# HD Res content on a series 2 TiVo?



## azscottb (Oct 4, 2006)

A weird question - I have a standard series 2 Tivo with upgraded hard disks.
I also have a PC with an HD tuner, and I can record shows in HD mode.
Is there a file format that the series 2 Tivo will accept that would play the show in its hd format? I've got VideoRedo, and the Beyond TV software that records the show.

I was thinking that since the Series 2 can send out a 16x9 picture, it might be able to handle an MPEG file coded that way, but no dice. I wondered if someone else had tried it.


----------



## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

it doesn't really send out a 16x9 picture... it's restricted to what NTSC can handle, so it's actually a horizontally compressed image in 4:3 that your widescreen stretches to 16:9.

without component or hdmi output, it really *can't* send out anything higher than standard NTSC.


----------



## azscottb (Oct 4, 2006)

BTUx9 said:


> it doesn't really send out a 16x9 picture... it's restricted to what NTSC can handle, so it's actually a horizontally compressed image in 4:3 that your widescreen stretches to 16:9.
> 
> without component or hdmi output, it really *can't* send out anything higher than standard NTSC.


I changed the setting to 16x9 on the TiVo side, not the television side.
I'm using S-video output, not the channel 3/4 output. Although I don't know what s-video sends out.

In my test file that I sent back in .tivo format from video redo, I got audio but the video was highly distorted. I was thinking there's not a lot of difference between an HD Tivo and a regular Tivo outside of the HD tuners. However if I backed the mpeg file down to DVD quality, I was thinking it might work as well.


----------



## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

s-video is cleaner, but it's still NTSC.
The issue is not only bitrate, but also resolution... tivos that don't have component/hdmi output don't support anything higher than 720x480.


----------



## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Although not exactly related to this thread I wanted to mention a recent situation with my S1.

I accidentally deleted a new episode of greys anatomy. My GF was not happy so I downloaded it from the internet. What I didnt realize was in 16:9 format. I used a tool to reencode the video and then reinserted it to my Tivo using MFS_FTP.

The video was obviously squished to 4:3 but setting my TV to 16:9 stretch fixed it. This was the clearest video I had ever seen on my tivo, especially considering it was using the entire resolution for picture instead of wasting any on black bars!

As BTUx9 said the tivo can only accept video at 720x480 with a max bit rate of about 9800000.


----------



## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

ciper said:


> Although not exactly related to this thread I wanted to mention a recent situation with my S1.
> 
> I accidentally deleted a new episode of greys anatomy. My GF was not happy so I downloaded it from the internet. What I didnt realize was in 16:9 format. I used a tool to reencode the video and then reinserted it to my Tivo using MFS_FTP.
> 
> ...


the max bitrate varies between machines and s/w versions.

I've been using tivoserver for viewing widescreen content like that, too... it squishes rather than letterboxing based on the aspect ratio setting on the tivo (but either way, it's still NTSC). There's a grid somewhere laying out how different tivos handle widescreen content (again, they don't all do it the same)


----------

