after burning and unless a hard disk crashes, they never come out. They spend their life in the cool dark. I have disks burned back in 2004 that rip with no problems.
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post #23297 of 23784
3/14/13 at 9:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweezil is in View Post

I think the priorities for Funai (everyone have a good laugh) should be: 1) fix the tuner, 2) determine if cable-card is feasible, 3) HD recording (if there was cable-card, this might be on equal footing), 4) add USB3 in/out and remove DVD.
With the exception of USB3, that is called a TiVo -- instead of USB3 you get network transfers.

And before you say it -- there is no monthly fee for TiVo if you buy the unit outright, which is what just about everyone who has one does.
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post #23298 of 23784
3/15/13 at 5:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweezil is in View Post

Jim and Kelson and Joe,

The video codec and all discussion was great. I wish it wasn't over my head.

What if the burner was dropped in place of USB3 in/out?

I think Funai could use larger hard drives to accommodate HD recording although users may want to record HD judiciously unless they buy two or more units.

I think the priorities for Funai (everyone have a good laugh) should be: 1) fix the tuner, 2) determine if cable-card is feasible, 3) HD recording (if there was cable-card, this might be on equal footing), 4) add USB3 in/out and remove DVD.

What I don't like about STB's is that I want my TV vanilla the majority of the time. If I want to know what time it is, if I want info on the programs, if I want their listing over half of my screen, if I want their help with anything, I want to ask for it. Otherwise I want nothing but a quick display of the new channel number and maximum speed in changing channels. (everyone have a good laugh)
I am quite happy with the 320GB drive in my TiVo because, like Kelson said, it's easy to offload shows. Plus I'm more of a timeshift watch and delete type of user. Like the Mag, most recorders use space proportional to bit rate, so ABC & Fox shows use less space. Sure, everything is down converted to 480i but why does music use such a small amount of storage?

Would you give up the fast channel change for a new tuner? Speculation here, but perhaps the fast change is because the tuner doen't have to figure out if a channel is digital or analog. Or that the subchannel storage algorithm is why we need to play with pulling the rf sometimes. I don't know. The Mag does change fast, but I detect no difference when selecting a channel by number. It would be even better if there was a "Favorites" function.
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post #23299 of 23784
3/15/13 at 5:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeKustra View Post

Would you give up the fast channel change for a new tuner?
I think he meant his cable box channel changes are slow. My cable boxes were very slow to change channels when I had them on HDMI. I switched them to component cables and that problem went away.
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post #23300 of 23784
3/15/13 at 5:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken.F View Post

I think he meant his cable box channel changes are slow. My cable boxes were very slow to change channels when I had them on HDMI. I switched them to component cables and that problem went away.
I understand. If I let any tuner pass through a variable resolution signal my TV gets painfully slow. I fix everything (but the Blu-ray) to 1080i. The Mag tuner does a good job of skipping channels. Some devices only move after a channel is displayed. Having a guide for so many years I forget what it's like to have to select a channel to see what's on. I always was a poor surfer.
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post #23301 of 23784
3/15/13 at 10:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken.F View Post

I think he meant his cable box channel changes are slow. My cable boxes were very slow to change channels when I had them on HDMI. I switched them to component cables and that problem went away.

That's right. DirecTV was the worst in that a menu comes up taking 1/3 of the screen and changing a channel is sooooooo sloooooooooow. Cox's box is slow. The killer to all these is that the time-of-day is displayed every time you do anything. I don't want the time counting down in my face. I have one damn clock that's always there I can look at. A menu is great when you need it. The majority of the time I'm changing channels, I don't need any help, don't need to be doubly or triply reminded of the time or need anything but confirmation of the channel number.

I took a hard look at TiVo and only at the buying option, even called them up and asked questions. I can't remember everything but it wasn't a close call and it wasn't what I'm looking for (I wonder if I misunderstood). Maybe I'll try again someday. My current setup is fine now. One good TV, two Mags and one Philips, and all these recorders feed into a component cable switch so I can use that or HDMI. Backup power. I dont' need anything else. But I have to stick with Cox to make this setup work and their support with channel help without their box is worse than piss poor.
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post #23302 of 23784
3/15/13 at 11:24am
Channel changing or surfing over HDMI will always be slow (less than instantaneous) because each button push results in a tedious conversation between components. I find feeding a fixed 1080i signal to be only slightly faster than feeding native output -- still far from instantaneous. Couch-potato style channel surfing is too laborious vs. bringing up the guide to scan for content and directly tuning to the desired channel.
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post #23303 of 23784
3/15/13 at 11:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Couch-potato style channel surfing is too laborious vs. bringing up the guide to scan for content and directly tuning to the desired channel.

DirecTv's guide was the slowest of the slow, Cox box in the middle, and my TV tuner alone best. I go with best.

With the TV on, I'm on my stationary bike a lot, lifting dumbells, eating in the kitchen, cleaning house, reading, and many other types of hobbies and work. wink.gif
Edited by dweezil is in - 3/15/13 at 11:49am
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post #23304 of 23784
3/15/13 at 12:21pm
Hi All,

My 2160A has started making unpleasant sort of angry-hornet-ish noises a few minutes after power-up. Everything still seems to be working fine - recording, editing, dubbing - so most likely just the fan, no?

