Could CDRW Disks Replace Videotapes?

NewtonsLaw asks: "I'm in the process of building a TiVo-like PC that uses off-the-shelf technology to implement video timeshift, MPEG recording, MP3 recording, etc along with Net-radio functionality. Over the past two months I've effectively replaced VHS video tapes with CDRW disks. Once a program has been captured on the PC in (S)VCD MPEG format, I can either watch it by playing back the recorded file or dump it onto a CDRW and watch it on my DVD player, before blanking the disk and returning it to the 'empty' pile. What I've noticed is that most of the CDRWs I've tried only last about 30-40 rewrites before they start showing significant data dropouts (almost always at the start of a recording). Since disks in (S)VCD format don't carry the same level of error-checking/correction as disks written in regular data format, such dropouts are more noticeable than they would otherwise be (of course the up-side is that you get to store 805MB on a 700MB CDR/RW without overburn). What I want to know is -- how many rewrites do most people expect from their CDRW media? I seem to recall seeing a figure of a thousand rewrite cycles being touted by some manufacturers. Is this realistic? Thirty rewrites makes a $2.50 RW disk an economic medium for this purpose but it seems a hell of a long way short of 1,000."

"I've tried CDRW disks from several manufacturers and they're being used in a new Sony CDRW drive which seems to function just fine. I've also encountered a slightly shorter lifetime for CDRW media when used for (S)VCD disks and written by a slightly older HP CDR/RW drive.

And before anyone asks 'Why don't you just play directly from the HD?', I should point out that I have to share the TV gear in this house with the rest of the family so it's just easier to burn their stuff to disk and let them use the DVD player than to fight over access to the TiVo-clone."

Comments

Help me! lavrec and friends

[wiswaud]

Perhaps someone can help me with a little problem as well...

I've been using an ATI TV Wonder and recording shows as well. I'm not building a Tivo-like thingy, it's just for replacing the VCR. And in that sense, it's really quite cool to use 'at' and cron and batch to record your shows.

I'm using lavrec, from mjpeg-tools, to do the recording (fully command-line), but:
- in lower resolution (352x240), it barfs after 37 minutes
- in higher res, (480x480) it's after _7_ minutes!

The 'barfing' in question is lavrec complaining that the audio ring buffer is full.
I've tried runnning lavrec as root with nice --10, to no avail. I've tried with nothing running (no X) and still, same problem, and it's always after the same amount of time! So it's not something stupid like being interrupted for too long...

What do others use for recording?
Have you had this problem? how did you solve it?
Are my resolutions ok? What are the correct ones for VCD and SVCD???

(hey, this is the text that should have been under the main title, instead of a CDRW question... i've had the same problem with CDRW but i don't expect the DVD drive to be that good at reading cdrw's anyways).

As far as CDRW's go, with the prices for CDR's we have now, why bother? Just burn your Alias episodes onto CDR's and you can watch them more than once and not bother with re-writing CDRW's....