Toppy recording of HD

[tonygib]

Hi all,

I think this may have partly come up before and was wondering if a solution was ever found.

A couple of days ago I tried a test record on the Toppy of the ABC HD channel (Doctor Who). The test worked great, but when I re-programmed the timer recordings, Wednesdays ended up with a 170MB file, which had no video at all. Unlike the test, which I set to start at 6:01, the timer was set for 5:59.

I get the feeling that the HD broadcast didn't really start till after 6, as such I have now re-set the timers to 6:02 and will see what happens tonight.

However, if the time should "drift" a little then I may still miss it. Is there a way to make sure that the Toppy will record the HD channel when it starts broadcasting? I think some ID info must be changing and hence why it didn't work.

thanks

[tonygib]

Well, it looks like foss, tony, etc have let me down, whats up guys, your ment to know it all

As to partly answering my own question, it looks like starting it at 6:02 did the trick. It seams that the HD "broadcast" starts at 6, tho its nothing but a static logo for the first few minutes. The only problem with this is of course if the show happens to start a little early, I may miss the beginning.

[Wolf1503559591]

Tony, the Toppy does record HD but does not display it. You can however download it to a PC, de-mux it with ProjectX and view it on the computer. As the Toppy is not designed for HD recording you may have stuffed the recording up by doing other things to the poor box.

Why in gods name are you interested in Doctor Who HD? Its pathetic enough the way it is.

[dyson]

Is there a way to get the Toppy to show, if not record, a HD channel as SD? I ask because of the fiasco of Channel Seven showing the Olympic Opening Ceremony in 4:3 on their SD channel, and - I hear from others on this forum - 16:9 on their HD channel.

[fossil1503559605]

hi Dyson,

Like has been reported.... and like myself and several others reported a while back...the Opening and closing ceremony would most likely , according to the press release, only be available in 4:3 for SD viewers...unfortunately that all proved true....I have to as...surly there was a way Ch 7 could have got a 19:9 broadcast to an alternative SD channel...all past tense now...they didn't.

The only way to view the HD broadcast for us Toppy owners is to record the HD broadcast which was 19 gigabyte and transfer that recording to your PC and the either process it to watch it, or watch it straight away with players like Mplayer for windows, or a trial version of MPEG Video Wizard from http://www.womble.com/

Thats what I will be doing...just to see what it was like....I won't be watching the assembly of athletes etc....I have seen that on SD which was enough.

foss

[Guest chris-sinclair]

I can't receive the HDTV of Channel 70 at all and I am not talking about the toppy.

I don't really know if anybody having the toppy is able to receive the Channel 70 and record the WS version?

My HD receiver is Panasonic and I think Channel 7 is stopping me from receiving the HDTV due to copyright.

I think the way the receiver is setup as PALTV is preventing me from copying the WS version. My DVD recorder is connected with it.

I think the only way to enjoy watching the WS version is on the TV set using component input from the STB. This would be viewing only.

[chrisb03]

Thats what I will be doing...just to see what it was like....I won't be watching the assembly of athletes etc....I have seen that on SD which was enough.

foss

I watched it live on my HiDef box and recorded both the sd and hd version on my toppy. I must say, the HD version was excellent. Even the commentators where better on HD. I occasionally flicked to the SD version and quickly switched back to HD as it made me sick .

I haven't slept yet as I watched the 2000 ceremony which played before Athens as well.

I'm glad I stayed up now as I thought they may of broadcast the replay in HD midday today as well, but they didn't.

[fossil1503559605]

At this very moment I am transferring across the 19 Gig of HD data from the Toppy to my PC via topfHDRead and will attempt to view it later...I have to do it via USB2 because I use my laptop.so its a lot slower than if I had the caddy hooked direct to a PC.

I recorded both channels...IE SD Digital and HD Digital, so we will see what the HD broadcast was like...which ever way, the HD version will look great on my laptop screen

foss

[tonygib]

hmm, how did this end up going back to the Olympic's!!

