How to Determine How Many Hours Can Be Recorded With Media Center PC

Media Center PC offers a great experience for a TV buff, as one can record favorite TV shows and burn them on DVDs. The DVD burning feature is helpful as you will need to free up valuable space after recording your favorite programs. The recording capacity and storage of Media Center PC predominantly depends on two key factors—the quality of the recording and storage amount, counted in GB.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Access the hardware configuration of your Media Center PC. You need to determine the storage capacity. Your hard disk may have 40 GB or 80 GB of storage space, out of which 70% to 90% may be available to record and save your favorite TV programs. The available space depends on existing applications installed on your PC, and previously recorded programs or content including music, photos or other files.
2. Learn more about space consumed and used by digital video files, depending on the quality of recording. Media Center offers 4 levels of recording, depending on which you can determine how many hours of TV content you can record and store. These are as follows:
   
   - Fair uses 1.5 GB of space for 1 hour of recording
   - Good uses 1.8 GB of space for 1 hour of recording
   - Better uses 2.5 GB of space for 1 hour of recording
   - Best uses 3.3 GB of space for 1 hour of recording
3. Choose the right quality of recording video content. Depending on your needs, you should edit the settings and preferences on your Media Center. You can choose the quality of recording and preset it at the time of recording.
4. Understand the picture quality options for each of the settings. The best classification offers you optimum DVD-like picture quality with high resolution images. Better quality gives you the second best in picture and video quality. Fair and Good quality settings will record files using the maximum compression possible, which often results in lost data or poor picture quality.
5. Estimate the recording time for each show you wish to record. Calculate the total available free space on your PC. Select the quality of recording. Re-calculate the total hours of recording you can store on your PC.
6. Maximize your storage by recording shows that do not require immaculate pictures or video rendering at low quality level (fair or good). Such programs would include cartoons, news, talk shows and so on. These usually do not require high picture quality in order to enhance the viewing experience.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are using HDTV display to record TV programs, then you will not be able to alter or choose quality settings, as it only records at a single highest quality level.
• Record live sports, movies and other special feature content at high quality as they will make a difference in your viewing experience.
• Understand compression techniques and its impact on video files. This will help you better assess the preset quality for recording TV content.
• New shows are recorded at default quality settings. Make sure you edit this setting prior to recording.
• Buy an external hard drive or develop habit of burning DVDs to free up storage space to keep recording space available at all times on your Media Center PC.

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