Home Network - How Fast Transfer Files/Programmes?

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Maxcat

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#136443 27-Nov-2013 09:40

Anyone with hands on with the Home Network?

How quickly does a 1 hour programme transfer from one Tivo to the next on a wired Cat6 LAN?

andrewNZ

2487 posts

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#941522 27-Nov-2013 09:53

That will depend a LOT on the intermediate gear. Cat6 is a cable standard (and overkill for the home), are you actually using a gigabit switch?

Does TiVo even do gigabit networking?

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#941532 27-Nov-2013 10:00

How big is the file? Most Tivos I've seen only have 100Mbps NICs, rather than gigabit, and even then many don't max out the line speed.

Maxcat

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#941533 27-Nov-2013 10:01

No a standard switch. The issue I have read in other Tivo Forums is not the network but the Tivo CPU itself.

But for now I just need a ballpark time before I decide to buy the HN package.

If transfers are complete inside an hour I can live with that, but if it drags on for hours then I'll likely leave it alone.

Spong

1005 posts

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Trusted

#941538 27-Nov-2013 10:07

The Tivo's NIC only operates at up to 100Mb and seems quite leisurely. It'll transfer an HD program between boxes faster than the bit rate of the program, so if you stream from one to another, viewing in real time, you'll need to get some distance into the program before you'll be far enough ahead to skip the first ad break. As time progresses, the transfer gets far enough ahead that it's no longer an issue when you come to an ad break. Sorry, I've never timed how long a full transfer takes. It's quite slow, but not really a big problem.

I've got 3x Tivos and the HN package, and have transfered a dozen programs at once (they queue up) and it all happens quietly in the background without fuss.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

andrewNZ

2487 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#941571 27-Nov-2013 10:31

It appears the TiVo might record the raw stream (.ts). If that's the case you're looking at 1-8GB/hr. My HTPC's SD recordings are around 1GB/hr and HD about 4GB/hr.

The speeds people see (in my 5min of research) seem to vary wildly (17.5Mb/s-90Mb/s). Even so, that's 7.5-40GB/hr.

gregmcc

2147 posts

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#941643 27-Nov-2013 11:45

Typically from my experience the program can transfer faster than what you can watch it (between tivo's), an hour program typically takes around 20 mins to transfer.

If transferring from your PC transfer times can be a lot longer, it depends on the codec used by the video file and how grunty your PC is as it does the conversion to the tivo format, typically If transfering from the PC I just start the conversion and give it a while before I start watching.

Maxcat

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#943278 30-Nov-2013 08:06

Thanks guys this does sound promising!

One final one - the Auto Transfer function. How does this work?

Is it as it sounds so that any title on Season Pass is automatically transferred to another Tivo on the network without manually having to select it each time?

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gregmcc

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#943281 30-Nov-2013 08:13

I think the auto transfer is only from a tivo to your PC, you can preselect which encoding format (optimized for each particular device) and when the tivo records it, it is then automatically transfered to your PC.

From memory the home networking package may not be needed if all you are doing is transfering between tivo's, I think it is only for transfer between tivo's and your PC.

Spong

1005 posts

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#943369 30-Nov-2013 12:29

gregmcc: I think the auto transfer is only from a tivo to your PC, you can preselect which encoding format (optimized for each particular device) and when the tivo records it, it is then automatically transfered to your PC.

From memory the home networking package may not be needed if all you are doing is transfering between tivo's, I think it is only for transfer between tivo's and your PC.

No, you do need the HN package to send between TiVos.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

HotDogBreath

90 posts

Master Geek

#943433 30-Nov-2013 16:35

Yea, auto transfer is only from TiVo to PC. You also need to register your PC (in addition to the HN package account) to the TiVo account for your TiVo to be able to play content directly from your PC. I have tried several times to get this feature to work, but with no success. So, the PC (for me) ends up as additional TiVo storage. When I want to play the content, I have to transfer it back to the TiVO via the HN package or watch it on the PC via Windows media player. Real pain.
PS: Content is DRM locked

Batman

Mad Scientist
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#943440 30-Nov-2013 16:53

around 10 megabytes per second is the max transfer rate if you're interested

Maxcat

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#943579 1-Dec-2013 07:55

By chance I found Streambaby yesterday. Had it set up in minutes and thought I had found Tivo nirvana..!

Streambaby could see my PC Videos Folder and correctly displayed them with better quality graphics than the Tvio main screen!

I pushed 'Play' and then found the Oz/NZ issue.

Dam.

https://code.google.com/p/streambaby/issues/detail?id=28