Media Center offers several options for recording TV and allows you to choose the right video quality setting for your needs. You can pick the highest quality level for optimal viewing or a lower quality level if you want to conserve storage space.
Try different recording levels to find the one that works best for you—it's a good idea to pick a level that gives you a high enough quality of video without taking up too much disk space. In other words, choose the lowest quality level that offers a recording quality that you find acceptable.
Media Center offers four recording quality levels:
- Best: The highest video quality with the lowest compression level. Choose this level as the default level only if you have a very large hard disk, do not keep many recorded shows, or you have a very large TV screen.
- Better: The second-highest quality level enables you to keep more recorded shows than Best, while offering almost perfect video quality. Choose this level as the default level if you have a large TV screen, watch shows with a lot of action, or don't want any flaws in video quality.
- Good: The second-highest compression level allows you to store many recorded TV shows with acceptable video quality. At this level, you may notice some distortion during action scenes. Choose this level as the default level if you have a medium-sized TV screen; want to store a large number of recorded shows on your Media Center PC; and can tolerate occasional, minor video flaws.
- Fair: The highest compression level maximizes the number of recorded TV shows that you can store. At this level, you will notice distortion when there is movement in recorded TV. Choose this level as the default level if you have a small TV screen, want to store as many shows as possible on your Media Center PC, and can tolerate visible video flaws.
 Tip: if you are recording HDTV, you won't need to select a recording level—it only records at a single high-quality level. |
You can configure different quality levels for specific shows. To maximize your storage space, record shows that have little picture motion or image detail, such as cartoons, news, or talk shows, at a low quality level. To minimize video distortion, record sports, movies, or shows that have a lot of picture motion at higher quality levels. You can also adjust the default quality settings for a scheduled series, and the quality settings for a new, one-time recording. Keep in mind that you can't change the quality level for a show after you record it, so it's not a good idea to experiment with a lower quality level on your favorite shows. | Note: When Media Center records TV, it compresses the video so that it can fit many shows onto your computer's hard disk. (Video compression reduces the disk space that is required to store TV shows by reducing repeated parts of the video.) High compression levels greatly reduce the size of video files, but may noticeably reduce their quality. Video recorded at lower compression levels consumes more disk space, but offers near-perfect video quality. |
The following table describes approximately how much disk space that recorded shows of different lengths take up at each recording level.
| Show length |
Best |
Better |
Good |
Fair |
| 30 minutes |
1.6 GB |
1.25 GB |
.9 GB |
.75 GB |
| 1 hour |
3.3 GB |
2.5 GB |
1.75 GB |
1.5 GB |
| 2 hours |
6.5 GB |
5 GB |
3.5 GB |
3 GB |
The following table describes approximately how many hours of recorded TV shows you can store on your computer, based on the hard disk space that you have assigned for storing recorded TV.
| Disk Space |
Best |
Better |
Good |
Fair |
| 100 GB |
30 hours |
40 hours |
57 hours |
67 hours |
| 150 GB |
45 hours |
60 hours |
86 hours |
100 hours |
| 200 GB |
60 hours |
80 hours |
114 hours |
133 hours |
| 250 GB |
76 hours |
100 hours |
143 hours |
167 hours |
Media Center automatically records new shows with your default quality settings. Therefore, you should choose a default quality level that best fits the type of shows that you enjoy. Many people choose either the Good or Better quality levels because they offer the best compromise between video quality and storage capacity. To determine the ideal quality level, start by taping shows at the Fair quality setting. If the distortion bothers you, adjust the quality to the Good level. Continue increasing the quality level until you are satisfied.| Note: Shows that are on over-the-air digital TV channels are, by default, recorded only at the highest quality setting to retain the increased picture detail and higher quality audio of high definition. As a result, the file size of recorded digital TV shows is larger than recordings of standard definition TV. |
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