# Tivo to PC alternatives



## Andy804 (May 15, 2007)

I have a Tivo Series 2 box that connects to my router via the usb and I have TivoDesktop 2.3 downloading shows from my laptop. The speed of the file transfer seems very slow to me. My network generally connects to the internet via a cable modem at 54.

I was wondering what are the best options in terms of speed in connecting my tivo with my laptop, so that I can download programs faster (FTP, connect my tivo to the router with an ethernet cable, connect my laptop to the tivo, etc.)? 

Are there any commercial or free products out there to speed this up?

Thanks in advance. Love the Tivo Community (I wish I would have joined years ago).


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

Best speed would be with a wired adapter to the router or directly to the laptop (crossover cable)


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## Andy804 (May 15, 2007)

JWThiers said:


> Best speed would be with a wired adapter to the router or directly to the laptop (crossover cable)


With the crossover cable connection between my laptop and the Tivo, would I need to install anything else on either box to transfer files from the Tivo to the PC (ICS is something I have read about)?

Who sells wired adapters for Tivo to connect to my router?

Lastly, is there a better speed between a wired adapter versus the crossover cable, or is the speed relatively the same?

Thanks for the advice.


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

Andy804 said:


> With the crossover cable connection between my laptop and the Tivo, would I need to install anything else on either box to transfer files from the Tivo to the PC (ICS is something I have read about)?
> 
> Who sells wired adapters for Tivo to connect to my router?
> 
> ...


Don't know a lot about your particular system but from what you have written so far it looks like you have an unhacked Standalone (SA) tivo. If this is the case if you go to the Tivo site, you can get a look at what wired and wireless USB/Ethernet adapters are compatible. If you have a hacked SA tivo or Hacked DirecTv w/Tivo you can load other drivers that are available (search around) Once you have the adapter you can connect to any router. If you decide to use a crossover cable (If you already have a router I wouldn't bother just connect to the router) you will need a special "crossover cable" to directly connect from one network device (tivo) to another ((laptop or PC) without a router. There is no discernable speed difference between using a crossover cable or going thru a router. Either way you need the USB Network Adapter either wired or wireless. If speed is of importance from slowest to fastest 802.11b, 802.11g, and wired is fastest.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Nearly any compatible USB2.0 ethernet adapter will work. I think the TiVo G adapter does just as well as most USB2.0 ethernet adapters. Connect either to your router, as it will run faster than the TiVo can supply it.

For software, use TiVoPlayList. It is realtively low overhead, and does give ongoing speed. Also, tune the TiVo to a null or audio only channel, and/or pause playing back program to increase available processor resources in the TiVo.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

from what I understand, the slow speeds are more likely to do with the overhead of decrypting/re-encrypting the stream, rather than the network connection you use.


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

I can say from a practical point of view (meaning I don't know what overhead causes what) that when I transfered a show using an 802.11b adapter it would MRV transfer in just slightly faster than real time. I have since upgraded to a wired adapter to an 802.11g bridge setup and I can MRV transfer a 1 hour show in about 10 minutes.

I haven't done any comparisons using just a wired connection, but my understanding is that 802.11g thruput is roughly the same as a 10 Megabit ethernet connection (who uses that anymore?). I assume that 100 megabit ethernet is faster still in the real world At some point encryption/decryption will limit transfer speed, but if you are using 8.0211g or better (meaning 802.11N or wired) the connection type is limiting.

To sum up my personal experience, an 802.11b adapter is dog slow (near realtime MRV transfers). A USB to wired ethernet adapter wired to a wireless 802.11g bridge is plenty fast (less than 10 mins to MRV transfer a 1 hour show ). I would expect transfers on a wired connection to be at least as fast as a 802.11g transfer or even faster.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

MRV just involves generating a bridge key... as I understand it, a xfer to tivodesktop truly involves some sort of re-encryption, which is why everyone complains about how slow it is.


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

I've never used Tivodesktop for anything so I couldn't speak to that or anything other than MRV, Ty Tool, or MFS_FTP. Nothing that required anything but straight data transfers.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

And yet that is what the OP is posting about... slow xfers with tivodesktop... so if suggestions would only speed up OTHER xfer methods, they aren't really relevant here, no?


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

BTUx9 said:


> And yet that is what the OP is posting about... slow xfers with tivodesktop... so if suggestions would only speed up OTHER xfer methods, they aren't really relevant here, no?


Why are you dis'n me?

They both affect the speed of the transfer. I'm glad you pointed out that there is a slowdown up front with encrytpting, but to say that my suggestions would only speed up OTHER xfer methods is wrong. I think I gave a good and valid answer for the situation described (which wasn't exactly clear, but I assumed an unhacked SA tivo which I pointed out in my original reply) which would limit the solutions somewhat seeing as he doesn't have control over how fast TivoDesktop spits out the bits and I am not aware of an alternative (I want to say doesn't have an alternative to TivoDesktop, but I don't know that for sure as I have never had an SA) to Tivo Desktop for unhacked SA Tivo's the only thing that I could think of that could be controlled is the type of connection which is also what the OP asked about.


