internal storage space

[Andy]

Hi, my XRS 4000 has 32 GB ram.  Assuming my "alternate"   IPTV source is sending me 1080P, can anyone comment as to the approximate internal storage space available for recording movies?

I recorded a 3 hour movie last night, and had a 2nd recording scheduled for a bit later and it didn't record,  so I was wondering if there wasn't enough space left.

Also, how can I see how much memory is available and  how much is "used" in the recording folder in internal storage?   Is there an app  for that?

Thx in advance

 

[Emporium]

Just a small clarification, the 32GB of storage you talk about is not RAM,   The xrs4000 has 4GB of DDR4 RAM, and 32GB of eMMC internal storage.   Keep in mind there is a chunk of that memory storage which is used to store the Android OS, BuzzTV app, and any other apps/data you may have.   So probably about 2 or 3GB are used by internal apps.  Also even though it says 32GB, well, often it has 3 or 4 GB less due to the way the storage is measured.   

Often under settings (android settings), where you often have stuff like "About, Data/time, Language, sound, etc..", you will have an option for storage (or storage and reset).  It is under settings, and/or device preferences.  If you select Storage, it will show you the internal storage (and show you the total).  If you select the internal storage, it will show you how the memory is used (apps, cache, etc..) and the last entry is usually how much "free" space is left.  I don't have an xrs4000, so can't give you exact menu, but I checked my E2, my 4900 and X5 to give you a generic description of where to find it.

Now, for amount of storage used for 1080P recording.  Well, it is unfortunately NOT that simple.  It depends on many things.  Depends on stream format(AVC/H264, MPEG2/TS, stream bitrate, etc... you can have 1080p with super high bitrate, or you can even have 1080P with low bitrate.  "IF" we assume something conservative like a 6Mbps stream, then that would translate to 0.75MB/s=45MB/min=2700MB/hour.  So that would be about 2.7GB/hour.  So a 3hr recording would have taken up about 8GB.   

I just did a test with one 1080p stream that I have (COMEDY channel UK 1080p), and a 5m30s recording yielded a 530MB file.  That is on average 100MB/minute.  So if your stream was similar, then you would have had 180minutes x 100MB/minute so close to 18000MB (or close to 18GB).  This was obviously an MPEG2 stream.  An h264 stream would have been less than half that (but not sure how Buzz PVR app records the streams - same format as they come in, or does it transcode to some specific format all the time ?).

I would strongly recommend getting some USB storage for recordings.  The eMMC storage like any other storage has a limited number of write cycles.  Problem is that one it fails, there is no simple way to replace it.  USB storage however, is simple to just remove and replace should it fail.  Also, nowadays USB storage is pretty cheap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andy]

Yes, the 32 GB is not RAM, my mistake.  I seem to be caring less and less about details these days, which is a bad omen.   I do have a few USB sticks and have used them before.  I think I'll just record a movie on the USB stick and check amount of memory used by plugging it into my PC. 

I am using Tivimate.  Can anyone comment on the best formatting type to use when formatting the stick?  ie...exFAT, FAT 32 etc etc  My PC (for the one stick I have been using on and off)  only gives me the option to use either exFAT or NTFS.  Pretty sure I previously formatted it as exFAT and now my PC doesn't provide the option for FAT32 for this one particular stick.

[Emporium]

Have you tried formatting it using the Buzz box ?

Keep in mind that Windows (by default) will not format USB storage more than 32GB in size with FAT32.  Can be bypassed from the command line using ( format /FS:FAT32 X:   - where X: is the letter of your USB drive).  But, if I recall FAT32 also has a 4GB single file size limitation.

I am not 100% sure if Android supports exFAT(or at least starting from what version of Android was it supported).  I am not in front of my PC/Box right now to test, but you can test it on your box and see.  If you format exFAT and your box recognizes the disk, then great.  If not, try format directly on buzz box.  Otherwise you can force FAT32, but pretty sure that would restrict single files to max of 4GB which could be a problem for larger recordings.

Guess it is time for try a few things

 

 

 

[Andy]

Yes.  

I formatted the stick with the Buzz box and recorded a 2 hour movie using Tivimate which consumed 3.3 GB of storage.  So a 32 GB stick or 32 Gig of internal memory should  theoretically give around 19 hours of recording time.  unless its 4K which I dont use, or have, or need.  And yes, after formatting, I plugged the stick back into my PC and Windows flagged the stick as corrupt so the formatting method used by Buzz or android  is unique .     0.6 GB of the 32 GB was showing as  unavailable due to being used by the system files.