# 921 - mix SD & HD recordings result in poor disk management?



## EvanS (Mar 27, 2002)

Sorry about the title - but I couldn't encapsulate any better.

Our 942 is used to get the "important" HD while the old 921 records the wife's GH and a few other SD and HD shows.

While the 942 and 921 have the same size HD it seems that the 921 gets pretty messed up after a while. I currently have 1 HD episode of "Medium" and 1 HD "Ghost Whisperer" along with 20 various 1-hour SD episodes of GH, Desperate Housewives and a couple other sitcoms.
By my calculations the HD TIME REMAINING on the 921 should be approximately 20 hours...and then conservatively maybe as little as 16-18 hours remaining. BUT I actually only show 10 hours remaining. Some 1-hour SD shows that get deleted free up about 15 minutes of HD time remaining, while many will only free up 2-3 minutes. Deleting a 1-hour HD shows actually frees about 1 hour, so the SD tracking seems to be the issue.
BUT then, when my wife tears thru her shows or just gets rid of stuff, so that there are only 3 or 4 shows left then the time remaining seems to fall into line.
I have run the disk maint routine but this changed nothing. Hard boot changes nothing. Is this common, or is there something else I can do to get this issue cleaned up?

thanks


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

Part of the issue could be that not all SD uses the same amount of space. I don't know what the actual bit rates are, but I know that SD PPV and premium channels have a much higher bit rate than SD LIL's. Everthing else falls in between.


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## langlin (Apr 8, 2005)

Sounds about right Allen, just looking at the PQ of my LIL's I would say they would take up about 2-3 minutes if disk space.


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## bbomar (Oct 18, 2004)

Allen Noland said:


> Part of the issue could be that not all SD uses the same amount of space. I don't know what the actual bit rates are, but I know that SD PPV and premium channels have a much higher bit rate than SD LIL's. Everthing else falls in between.


OTA SD recordings are probably also at a higher bit rate than most, if not all, of the satellite channels.


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## KKlare (Sep 24, 2004)

You might also look at the time left sometime after deleting a program. Space recovery seems delayed for some deletions. I deleted an hour+ HD and it initally said 15 minutes more. I came back and found I had at least the hour.

Note that HD with 4:3 pillars or SD that is 16:9 letter boxed will take less space because the blank spaces compress more.

-Ken


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