Editing Recordings

[Amanda Johnson]

hello to all.
my husband and i have been fans of this website for a while now so we thought it was about time to sign up and join you officially. our level of knowledge is not as great as the rest of you, so we've got a question regarding the different editing techniques which we're a bit confused by.

this is our first post so please be gentle with us.

1/ what are the differences between: "Stripts" , "Shrink" , "Crop" and "Nicesplice" ??

2/ are there any disadvantages or downsides to using: "Stripts" , "Shrink" , "Crop" or "Nicesplice" ?? - ie. does it effect the recording or quality of it in any way? - i'm assuming if the recording is compressed then it will have some sort of effect on it....?

3/ apart from EIT frames (EPG data) what other portions of the recording are removed using the above packages/utilities? it says in the Wiki somewhere that up to 20% of the recorded space can be saved! so how come these 'other packets' aren't required then?

4/ why are EIT packets broadcast within the MPEG stream in the first place
- what purpose do they serve?
- why are they kept on the recorded program and not removed during the recording process, especially if they can be removed in the 'Shrink' package, and are redundant/not required in any case?

we've got the custom firmware installed on our machine but we don't use the internet often so we have limited access to the webif thingy. thank you for your patience and we'd both appreciate replies in simple terms that we can understand - so apologies to the more advanced users if we sound a bit stupid.

 

[Black Hole]

Shrink uses stripts to do what it does. The broadcast stream contains a great deal of information which is relevant to broadcasting, but not to replaying the captured data as a video. Shrink removes the irrelevant stuff - such as EPG data.

Crop and nicesplice bothe use the same infrastructure to slice out parts bounded by bookmarks, but nicesplice does it when you move a recording into a "magic" folder whereas Crop is a WebIF operation you can perform on any recording. You set bookmarks at the beginning and end of sections you want to keep, and they remove the rest for you.

You don't have to worry about the technical details, but you would be well advised to use the web interface to do the things you want - it makes it very easy and hides the complexity. You do not need the Internet to use the WebIF - just a local network with the computer (or any device with a web browser) and the HDR-FOX on the network. It can even be done with a wire from one to the other.