# Tivo HD on its way out - Tivo Alternatives



## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

I got woke up this morning by a very noisey Tivo HD I am also getting blocking, random black and green screen every once in a while. Soo I guess my HD is on its way out. So the question is do I spend £200ish on a new preconfigure HD and Cache Card or is there an alternative to Tivo worth considering?

Many Thanks

Baz


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

How about a TopUp TV anytime box? Seems to offer a similar functionality to Tivo for the same price with a better selection of channels?


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

Or Sky+ seems to be £99 and £10 a month for the multiroom subscription as we already have standard Sky downstairs?


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

Humax 9200t

Seems to have a lot of features of Tivo with no Subs?

http://www.t3.co.uk/reviews/entertainment/freeview/humax_pvr-9200t_freeview_recorder


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

Has anyone got any experience of any of these alternatives and how they compare to Tivo?

Many Thanks


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

If you use wishlists and have lots of season passes your only option is to upgrade / repair your Tivo.

I mainly watch Sky HD and just check what my Tivo's have found anything to watch at the weekends.

Automan.


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

Why spend £200? You don't need a cachecard to do the upgrade, and a HD should cost no more than £50.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

In answer to the original question: No - there is no serious alternative that will cost you less than a new drive. 

And, despite my obviously vested interest in promoting cachecards I would agree with Stuart that you don't need a cachecard to replace your drive - unless you're planning to increase your capacity to at least 200gb. For anything below that the benefits of a cachecard on menu speed are minimal. My 240gb TiVo definitely needs a cachecard, so it has one; my 160gb TiVo doesn't, so it has a turbonet. 

Of course, if you are also thinking of adding a cachecard for the networking facilities, then you will be getting a further ugrade for your cash - and one that will put your TiVo so far ahead of the 'competition' that you won't see any sign of them for years!


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

If I repaired the Tivo I would want to add the networking functionality at the same time, can I purchase a cache card and install it with no memory?

Blindlemon the HD's you supply are they paricularly quiet? The reason I ask is my Tivo is in my bedroom.

Many Thanks


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Well, if you are looking at needing a networked device, I don't know of anything out there, unless the Topfield has network connectivity as standard. That'll only work with Freeview, of course.


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## BazC (Oct 31, 2002)

The networking isnt important I just like the idea of being able to install hacks etc if I am playing around inside the Tivo anyway. The main functionality I like is being able to record programs whilst still at work etc using TivoWeb, which Sky+ has similar functionality anyway.

Baz


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

The Samsung HA250JC is very likely the quietest drive available at the moment, and as it's 5400rpm it is ideally suited to TiVo use, even in the bedroom. The seeks are almost silent - even with the lid off - and there is normally so little rotational vibration that I sometimes have to double-check whether the drives are plugged in when I'm handling them!

And no, you don't have to install memory if you add a cachecard, although with 250gb you will probably start to feel the need to do so once the drive starts to fill up. However, even 128mb of RAM will give you around 90% coverage on the database cache, so you don't need to shell out for 512mb if you have a smaller module lying around.


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Ah, yes - I do now have a recollection that Sky+ has web and mobile access.

I knew I should have patented that when I thought of it (for VCRs at the time, of course) 15 years ago.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> And no, you don't have to install memory if you add a cachecard, although with 250gb you will probably start to feel the need to do so once the drive starts to fill up.


Surely only if all one's recordings are in Basic (which I know both you and sanderton would undoubtedly regard as being a mortal sin) then a 250Gb drive provides about 300 hours at Basic. However assuming you set this up for Mode 0 and VBR then a 250GB drive will surely not provide more than 100 hours of recording or about 125 shows in Now Playing. From everything I have read 125 shows doesn't cause serious Now Playing slowdown even without a Cachecard or memory?

And anyhow surely this gentleman could just buy a replacement hard drive from you with the Cachecard drivers configured etc and then add a Cachecard and RAM later on if cashflows is currently a consideration for him.

