tv wonder elite record time

If both drives have 40+ GB of drive space then it has nothing to do with free space.

Since 1 hour of video in MPEG 2 format (ie DVD) is about 2 GB, it may be limited by the known inability of some programs to record data files larger than 2 GB.

If you changed to a lower res format, it might go up to what ever amount of time would fit in 2 GB.

I would check the FAQ on ATI's site to see what the largest file they can create or how to create files larger than 2 GB in size.

Wonder Elite is a hardware mpeg2 encoder card. It can only record at 720x480. If you are using a FAT32 filesystem then the file can only be either 2g or 4g in size max (depending upon the software). If you are using NTFS then the file can be alot larger. The size of the file also depends on the bitrate in which you are recording.
1 hr at 8000bps comes out to a little over 4g. 1 hr at 5500bps comes out to about 2.5g. So the freespace on your harddrive is the main factor.
Anything and everthing about video, bitrates, etc can be found at the forum: www.videohelp.com

It has been a very long time since I used the TV wonder software (with an all in one), but I seem to recall it asking how much space I wanted to allocate for recordings. You might check and see if you have some setting like that.

Recording at BEST DVD quality in MPEG2, I can get about 7-9 hours in about 24 gigs of free space. Most of my movies are in the 5-7 gig range for 2-2.5 hours of play.

I have my software recompress mpeg to divx theater quality and 5 gigs usually go down to a gig or less.

I recommend you check out GB-DVR, SAGETV and BeyondTV. GB-DVR is free, and the other two have trial modes.

Each has good points, none of them is a clear run away winner.

Thanks everyone. I'm using GB PVR, and that seems to work great. Now I just need to figure out how to get the remote working with GB PVR, and I'll be all set!