# 622 and storage



## spaceopera (Jul 29, 2005)

Can someone tell me why it is that the 622 is only going to have 30 hrs of hd when it is being stored as mpeg4. Why is there not about 75 hours? This is a big problem with the 942 imho and I just don't understand how there can only be 30 hr of hd if it stored in mpeg4

-Gene


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

:welcome_s Gene

Hard to say.. Some have speculated that the numbers released are based on MPEG2 compression. Hard to say at this point what you can except in terms of storage from MPEG4. Also, remember that a portion of the Hard Drive is reserved for VOD for the 622. 

I know cable HD DVRs that have 10 hours of HD so at this point the Dish HD receivers are definitely competitive in the market. When it come to storage, more is always better.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

spaceopera said:


> Can someone tell me why it is that the 622 is only going to have 30 hrs of hd when it is being stored as mpeg4. Why is there not about 75 hours? This is a big problem with the 942 imho and I just don't understand how there can only be 30 hr of hd if it stored in mpeg4


You might recall that the current "on the fly" compression offered by MPEG4 is only about 30% better than MPEG2. Recall also that the bulk of the HD programming is still going to be MPEG2 and the receiver saves the stream in whatever format it was received in. At this point in time, 30 hours may be a little optimistic even if the hard drive is >300GB.

I'd like to see an _option_ where the receiver painstakingly transcodes everything to MPEG4 when it is idle. There may be some copyright issues involved though.


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## spaceopera (Jul 29, 2005)

Did not realize that it was on the fly encoding. If that is case then yeah they are not going to gain the huge benefits from mpeg4 encoded content. Though a 30% saves in bandwidth is still a lot considering how expensive it is for a satellite. They should have an option to free up the vod space because I for one would much rather have the additional space then vod which I will not use. And Ron I use to have a tivo and if you had a tivo you would know how painful it is using dish hardware and the total lack of space. I watch very little standard def on my 50” plasma. Well some day they might get it right.

-Gene


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Tivo HD? If I recall the original Tivo HD had the same disk as the 921. If we are talking SD, well the 721 also could store a lot more but that is SD. HD and SD are apples and oranges in terms of storage requirements and I stand behind my point that Dish's HD PVRs are competitive in terms of storage. I would welcome the option to free up the VOD for extra storage, but I doubt that will happen. One never knows and I also would like more storage but "total lack of space" compared to the market I disagree with this statement. However, as time goes on I expect this issue to improve.


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## knealy (Jul 6, 2002)

Can someone compare the hard disk size of the 622, 942, and 921?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

knealy said:


> Can someone compare the hard disk size of the 622, 942, and 921?


320gb for the 622. 250gb for the other two.

Interesting that the tech site says 30 hours hd on the 622. Previous spec sheet say 25hour. Speculation was that added 70g would be reserved for Dish on Demand.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

I sure hope that Dish can do something better with the 70 hours in regards to to the video on demand than what they do with it presently. Charging 4.99 a movie that is on the hard drive vs buying off of the guide for 3.99? 

Video on demand should be more like the cable companies do. Free video on demand for channels like Hgtv, Food channels , Diy etc and then free premium channel video on demand for Hbo, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz if you already subscribe to the premium channels.

Then of course they could charge for the new pay per view movies but not higher than what you can get them for from the guide. And no more old movies from years ago unless they are going to be FREE. It is a sin to charge money for a twenty year old movie everyone has seen already a hundred times.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

What do you mean by what they are doing presently Mike? Is dish doing VOD already on a receiver. I was not aware they they already supplied a VOD solution...


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Aye, can someone post details on what the Dish VOD solution involves? Has this information been released? What channels or content are they making available "on demand" (presumably by downloading while idle and caching), and is any of it free?


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

tnsprin said:


> 320gb for the 622. 250gb for the other two.
> 
> Interesting that the tech site says 30 hours hd on the 622. Previous spec sheet say 25hour. Speculation was that added 70g would be reserved for Dish on Demand.


Sounds like they shrunk the amount of space allocated for VOD then. Guess we'll see for sure in a couple of days =)


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Either that or they changed their compression estimations. 
My 30 hr SD 501 records whatever I can squeeze on it.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

a friend I have at Dish told me today that from what he's been told at work there is no record time difference for mpeg2 and 4, as the compression is for transmission, not for storage. so his usderstanding is that we would see no difference in space needed for what we record. will be interesting to verify that or not in the coming weeks. 

he also mentioned the 622 is now set as 30 hrs HD, and that they are looking to make VOD capable of being disabled since so many requests have come in for that


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Rogueone said:


> a friend I have at Dish told me today that from what he's been told at work there is no record time difference for mpeg2 and 4, as the compression is for transmission, not for storage. so his usderstanding is that we would see no difference in space needed for what we record.


Your friend needs to think about this statement a little harder.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

What your friend might have heard is that currently the MPEG4 streams are being sent as MPEG2 with MPEG4 headers (if true and based on what I have read it is). MPEG4 is a different algorithm and thus will result in different storage requirements. MPEG4 is expected to result in a certain savings compared to MPEG2 for the same given input stream. I can assure you eventually there will be a recording saving since the streams will be stored on the drive as MPEG2 or MPEG4. 

There is also a savings that can be realized through transmission optimizations and that is where QSPK comes into play from my understanding. 

Over time.. I do believe users will get more storage out of the current drive the 622 has.


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## BoisePaul (Apr 26, 2005)

LtMunst said:


> Your friend needs to think about this statement a little harder.