The other Freeview boxes are all a sad and pathetic joke compared to a Tivo in terms of ability to record what you want, when you want reliably and without effort. Freeview Playback devices that get a little closer to a Tivo's functionality and have proper Season Passes will become available in about 12 to 18 months from now but even then will have hugely inferior functionality to a Tivo aside from having the dual record function the Tivo S1 will obviously still lack. Early Freeview Playback devices will be available in 3 or 4 months possibly but won't have SP facilities etc at that stage.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Surely only if all one's recordings are in Basic


I have to disagree.

My 240gb TiVo has a mix of all qualities - although probably most recordings are Mode 0 High or Mode 0 Medium (both VBR) - and has only around 120-150 shows in the NPL at most times. However, without a cachecard+RAM fitted menu performance slows to a crawl and is entirely unacceptable.

I therefore suspect the menu speed is not only related to the number of items in the NPL, which is why I advise people with upgrades of 200gb or larger that a cachecard _may_ be necessary - and for a larger upgrade of, say, 400gb, I would normally adviste it as a necessity.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I therefore suspect the menu speed is not only related to the number of items in the NPL, which is why I advise people with upgrades of 200gb or larger that a cachecard _may_ be necessary - and for a larger upgrade of, say, 400gb, I would normally adviste it as a necessity.


Menu speed is not only related to the number of NP items but also to the amount of total hard drive space the Tivo has to manage?

Is this what you meant to say?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I thought that was what most people would infer, yes 

However, it's not _just_ the size of the drive, but also the number of entries in the database and hence the number of reads of the database the TiVo has to do to render any given menu. For instance, if you have a Sky system with 200 active channels, then wishlist searches will take longer than if you're on aerial-only with 5 channels, and this will be improved by addition of a cachecard with RAM. And the most often quoted benefit is the increase in speed when reordering the SP list, which again is is not related to the number of items in the NPL.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I thought that was what most people would infer, yes


When my 500Gb Tivo with 512MB Cachecard was newly created and only had 20 recordings copied from the old Tivo it used to run at lightening speed and faster than it had ever run as the old 45Gb (30Gb +15GB)

It was still running pretty fast at 200 Now Playing Items and perhaps even 300. Some time after that the slow down began.

Personally I tend to believe its only Now Playing item numbers and total number of hours managed that are significant. I doubt that 300 items in Now Playing all at Best or Mode 0 run slower than 300 items in Now Playing at Basic as your theory re quantity of disk space being managed also being a factor would clearly imply.

Still if you obviously kept enough Tivos of your own in these various large configurations it ought to be possible to test these theories empirically.

However if I understand you correctly if I get myself two 500GB disks and end up with 350 hours at Best that might actually run as slowly in Now Playing as my 613 hours on 2 x 250Gb.

Or have I missed something?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Or have I missed something?


Yes.

You are talking about a slowdown that occurs _with_ a cachecard + RAM fitted after the NPL gets to 300+ entries; the discussion in this thread is about the slowdown you get with drives over about 200gb when there is no cachecard fitted.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Yes.
> 
> You are talking about a slowdown that occurs _with_ a cachecard + RAM fitted after the NPL gets to 300+ entries; the discussion in this thread is about the slowdown you get with drives over about 200gb when there is no cachecard fitted.


Can we expand discussion to include a comparison between the same hard drive sizes with and without a Cachecard with 512MB of RAM then?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You appear to be doing that pretty effectively already


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

I don't believe there is any direct link between interface speed (with or without cachecard) and disk size per se. The link is the number of items in Now Playing (or pedantiacally, the number of recording objects in the database). Obviusly witha bigger disk you are likely to have more items in NP.


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## chimaera (Nov 13, 2000)

ndunlavey said:


> Ah, yes - I do now have a recollection that Sky+ has web and mobile access.
> 
> I knew I should have patented that when I thought of it (for VCRs at the time, of course) 15 years ago.


You must have had a particularly good crystal ball. In 1991 there were only a handful of private web servers and no-one outside academic circles even knew of their existence, mobile phones were analogue with single line displays and voice-only capabilites, and home network access of a sort was only via proprietary, closed bulletin boards over dialup. All the technology required to make this work with a VCR which has come along since then has allowed the PVR to be built instead. Perhaps foreseeing that would have been better.