As for the recording, yes Wolf, it did work, but only if I started it a bit after 6pm. Before 6 it seams that the HD channel just doesn't broadcast and if you happen to start recording during that time, then even when it does start, all one gets is a blank screen on the PC (ie 30 minutes was 150MB file).

My thinking is that the PID's or something partly change when the HD kicks in, even tho I am recording the HD channel. As such the HD broadcast goes and one ends up recording the "initial" blank one. Currently this is solved by setting the timer to a bit past 6pm, but thats a fine line.

Give it a try, set a timer for say 5:58 and see what you get.

Basically I was hoping for a way to set the timer a bit before but still get the HD broadcast when it starts.

So I guess you won't be watching the new series of Doctor Who then

[sammo2828]

I can't receive the HDTV of Channel 70 at all and I am not talking about the toppy.

I don't really know if anybody having the toppy is able to receive the Channel 70 and record the WS version?

My HD receiver is Panasonic and I think Channel 7 is stopping me from receiving the HDTV due to copyright.

I think the way the receiver is setup as PALTV is preventing me from copying the WS version. My DVD recorder is connected with it.

I think the only way to enjoy watching the WS version is on the TV set using component input from the STB. This would be viewing only.

hey .. same here ..

i can't select channel 70 now .. tried with a panasonic hd receiver

[chrisb03]

i can't select channel 70 now .. tried with a panasonic hd receiver

Seven isn't broadcasting HD at the moment. From now on it's channel 7(4:3) or channel 71(4:3 with the extra stats on the side to create 16:9)

[fossil1503559605]

Hmmm...I have just been looking at the Opening in 16:9, but certainly not worth making a fuss over...It was nice, but after I zoomed 4:3 to 16:9 on my plasma it was difficult to tell the difference between the zoomed picture on my plasma and the 16:9 on my laptops 15"screen.....of course there are more figures in the 16:9 picture.

I viewed the 16:9 file from my Laptop (which has limited outputs) on my plasma, but the resolutions were not really compatible, hence it looked OK to good but no better than that,,,,needed a better video card I think, because I could see jaggies on my laptop screen

By the way, the size of the files for the same amount of time of 4 hours 10 mins is 12.5 gig for SD and 18.9 gig for HD....I wont be keeping the HD version.

foss

PS...I could only view the HD file in the viewer called "MPEG Video Wizard."...MPlayer did not work

f

[Mark Haynes]

At this very moment I am transferring across the 19 Gig of HD data from the Toppy to my PC via topfHDRead and will attempt to view it later...I have to do it via USB2 because I use my laptop.so its a lot slower than if I had the caddy hooked direct to a PC.

I recorded both channels...IE SD Digital and HD Digital, so we will see what the HD broadcast was like...which ever way, the HD version will look great on my laptop screen

foss

Hmm Silly me only recorded the SD stream on my Toppy :eek: so 4X3 for me...

But the old Zinwell box in the bedroom (hooked up to the same aerial showing different channel numbers) had one of the channels on w/s? Two were 4X3 & one was 16X9 & Yes the Zinwell is definately a SD box!

Some pretty weird stuff happening here in CBR I guess 5 Prime channels on the Toppy & 3 on the Zinwell! We even have one of the Prime channels as a Test HD transmission but in the Info it says Win HD test transmission? but Win HD is a totally diff channel #.

Bizarre?

Of course the repeats were all 4X3... golden opportunity missed by Prime there.

Cheers Mark

PS Sorry to have stayed off topic!

BTW Dr Who is appalling in SD cant imagine HD being any better? But we watch it for the stories & the low budget sci-fi it is dont we all...?

[Guest chris-sinclair]

Hmmm...I have just been looking at the Opening in 16:9, but certainly not worth making a fuss over...It was nice, but after I zoomed 4:3 to 16:9 on my plasma it was difficult to tell the difference between the zoomed picture on my plasma and the 16:9 on my laptops 15"screen.....of course there are more figures in the 16:9 picture.

