SD Recording preference

[TimC]

I think this may be an old argument, but it might be worth another try for the Icebox.

I generally have a preference for recording programs in Standard Definition (SD).
This is for two reasons:
1. I find that SD is not reality all that superior to High Definition (HD). Technically it is significantly superior. However our eyes don't really see the technical detail (At least my 68 year old eyes don't). A child's perhaps.
HD does offer superior sound though. Some will argue that things like the cricket are much better in HD, but that depends on what is being broadcast.

I remember when Channel 9 started broadcasting the cricket in HD, there was a significant difference between SD and HD.  My observation was that the scoreboard couldn't be read in SD whereas in HD it was clear as a bell, but that was Nine marketing deliberately lowering the quality of the SD broadcast to make the HD look good. I had never has so much trouble making out the detail on the scoreboard on SD, until HD started.

2. Recording SD takes up less space. Again there are some that argue differently. There seems to be some difference between how much space a recording thinks it is taking up as apposed the amount of space used on the Hard Drive. I imagine that depends on what the various systems keep track of, but it doesn't take much intuition to thinking that the higher info density in HD MUST use more space.

The reality is that there will certainly be times when recording in HD would be desired, but for run of the mill stuff like Home and Away, SD is all that is needed (Oops I can see the social media comments coming now).

The Skippa allowed us the set our preferences for recording, so can the IceBox be set up in a similar way?

I imagine that setting a recording from the SD channel from the EPG will work, but you can't do that from the APP.

Any thoughts?

[IanL-S]

The simple solution is to disable the HD (h.264) LCNs in you guide settings.

It is difficult to make comparisons, as the bitrate used will have an impact on the size of the recording, as will the codec (MPEG2 or h.264) and possibly the resolution (although as far as I am aware all h.264 transmissions use 1920 x 1080, and I suspect most (if not all) of the MPEG2 use 720 x 576. 10HD, 9HD and 7HD tend to use much higher bitrates than ABC HD and SBS HD. I think early HD broadcasts used MPEG 2 with 1440 x 1080.

[TimC]

I understand, but IceTV used to provide a choice which was taken away. I think the idea was to make the timer setup simpler. But that meant that all recordings go to HD.  That then meant that on the Skipps, Add Skip didn't work on HD Channels.  It would just be nice the be able to set a preference for SD somewhere on the website. Perhaps the Guide Settings page?

[IanL-S]

The quick and dirty way is to disable the HD channels which have an SD counterpart in you IceTV Account settings. In one of my accounts I have disabled the SD versions where there is an HD version and a few other SD that I never watch. This was necessary as I had to decrease the amount of data for a full EPG download which was causing my Toppys to go into a spontaneous reboot cycle.

[TimC]

Yes. I had done that for the Skippa for a while.  But that then excludes the possibility of recording HD (for the better sound).
Restoring the original function. By all means have it default to "Prefer HD" but let us choose to change the default setting.