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Can we expand discussion to include a comparison between the same hard drive sizes with and without a Cachecard with 512MB of RAM then?


I used to have 150GB and no cachecard and you would often get massive pauses between selecting an item in Now Playing and the programme details appearing. Scrolling through Now Playing would also freeze up for several seconds when Tivo had the mood. I fitted a cachecard and RAM last year and haven't seen that behaviour since.
I kept the same Best recording quality across the upgrade, but enabled VBR and Mode 0 when I added the card.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

sanderton said:


> I don't believe there is any direct link between interface speed (with or without cachecard) and disk size per se. The link is the number of items in Now Playing (or pedantiacally, the number of recording objects in the database).


This is also what I believe and I'm sure if I only had a third the number of recordings on my same hard drives or less due to using Mode 0 or Best for everything then my Now Playing interface would still be zipping along with precisely the same level of hard disk space to manage.

When there are a lot of Now Playing items Tivo's poor slow and memory limited processor brain has to crunch them all through to find the item you want and proceed to the next menu. It even impacts the time it takes for a currently playing recording to stop and exit to the previous screen when you press the left arrow button on the 4 way cursor switch. Basically with a Cachecard with 512MB of RAM you get the same slow down problems in the end with more recordings but not until you have about four times the number of Now Playing items as without one. This imposes a finite practical limit on the amount of hard drive space a Tivo can efficiently manage even with a Cachcard and Mode 0 and no VBR of probably about 1,000GB at most.

After that things will get horribly slow for most people's tastes on menu speeds even though playback will still run fine once a recording has started. But the waiting times beyond a certain level will severly try the patience of most users however much they may value extra recording capacity. You might get away with 2 x 750Gb if you are very patient indeed.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

sanderton said:


> I don't believe there is any direct link between interface speed (with or without cachecard) and disk size per se. The link is the number of items in Now Playing (or pedantiacally, the number of recording objects in the database). Obviusly witha bigger disk you are likely to have more items in NP.


Im sure this is true for the speed of the NPL (and indeed is just another way of saying what I've already said) but the RAM caching also improves the speed of _any_ operation that relies on accessing the TiVo database - eg. sorting the SP list, displaying the ToDo list, performing an episode or wishlist search etc. etc. - and, generally speaking, the bigger the drive the more items in the TiVo database, so the more benefit you get from caching it in RAM :up:


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> - and, generally speaking, the bigger the drive the more items in the TiVo database, so the more benefit you get from caching it in RAM :up:


But your beloved 250Gg Samsung HA250JC at Best only gives about 85 hours compared to the 40 hours at Basic that most non upgraded users will typically have been running with previously.

And I doubt 85 hours of programs in Now Playing (say 120 programs at most) is enough to justify the extra cost or expense of a Cachecard unless of course you wanted to have PC and web access to your Tivo via TivoWeb anyway.

If somebody is going to run with 300 hours at Basic on their 250GB Samsung drive then having a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM is probably essential.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You are assuming that people who buy a 250gb drive will want to record everything at Best quality without the benefit of VBR.

However, I believe that most people, myself included, record at a mix of qualities depending on the type of programme, so in most cases there will be considerably more than 85 hours of recordings on a 250gb drive. And you still continue to ignore the benefits of RAM caching in areas other than a large NPL. My 240gb TiVo has 'only' around 120 items in the NPL but is chronically slow without a cachecard + RAM, and quite snappy with it. My 160gb TiVo has around 100 items in the NPL and is quick enough to be perfectly acceptable without a cachecard. The 240gb machine is on Sky and the 160gb on Freeview, so there are many more channels on the larger machine and hence much more work when searching and rearranging the ToDo list etc. I believe this is another factor (in addition to drive size) that affects performance, but in general terms (and I only ever say "in general terms") with a drive over 200gb I tend to suggest that it may be worth considering a cachecard + RAM if performance starts to get sluggish. For very large drives - 400gb and over - I would definitely recommend a cachecard + RAM with no hesitation at all - in fact I think I'd be doing my customers a disservice if I didn't, regardless of whether they buy it from me or not.

