# Vip622 HD recording 12.8 GB per hour?



## jimmino (Feb 7, 2006)

Okay, not sure this is something I want to post or not? But...anyone know how many GB's it takes per hour of recording in HD? (12.8 GB?) I was think that we are able to transfer data to the "Pocket Dish" via the USB port, why not an external Drive?

Anyone have comments or idea's on this subject?

Thanks


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

From what I've seen it averages around 10GB an hour. This is assuming we have 300GB of usable disk space for recording. If the usable space is actually less then we're getting a bit better than 10GB per hour.

As for the external drive piece, it's not supported yet. It's something that Dish has said is on the way. Orignally mentioned in a tech last last summer for the 942, but it's not here yet. I haven't tried plugging in an external drive myself (waiting for Dish to annouce the feature so I can make sure I buy a supported drive) but from what I've seen here, people that do plug them in get a message about an unsupported device?


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## Cowchip (Jan 15, 2006)

I'm also anxiously awaiting the availability of using the USB port for transferring video. The unit will recognize a small jump drive and you can transfer pictures back and forth, but as far as the video you'll get a "feature not enabled" message or something along those lines.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Based on the pictures I saw at CES, my understanding is that this USB external drive is for archival purposes only. If your hopes are to copy to an external drive and then hope to play it on your laptop, I think you will be disappointed. Ofcourse we have not seen this feature yet, so I could be wrong but that is not the impression I got.


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## Cowchip (Jan 15, 2006)

This is my first DVR so what are others doing to archive their saved programs? Can you send to a DVD recorder? Are their piracy issues with this? It would be nice to save certain events to DVD and make a personal library. thanks


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Cowchip said:


> This is my first DVR so what are others doing to archive their saved programs? Can you send to a DVD recorder? Are their piracy issues with this? It would be nice to save certain events to DVD and make a personal library. thanks


Yes, you can burn to a DVD. There are no legal issues with this as long as the copies are only for you ie.. don't burn 10 copies for your friends.


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## hazydave (Jan 7, 2006)

jimmino said:


> Okay, not sure this is something I want to post or not? But...anyone know how many GB's it takes per hour of recording in HD? (12.8 GB?)


My HDV camcorder does about 12GB/hour, which is HDV 1080i at 25Mb/s. Broadcast is limited to 19.4Mb/s in the USA, but it's often much less, depending on how many extra SD channels your local broadcaster is carrying.

On Dish, with MPEG-2, I rekon you're talking 8-10GB/hour maximum, based on AC3 5.1 and the fact they're tweaking the resolution down to 1200x1080 (reportedly) on most HD channels. Of course... and what they don't mention... MPEG-4 (H.264) channels ought to be about 1/3-1/4 of that space, which of course makes the '622 even a better buy, as HD moves over to that more efficient encoding.



jimmino said:


> I was think that we are able to transfer data to the "Pocket Dish" via the USB port, why not an external Drive?


The big reason: DRM. They don't want you to have free access to the video... you might archive it, put it on bittorrent, whatever. Actually, I'm fairly sure Dish doesn't give a flying hoot about it, any more than TiVo did with TiVo-to-Go. They just need to ensure the content providers that their system is secure. So you'll notice that the Archos devices sold through Dish are a little different -- some new DRM, most likely, and the ViP units have to handshake with digital certificates and all that junk before they'll even premit the download. My educated guess, anyway... two companies ago, I was designing systems very similar, for the day anyway, to these (late 1990s, and in Germany), even with the USB.

-Dave


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## John Ashman (Feb 2, 2006)

Any one know or know *how* we'll know when the USB is enabled (if?) for external HDs? I'm only able to get about 15 HD movies total on the HD and, if you have kids, you know that you need a "selection" or they won't be happy. I desperately need to expand on this substantially! Hopefully they'll start to mirror some of these channels in MPEG4 and hopefully we won't be losing noticeable quality when it happens.


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

As for how USB external drives should work, I just want to use them for extra storage on the 622. No DRM issues here.

My ideal implementation would be to transparently allow recording and playing on the USB drive just as if it were an internal drive. I'd be happy if I could eventually end up with 100 hours of HD storage. ^_^


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