does it matter if I record 1 huge file?

[buzzerbee]

I have to record a 5-6 hour block. Does it matter to sage or windows if I do that vs. 1 hr files?

Is there something to consider that I haven't mentioned/thought of?
------------------------

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is HD2PART2.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage
Security descriptor verification completed.

58605056 KB total disk space.
35709248 KB in 17420 files.
35840 KB in 1555 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
85568 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
22774400 KB available on disk.

65536 bytes in each allocation unit.
915704 total allocation units on disk.
355850 allocation units available on disk.

[dvd_maniac]

the large file that this would create would be a little hard to edit on slower systems. Do you only have 1 tuner? If you have more than record them seperately and just add padding to start & end. If you do only have 1 and the channel your show is on has flakey start times then record the whole block. Check the channel and your system clock to see if the shows start on time.

When I used to use BeyondTV which only supported one tuner, I would start the recording 1 minute early and stop it one minute early as well, that way I wouldn't miss the beginning, only the credits.

[buzzerbee]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

the large file that this would create would be a little hard to edit on slower systems. Do you only have 1 tuner? If you have more than record them seperately and just add padding to start & end. If you do only have 1 and the channel your show is on has flakey start times then record the whole block. Check the channel and your system clock to see if the shows start on time.

yes it's 5 back to back episodes, and 1 tuner. I recorded something this am and missed the last minute or so, but on these upcoming shows I can't use padding bec they're back to back. I updated the system clock after that blurp this am and disabled the sync with sage. I'll sync my pc to the clock on the tv's guide in case it isn't.
I'm thinking of encodng it at 6000000 or 8000000 so it would be a VERY large file, which I gues would be hard to work with, unless the first step is splitting them which I've never done so I don't know how it would tax the system.
It's probably best to make them indiv files and then join the ends if there's a problem.

[dvd_maniac]

unless the first step is splitting them which I've never done so I don't know how it would tax the system.

Mpeg-VCr is what I use. TMPGenc is another but much slower.

[buzzerbee]

Maybe I'll see how big a 5 hr padded file is tonight and see how my pc handles it with a free trial of mpeg-vcr. If is can, that's probably the best way.

I can't decide..

[gplasky]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. You're going to record 5 back to back episodes in Sage. Sage is going to record them as 5 seperate files. (5-1hour episodes or whatever the length is.) How would you tell Sage to make 1 big file out of them? Or are you talking after Sage records them?

Gerry

[korben_dallas]

6,000,000 bps x 3600 sec/hr x 5 episodes = 108,000,000,000bits / 8bits/byte = 13,500,000,000bytes = roughly 14 GB give or take.

I'm not sure Windows would allow a single file that large, would it?

[buzzerbee]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. You're going to record 5 back to back episodes in Sage. Sage is going to record them as 5 seperate files. (5-1hour episodes or whatever the length is.) How would you tell Sage to make 1 big file out of them? Or are you talking after Sage records them?

Gerry

I was deciding between one 5 hr file or five 1 hr files bec I can't set padding. eg, I have it taping to my VCR as backup and that's 1 entry in the "set recordings" area; it's not starting and stopping for each segment.

My goal is not to have the last snippets lost between sage closing a file and creating the next one/and it not coinciding time-wise with what the feed is.

I've decided that it's probably best not to get a huge file and risk that windows can't handle it, which would obviously be worse than losing a few minutes here and there.

[buzzerbee]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

6,000,000 bps x 3600 sec/hr x 5 episodes = 108,000,000,000bits / 8bits/byte = 13,500,000,000bytes = roughly 14 GB give or take.

I'm not sure Windows would allow a single file that large, would it?

This is what MSFT says about NTFS partitions in Win XP pro:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...c_fil_tdrn.asp

Table 13.5 NTFS Size Limits

Description Limit
Maximum file size Theory: 16 exabytes minus 1 KB (264 bytes minus 1 KB)
Implementation: 16 terabytes minus 64 KB (244 bytes minus 64 KB)

Maximum volume size Theory: 264 clusters minus 1 cluster
Implementation: 256 terabytes minus 64 KB ( 232 clusters minus 1 cluster)

Files per volume 4,294,967,295 (232 minus 1 file)


So I guess 14+GB would be ok....

[Opus4]

Just a couple points... if you make it a Timed Recording, you can make it all one large recording, but you won't have any detailed info for the shows. If you wanted SageTV to track the show info, they have to be separate recordings. If they are all back to back on the same channel, you really won't be missing anything w/o padding, but it can be a pain to find the last bit of the show at the beginning of some other show. Add another tuner so padding will work.

Regarding file size: I haven't looked up the max NTFS file size, but I'm sure it is quite large. I've got a 70 GB TrueImage backup file on one drive currently. Edit: I see the max file size info was posted while I was typing this.

- Andy

[spaceghost]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Regarding file size: I haven't looked up the max NTFS file size, but I'm sure it is quite large. I've got a 70 GB TrueImage backup file on one drive currently. Edit: I see the max file size info was posted while I was typing this.

2nd that! I have several 19GB mpg files (LOTR). Sage regularly records 8-12Gb files on my PC....

[buzzerbee]

just as a follow up..

I was going to record them as indiv episodes but after the first one, I saw that the timings and things were goofy--which I didn't want to cascade to the following. So I quickly changed it to record a ~4 hour block with some padding. It came out to 16 gb and I used DVD author to trim it to 2 DVDs @ 2 episodes each.

I did have to compress them bec I recorded at a CBR of 8000000. I figured I have once chance to record them, so record at the best setting and go to 1 episode/DVD if needed.
Thanks for the help, all.