IMHO this debate has been done to death on this forum and IIRC the general concensus is that a cachecard with RAM speeds up all areas of the menus, especially when you have a large drive fitted, for all the reasons mentioned above. The fact that you insist on banging on about huge NPLs _with_ a cachecard fitted just goes to illustrate the fact that (for some reason known only to yourself) you are obsessed by the size of your NPL....


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

The speed up is only related to the number of objects being manipulated in the database. It is not related to the filesize of any recordings, or the physical size of the disk.

An unupgraded Tivo with 100 5 minute recordings will be the same speed in the menus as a 400Gb TiVo with 100 hour long recordings. It's purely about the number of objects being manipulated.

I completely agree that having a cacheard with a big drive is very desirable, I'm just being pedantic about it not being disk size, but the number of database objects (recordings, channels, season passes, etc) which is the driving factor.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

sanderton said:


> I completely agree that having a cacheard with a big drive is very desirable, I'm just being pedantic about it not being disk size, but the number of database objects (recordings, channels, season passes, etc) which is the driving factor.


It is indeed the number of Now Playing objects that is critical and I would say that 400 objects plus slows the Now Playing menu and deletion of programs etc on the box to an unacceptably slow level for most even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. However manipulation via TivoWeb is by comparison largely unaffected.

It is unfortunate though that no one has yet found a way to actually make a recording on the Tivo start playing using the TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus interface. If that functionality existed I would start many of my older recordings using TivoWeb and not the menus on the box itself.


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## alan_m_2004 (Jan 6, 2005)

_It is unfortunate though that no one has yet found a way to actually make a recording on the Tivo start playing using the TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus interface. If that functionality existed I would start many of my older recordings using TivoWeb and not the menus on the box itself._

Hmm - you can trigger that using now playing + send keys - there is a module around that does that, I just can't find the link atm.


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## alan_m_2004 (Jan 6, 2005)

hmm sendkey - of course no speed improvement if the menus are slow


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

sanderton said:


> The speed up is only related to the number of objects being manipulated in the database. It is not related to the filesize of any recordings, or the physical size of the disk.


I totally agree.

However, for the sake of simplicity, I generally find it easier to say that in *most* cases, a drive capacity of over 200gb will possibly benefit from a cachecard with RAM and, again in most cases, a capacity of 400gb or greater will almost certainly require it.

Unfortunately,


Pete77 said:


> It is indeed the number of Now Playing objects that is critical


some people (I suspect intentionally) keep missing the point...


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## Snowyowl (Dec 16, 2001)

Interesting thread... Having just had my HD fail recently - and having upgraded my TiVo - I feel the need to add a few comments to the discussion.

Firstly - I went for a preconfigured Samsung 250G drive (can't say where from  ). I decided I would also get a Cachecard and RAM at the same time, as I too wanted to explore some hacks - and I have to say - I am very pleased I did. The whole upgrade process was very easy.

- The 250 G drive is as silent as described - I cannot hear it at all.

- I don't know how much slower the menu items might have been without the cache - but I can say that it is lightning fast now with the 250G (and my previous 80 G tivo was like a snail in comparison). I record different programmes at different quality settings, so have a mix of basic, medium, high and best. All I can say is that I am thrilled with the speed of the cachecard and am glad I got it. I never wait for the menu to appear...

- Having installed a few hacks, I have found it hugely enhances my TiVo experience. Soft-padding on all programmmes with End-Pad, running TiVoWeb from my PC, undeleting accidentally deleted programmes, pulling programmes over to the PC, setting recordings from Digiguide, etc (and a few others I won't mention!) have all made this an amazing box that cannot be touched by any other product today, I believe. The only down-side I see is the single recording at a time.

One question: if anyone else is using TyTool to transfer a recording to the PC - what bit-rate do you get? I get a pretty constant 2.11 meg/sec (around 17 Mbits/s) when nothing is being played on the TiVo locally - which is less than I would have expected. I have CAT 5 via a high-speed (10/100 base T) router - so am surpriesed its not higher... 

In summary - I think 250 quid is money well spent compared with many of the alternatives - though I just hope the motherboard holds out...!


