7. File Compression With ShowSqueeze

ShowSqueeze is an automatic video compression tool that has been integrated into BTV. It has been available for use with standard definition recordings for some time, but it was only recently made available as of 8June 2006 for high definition recordings as well (Perhaps you heard the collective cheer from BTV fans?).

Why is it important to worry about video file compression? Generally, hardware-based standard definition tuner cards only record in MPEG2 format (If you decide that you would rather use a software-based TV tuner card that is fine, but people are going to make fun of you). MPEG2 files are good quality but they're fairly large. Generally a one-hour show recorded in MPEG2 will occupy about 3 GB of hard drive space. At 3 GB per hour, a 400 GB hard drive will allow you to store a little over 130 hours of recorded media.

However, the world as we know it is no longer content with standard-definition TV. We want high def and it comes at a price. One hour of high definition television will occupy an average of 10 GB of hard drive space! At 10 GB per hour, that same 400 GB hard drive is going to fill up with high-definition recordings in about 40 hours. Considering that the average TV viewer watches 17 hours of TV per week, you would fill your hard drive with HD content in a little over two weeks.

Compression doesn't cost anything but time, and it allows you to maximize your hard drive space. I used BTV to record game five of the Stanley Cup (Figure 8) in HD. It originally took up 24.92 GB of prime hard drive real-estate on my HTPC. That is a huge file! I ran it through ShowSqueeze using Divx 6.1-HD on a high quality setting and in about seven hours I ended up with a 2.23 GB file, which averages out to about 2.3 minutes of encoding for every minute of video produced. It still looked great even though the Divx compression downgraded the resolution from 1920X1088 to 1280X720.

Figure 8: ShowSqueeze in action

Most importantly, the Divx compression left me with plenty of storage space to record more programs. To get an idea about how ShowSqueeze performed with a slower system, I encoded the same video on an Athlon 2800+ with 512 MB of RAM. It took a little over 10 ½ hours to complete the same job, which averages out to be a little under 3 ½ minutes of encoding time for every minute of video produced.

One of the frustrating things about BTV is that the options and settings are not all available in the front-end interface. In order to really get the most out of ShowSqueeze, you need use your Web browser. The manual directs you to http://localhost:8129 where you can access a local Web admin page that allows you to manage your files and monitor your ShowSqueeze progress. From the Web admin interface, you can create jobs that will cue up to be compressed in the order that you submit them (Figure 9).

Figure 9: The Web admin interface monitors ShowSqueeze jobs.