Thanks,
CC
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post #23305 of 23784
3/15/13 at 12:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cc_in_oh View Post

Hi All,

My 2160A has started making unpleasant sort of angry-hornet-ish noises a few minutes after power-up. Everything still seems to be working fine - recording, editing, dubbing - so most likely just the fan, no?

 

My refurb'd 3575 has been making louder-than-normal noises for 3 years with no op effects.

 

To see if the fan might be the culprit, tighten the two screws on the fan, or loosen them, to see if the noise changes in unison. I had one new 3575 early on make fan noises due to a harmonic in the case, and by removing it (letting it hang by the two thin/delicate wires that go into the case) and installing a thin rubber gasket on the edge(s), it quieted down... however, I thought better of having that near the fan so removed the gasket material and it had apparently "worked out the kinks" in its newness (noise gone)... or just repositioning everything helped?

 

Check out the fan blades and see if they might be caked with dust?

 

There's a help file on replacing the fan if it comes to that.

 

* * * * * * *

 

With Summer coming, I recommend users let their HDD fill up (once a year or two) until it won't record anymore,.. these units just stop when full, with  no adverse effects... then Delete All HDD Titles. It might help keep the unused bits from fading, esp. if you always record-and-delete like I do so only a portion of the HDD gets used.

 

If you don't believe in "bit-fade," there might be another benefit: this procedure also helped resolve my refurb'd 3575 issue of freezing on playback of the 1st three titles, failing the SKIP 079 and SKIP 013 procedures, etc., etc. Works like a champ now, except still a little noisier than my other 3575 that I got new. SWAG: I figure that doing this several times forced the HDD to isolate its bad sectors and use its reserve sectors, or something like that.

 

I've used the "fill-er-up" procedure also on my other, newer Mag units w/o any ill effects.


Edited by wajo - 3/15/13 at 3:06pm
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post #23306 of 23784
3/16/13 at 4:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post



With Summer coming, I recommend users let their HDD fill up (once a year or two) until it won't record anymore,.. these units just stop when full, with  no adverse effects... then Delete All HDD Titles. It might help keep the unused bits from fading, esp. if you always record-and-delete like I do so only a portion of the HDD gets used.

If you don't believe in "bit-fade," there might be another benefit: this procedure also helped resolve my refurb'd 3575 issue of freezing on playback of the 1st three titles, failing the SKIP 079 and SKIP 013 procedures, etc., etc. Works like a champ now, except still a little noisier than my other 3575 that I got new. SWAG: I figure that doing this several times forced the HDD to isolate its bad sectors and use its reserve sectors, or something like that.

I've used the "fill-er-up" procedure also on my other, newer Mag units w/o any ill effects.

wajo: I like your idea to clean up HDD since I do mostly just record-and-delete stuff. Recommend you include your "fill-er-up" procedure within Post 1 guidance. Thanks for all your contributions.
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post #23307 of 23784
3/16/13 at 5:43pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Compubooth View Post

wajo: I like your idea to clean up HDD since I do mostly just record-and-delete stuff. Recommend you include your "fill-er-up" procedure within Post 1 guidance. Thanks for all your contributions.

 

Details are here.

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post #23308 of 23784
3/17/13 at 8:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

No, sorry, I never advocate compression -- I'm morally opposed to it. My comments were in the context of the exchange between JoeKustra and myself about the possible compromises I speculate that a funai HD recorder would likely make to keep the cost down. One of those would be the lack of BD-R recording which would necessitate encoding everything to H.264 in order to burn to DVD-R as AVCHD.

The DVB-T standard uses H.264/AVC/MPEG-4 and is far more efficient that ATSC. biggrin.gif
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

With the exception of USB3, that is called a TiVo -- instead of USB3 you get network transfers.

Yeah, but its lacks of in-line inputs makes a TiVo useless for other users/markets. cool.gif
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post #23309 of 23784
3/17/13 at 9:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by profhat View Post

The DVB-T standard uses H.264/AVC/MPEG-4 and is far more efficient that ATSC. biggrin.gif
Yeah, but its lacks of in-line inputs makes a TiVo useless for other users/markets. cool.gif
Except for the bottom line units, there are only cable inputs. That speaks a lot about how much they care about OTA or in-line inputs. Even if the next gen (dreaming) of Mag has HD recording to HDD and SD to DVD, that would sell and Funai could save money by not needing a building of lawyers.
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post #23310 of 23784
3/17/13 at 5:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cc_in_oh View Post

Hi All,

My 2160A has started making unpleasant sort of angry-hornet-ish noises a few minutes after power-up. Everything still seems to be working fine - recording, editing, dubbing - so most likely just the fan, no?

Thanks,
CC

Have you checked the innards to make sure there aren't any angry hornets inside? Turning on the machine could make any residents a bit cranky.
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AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › DVD Recorders (Standard Def) › Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575