Windows 7: Recorded Live TV files HUGE

Hello all,
I just started toying around with my Hauppauge 950Q + OTA HD TV + Windows Media Center and recording some live TV shows. The problem I'm running into is the huge size of the recorded files.



For instance, I recorded 5-10 minutes of a live tv broadcast and it took up over one gig. Is there something wrong with this? Can I somehow lower the quality or something to that effect? I looked in the settings and it only mentioned the maximum size of the recordings, but I'm not sure how that works.

Thanks!

Yes, you can lower the quality, but I wouldn't recommend that. I take my mpeg transport stream files, which are over 8 gig an hour and squeeze them with the divx converter built into Beyond TV. It takes an hour down to around 600MB with good good quality. It's not perfect like the HD stream, but very watchable.

You can buy the DivX suite for a reasonable price that included a converter.

Featured | DivX.com

A 2 TB WD Caviar Black Hard Drive would take minutes to install, I suggest that. A 2 TB Hard Drive will hold hundreds of hours of Recorded TV at HD quality. Yes, there is cost, but time is worth money, no? These are so popular that they are sold out on Newegg ... but not everywhere.

I guess quality isn't that high of a priority. As long as it's watchable. How would I go about shrinking it? Would I just record at it's massive size and then import it into the DIVX converter? Or is there some other way to do it?

Tasks>Settings>TV>Recorder>Recorder Storage

Here you can select the Recorded TV qual, and therefore, filesize (and also location).

Hi,
I dont have any settings for qaulity in this screen. Is there something i need to unlock in my Windows 7 Ultimate install to access it?

That's what I do. If I know I'm going to be watching it in the very near future, I don't shrink the mpeg transport stream, otherwise I do. Yes, you just drag and drop it into the divx converter, and make sure to delete the original afterwards. I highly recommend Beyond TV for all of this. It works great in Windows 7 and pretty much does everything I want it to do. Find a copy on ebay and you won't be sorry.

Ditto, I only have:

Record on Drive
Maximum TV limit
Total Recording Time

You may not be seeing this option as your hardware only supports one of the available options, the lowest. I have all the options as my hardware properly supports HD.

Can you set quality per recording? I don't need to record "The Simpsons" or "Curious George" in HD quality, but would like to record other live TV shows on "Best" quality.

I can only find a universal setting.
Thanks