If I'm thinking correctly (yeah, right!) wouldn't 30 hours of uncompressed HD require something like 20TB of disk space?


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

are we sure the data is stored in mpeg2 format currently? could it be in a special unique encryption/compression so the data couldn't be pulled off the HD by any old computer? But the mpeg4 header might be right, as the way he stated it was the "transmission" would be mpeg4, but the data would be stored the same as it is now. So if it's currently in mpeg2 on the HD it'll still be in mpeg2 on the HD when we view, just mpeg4 during transmission to save space? does that make sense at all? I don't see why a station which is only broadcast in mpeg4 wouldn't also prepare the programming ahead of time in mpeg4 (excpet the network feeds since you'd be limited to whatever they send to Dish). The voom stuff in mpeg4 wouldn't make sense to do in mpeg2 unless there was some serious money issues involved, would it?


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## BoisePaul (Apr 26, 2005)

Rogueone said:


> are we sure the data is stored in mpeg2 format currently?


I'd say that we're not sure, but it's a pretty safe bet. I doubt that it would be stored in anything other than the format in which it is transmitted, with the exception that some form of encryption might be applied. I honestly can't imagine that E* would go to the expense of building a real-time encoder into a DVR when it's so much easier to record the native stream. For the same reasons, I'd think that anything transmitted in MPEG4 would be recorded as MPEG4 - why decode the stream and re-encode it?


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

which brings up the good question of is mpeg4 programming recorded or packaged in mpeg4 format before transmission, or is it just mpeg2 encapsuled in mpeg4 to get better compression then transmitted and unwrapped back to mpeg2 on the HD? I have to admit, it actually makes sense if this is how it will be for a time, as I'm not sure what differences to the studio doing the recording in mpeg2 versus 4 is. Is it simply how you save the file, or will there be equipment differences like a newer camera involved or such ?


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## BoisePaul (Apr 26, 2005)

I'm not a digital video expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong here... I don't believe that there is any way to "encapsulate" MPEG2 within MPEG4; they are two different compression schemes. Any transcoding process that I've seen has first decoded the MPEG2 to raw uncompressed video and then reencoded it as MPEG4. On the same note, I don't know of any way to convert MPEG4 to MPEG2 without uncompressing the video and recompressing.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

There is no real time encoders in Dish Receivers. MPEG-2 and and MPEG-4 is means to take video and reduce it into a compressed format. You can then take your MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 and place it on a transport mechansim like IP. I don't see why any one would encapsulate MPEG-2 using MPEG-4. Both are designed to compress video for delivery accross a number of different medias. They are two solutions to the same problem. 

So to answer your question. Is Mpeg programming recorded or packaged in mpeg4 before transmission. The answer is "That is the plan" and the direction Dish is moving towards. However, the they are not seeing the desired compression wins with current MPEG4 encoders today so this move will be slowly. 

As to encapsulating MPEG-2 into mpeg-4 to get better compression. The only way I could see this occuring is to decompression the MPEG-2 stream and feed it into MPEG-4. I doubt anyone is doing this and I really dont see any benefit doing it this way.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

BoisePaul said:


> I'm not a digital video expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong here... I don't believe that there is any way to "encapsulate" MPEG2 within MPEG4; they are two different compression schemes. Any transcoding process that I've seen has first decoded the MPEG2 to raw uncompressed video and then reencoded it as MPEG4. On the same note, I don't know of any way to convert MPEG4 to MPEG2 without uncompressing the video and recompressing.


This is how I understand it and my understanding is that Dish takes the stream coming in from the Sat and lays it onto the disk. Is it in pure MPEG2, I doubt it and we are starting to wonder into Hack talk so lets leave it as that.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Rogueone said:


> So if it's currently in mpeg2 on the HD it'll still be in mpeg2 on the HD when we view, just mpeg4 during transmission to save space? does that make sense at all?


The receivers do not process the stream at all prior to recording to HD. If the stream comes MPEG2, it is recorded MPEG2. If it's MPEG4, it's recorded MPEG4.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Rogueone said:


> a friend I have at Dish told me today that from what he's been told at work there is no record time difference for mpeg2 and 4, as the compression is for transmission, not for storage.


The rumor around the water cooler is incorrect.


> so his usderstanding is that we would see no difference in space needed for what we record.


That may well be the case if MPEG4 doesn't currently yield any appreciable savings. What gets recorded is a video stream; regardless of the transport protocol. In fact, all programming you watch on a Dish DVR has already been recorded and is playing off of the hard drive!

Sending a JPEG file via FTP doesn't make it an FTP file. I would ask that nobody bring up the MPEG2 wrapper issue again as it only creates an issue where one doesn't exist.


> they are looking to make VOD capable of being disabled since so many requests have come in for that


This would be a very popular option indeed. Hopefully this has more credibility than the other rumor. Next project: being able to transcode existing recordings to full MPEG4 compression (maybe if we say it enough, it will sink in).


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

the point of this transcode to mpeg4 is for space savings? 

so, whether or not there is a space benefit to mpeg4 currently is more a product of the compression algerythms needing some work to become more efficient? that makes sense if i think of if the way video drivers make a video card faster by becoming more efficient in their handling of graphics data  

regardless of how it all works, 30 hours is better than 23 or so hours


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## spaceopera (Jul 29, 2005)

of course if they still have not fixed the fragmenation problem then we will have less space. Ps. if dish is listening I DON"T want VOD give me back my disk space.

-Gene


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