Referring to this: “To allow the archiving process sufficient time to function, it is not possible to record more than 8 hours of content within a 24-hour time frame without an external hard drive.”
What about when I record from an OTA subchannel that is an MPEG-4 channel like 62.2 and 62.3 in Chicago? Does the GEN4 still need to go through an actual archiving step in that case since the origin is already MPEG-4 ? If not, would that recorded content still count toward the “8 hours within 24 hours” limit ?
If you own a gen 4 and use internal storage have you ever seen archiving occur. If you know the space used and make 4 1 hour recordings from a 720p stations and observe the used space after the last one completes have you ever seen a used space reduction due to archiving? I’ve waited days and never seen a change. And when compared to the same 720p stations recorded at 720p on legacy, the gen 4 uses 50% more space then the same recordings on legacy.
I can’t really answer your archiving question, but I can tell you that If you add an external hard drive it becomes irrelevant. It only archives when using the internal memory.
I don’t need an external hard drive. The gen 4 isn’t my only DVR solution. I just want the feature to work - if it’s not. That seems to be a common request for the gen 4.
I’m not sure this archiving procedure does anything to help with internal drive space. I decided to test this by pulling out my 2-tuner which has zero recordings. I recorded for 3 hours yesterday on 1080i station, checked it 1m after completion – 13.1gb used. I checked it this morning – 14.9gb used. Something seems a bit off.
I am running a second test this morning: 2hrs on 720p plus 2hrs on 1080i at the same time. Will wait a little longer after completion in case there is any finalization/cleanup it needs to do to mark it complete that might add to the file size.
It does have to generate thumbnails. If I use a legacy to record a 720P channel at 720P and the very same show(s) I record on a gen 4 I can get the amount used since legacy records in H.264. 22 hours takes 50GB on legacy and 75GB on gen 4.
One of the things I’ve noticed, going back to my original post, is that the OTA recordings from MPEG-4 subchannels like 62.2 and 62.3 in Chicago do NOT get thumbnails generated for them. So I’m wondering if they do a pass through a tuner after recording at all - whether for thumbnails or archiving - since they are already MPEG-4.
But it should still generate thumbnails, correct? I’ve noticed that some programs that I record off low-resolution OTA channel consistently do not generate thumbnails. Any idea why? (Probably not an archiving issue since I am using an external drive…)
Maybe the tablo article needs an update. It talks about the maximum amount of recording in 24 hours. Nothing stops a user from recording more then 8 hours within 24 hours.
To allow the archiving process sufficient time to function, it is not possible to record more than 8 hours of content within a 24-hour time frame without an external hard drive.
If you believe tablo’s own article, it’s 2 hours per hour. I’ve owned my gen 4 for a year and have never seen it archive. So maybe they need to remove it from the marketing BS.
During this process, recordings will be converted automatically in the background from the original MPEG2 broadcast format into MPEG4.
It takes approximately twice the length of the airing to complete the archiving process.