By the way, the size of the files for the same amount of time of 4 hours 10 mins is 12.5 gig for SD and 18.9 gig for HD....I wont be keeping the HD version.

foss

I am going to keep the 4:3 version, the one I am recording now instead of the one this morning as black bars on each side.

I was unfortunately on the wrong Channel 71 this morning and I missed out on the WS version.

Anyway, the 4:3 version is better than nothing.

Chris

[tonygib]

BTW Dr Who is appalling in SD cant imagine HD being any better? But we watch it for the stories & the low budget sci-fi it is dont we all...?

Actually, it does look better in HD. Since all our SD is WS, we are loosing resolution due to the letter boxing. So when you re-scale the HD into the same full screen area it does look better, even better then the DVD's that I have compared.

At least it does to me.

NOW, If no one has any way to solve the recording problem other then what I have already done, then START YOUR OWN thread about toppy/HD/Olympic's.

thanks

[Mark Haynes]

BTW Dr Who is appalling in SD cant imagine HD being any better? But we watch it for the stories & the low budget sci-fi it is dont we all...?

Actually, it does look better in HD. Since all our SD is WS, we are loosing resolution due to the letter boxing. So when you re-scale the HD into the same full screen area it does look better, even better then the DVD's that I have compared.

At least it does to me.

NOW, If no one has any way to solve the recording problem other then what I have already done, then START YOUR OWN thread about toppy/HD/Olympic's.

thanks

Oops Sorry,

When I see Dr Who on SD here in CBR it is 4X3 material on a w/s TV (not letterboxed, black bars at the side) so no zooming involved unless you have a 4X3 TV & its letterboxed on that?

But I take your point zooming a letterboxed image in HD may be better than zooming the SD image..

My point is the source image looks bad HD or not...

Cheers Mark

[Wolf1503559591]

Tony, I did some tinkering with HD recordings and being the proud owner of two Toppies I dedicated both to the task.

No1 Toppy uses Dec. firmware and does the HD recordings but No2 Toppy, which uses the Mar firmware does not. That maybe a coincident if one is an optimist which I am not. I didn’t change the firmware to prove the point, that’s something I leave for you to do.

[tonygib]

Tony, I did some tinkering with HD recordings and being the proud owner of two Toppies I dedicated both to the task.

No1 Toppy uses Dec. firmware and does the HD recordings but No2 Toppy, which uses the Mar firmware does not. That maybe a coincident if one is an optimist which I am not. I didn’t change the firmware to prove the point, that’s something I leave for you to do.

Wolf, when you say it does/does not do the HD recording, do you mean it doesn't record the HD channel at all or do you mean that the Dec. firmware records HD correctly when it starts broadcasting even if the timer for recording has been set to start outside of initial HD broadcasting.

I'm running the Apr. 20 firmware and I can get the HD to record, as long as it has already started broadcasting.

Mark, it fact it was the side letterboxing I was talking about. As it is a 4:3 content and ALL digital TV is broadcast as 16:9, the stations "fit" the 4:3 stuff into the middle of the WS image, in effect you loose around 200 pixels of video data length wise in order to fit the 4:3 content within the 576 height. Now of course the same is done with HD, but then the total resolution is that much larger, one ends up with actual 4:3 image that has more pixels then even the Doctor Who DVD's.

As such, when I then scale it down to 640x480 and encode to divx, it looks better then the scaled down SD to 512x384.

But yes, your right, the source is still not that great, but then this current stuff is 30 years old.

[Wolf1503559591]

Tony, I haven’t tried all those possibilities. I just hit the button and recorded CH70 here in Melb.

[tonygib]

Tony, I haven’t tried all those possibilities. I just hit the button and recorded CH70 here in Melb.

ahhh, ok, fair enough.