> I was wondering what are the best options in terms of speed in connecting my tivo with my laptop, so that I can download programs faster (FTP, connect my tivo to the router with an ethernet cable, connect my laptop to the tivo, etc.)?


I took this to mean he was concerned about the speed of the actual bits moving across the network. REGARDLESS of the transfer method (i.e. TivoDeskTop, MRV, FTP, etc.) G connections will be faster than B connections, and wired connections will always be faster than wireless connections. Unless somehow TivoDesktop on a B connection is faster than a wired connection

I'm not saying your wrong I'm just saying that regardless of the xfer method the type of connection also affects the speed and that the type of connection is what he had some degree of control over.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

JWThiers said:


> I'm not saying your wrong I'm just saying that regardless of the xfer method the type of connection also affects the speed and that the type of connection is what he had some degree of control over.


That's only true if the connection is the limiting factor... for processes that are limited by the tivo's processing ability (and I believe tivodesktop falls in that category), it would make very little difference.

None of the advice here mentions that, and if I was the OP, had read all the suggestions about going to wired or wireless G, spent money doing that, and found that it didn't improve the speed significantly, I'd be a bit peeved.

I'm just trying to provide advice that answers the OP's post, rather than "my network runs uber fast MRVs" which is irrelevant to his question (unless you include all the facts to your alternative extraction method, such as it requiring hacking the tivo, etc.)


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

BTUx9 said:


> That's only true if the connection is the limiting factor... for processes that are limited by the tivo's processing ability (and I believe tivodesktop falls in that category), it would make very little difference.
> 
> None of the advice here mentions that, and if I was the OP, had read all the suggestions about going to wired or wireless G, spent money doing that, and found that it didn't improve the speed significantly, I'd be a bit peeved.
> 
> I'm just trying to provide advice that answers the OP's post, rather than "my network runs uber fast MRVs" which is irrelevant to his question (unless you include all the facts to your alternative extraction method, such as it requiring hacking the tivo, etc.)


And that advice was that decrypting/re-encrypting the stream was the source of the slow down but no mention of what can be done about it (actually that was more a comment rather than advice). That is because there is nothing that can be done about it. The only thing you can control in that instance is the type of connection. See how sarcasm can put people on the defensive. Doesn't feel good does it? There is no need to be so sarcastic. I just understood the question different than you, I thought he was asking in general what would speed up his transfers. But even If the question is specific to transfers with TivoDesktop the answer only changes to:



> "The only thing that you can control to speed up transfers using TivoDesktop is the type of connection and that speed up will most likely be slight, if noticed at all. However you may see significant increases in the performance of other networking functions such as MRV."


To say that the connection has no effect is equally wrong because if you have a poor connection any network function will be degraded or unavailable. To be completely correct you should always check your connection first as there may be issues there that have nothing to do with either encryption/decryption or the device used to transfer with a good connection.

I don't mind a discussion about what effects network transfers in different situations and if it is significant or not and what if anything can be done about it. Just don't go around attacking people with sarcasm.


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## Andy804 (May 15, 2007)

I appreciate the information that both of you have provided. I will first improve my connection to use a wired adapter to my router (wireless g) and compare performance from my past transfers. If the times are improved enough, I will leave everything else the same.

I will also look into TyTools, FTP, and MRV for file transfers instead of TivoDesktop, if the first improvement is not enough. I have looked into connecting to my Tivo via FTP and will put this as my second project.

Again. Thanks for your assistance and information. I look forward to providing some comparison times for my current transfer, transfer through a better connection to the router, and then finally through optimized transfer software.


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## Andy804 (May 15, 2007)

My results were impressive. Under my current setup, a 10 minute high-quality tivo recording (271 Mb) took 30.5 minutes to transfer to my PC. With a wired adapter to the router (as the only change), the same transfer took 7.5 minutes. I am pleased with the speed "as is".

Thanks for the assistance, it will make my life that much better when I transfer Movies to my Archos. 

I will still look into FTP connections between my PC and Tivo, but I will take this project on when I have more time to investigate.


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

Wow... impressive.

Sounds like your previous setup was seriously malfunctioning (interference can be deadly for a tivo's xfers... it's not good with packet resends)

I'm also very pleased to see that tivo desktop speeds are coming close to saturating the USB1 bitrate... maybe tivo really DID some good, going to 8.x (mostly, I've heard complaints)


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## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

cough!  

I'm glad that switching to a wired adapter helped so much. Expect to see increases in MRV and FTP performance as well.


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