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## chimaera (Nov 13, 2000)

Snowyowl said:


> One question: if anyone else is using TyTool to transfer a recording to the PC - what bit-rate do you get? I get a pretty constant 2.11 meg/sec (around 17 Mbits/s) when nothing is being played on the TiVo locally - which is less than I would have expected. I have CAT 5 via a high-speed (10/100 base T) router - so am surpriesed its not higher...


Isn't that a forbidden subject  The network is most likely not the bottleneck. There's a lot of CPU overhead in TCP/IP and the chances are that the processor just can't drive it any faster.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

chimaera said:


> Isn't that a forbidden subject  The network is most likely not the bottleneck. There's a lot of CPU overhead in TCP/IP and the chances are that the processor just can't drive it any faster.


Only get around 2 Megs a second here with my Cachecard and 512MB RAM. Another reason why only recording in Basic can have its advantages.

I only download programs to watch directly on my Notebook PC with VLC Media Player I hasten to add when I'm on holiday or travelling. I'm not really into burning stuff permanently to DVDs.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

With just a 50MHz RISC processor to handle everything but the video streams, I doubt that you'll get much better.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> With just a 50MHz RISC processor to handle everything but the video streams, I doubt that you'll get much better.


What processor does a Tivo S3 unit run by comparison? Even my BT (made by Netgem) Iplayer + has a 133Mhz Power PC processor. And that doesn't have to control any hard drives.


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> I totally agree.
> 
> However, for the sake of simplicity, I generally find it easier to say that in *most* cases, a drive capacity of over 200gb will possibly benefit from a cachecard with RAM and, again in most cases, a capacity of 400gb or greater will almost certainly require it.
> 
> Unfortunately, some people (I suspect intentionally) keep missing the point...


Be fair blindlemon, you *now* say you totally agree that it's about number of entries and not dsik size per se, but earlier in the thread you said the opposite, which is why Pete77 was arguing with you.

He asked:



> Menu speed is not only related to the number of NP items *but also to the amount of total hard drive space* the Tivo has to manage?


You replied:



> I thought that was what most people would infer, yes


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I did say that, but I also went on to say in the very same post:


blindlemon said:


> However, it's not _just_ the size of the drive, but also the number of entries in the database and hence the number of reads of the database the TiVo has to do to render any given menu.


If you want to convict me on a point of semantics then fine, but I don't think I have ever said it is _only_ the size of the drive that affects menu performance - although I do often make the association between the two as it's an easy concept for people to understand and generally holds true.

Blimey! I'm starting to sound like the legendary pgogborn here, quoting myself and all...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

You were also making a lot of points about the Cachecard assisting with operations that require *Database* access.

However presumably the basic Now Playing list is also held in the Database?

My experience is that sometimes I can navigate my large Now Playing list quickly but sometimes it slows down and makes me wait several seconds before actually acting on IR input it has already received.

However with so many recordings the machine is always consistently slow to delete an item using the Tivo UI and consistently slow to back out of a playing recording to the screen for that recording, where a wait of several seconds after pressing the left arrow key normally ensues.

But Fast Forward Rewind and Pause access in a recording is often instant, although every so often it does decide to wait before acting on one of those.

All I was trying to get to is how many items in Now Playing causes the Tivo to slow down unaccceptably, even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. I think the answer is that this starts to happen somewhere between 300 and 400 Now Playing items.

Although you clearly find it easier to somewhat oversimplify to suggesting that total disk space and menu speed have a direct correlation the fact of the matter is that if I upgraded to 1000Gb from 500GB but recorded everything in Mode 0 and did not use VBR then my Tivo recording capacity would be only just over 300 hours and my Tivo would run a hell of a lot faster than than it does now with the present 500Gb but far more Now Playing entries in low recording qualities.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> presumably the basic Now Playing list is also held in the Database?


Yes.


Pete77 said:


> All I was trying to get to is how many items in Now Playing causes the Tivo to slow down unaccceptably, even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. I think the answer is that this starts to happen somewhere between 300 and 400 Now Playing items.


I can't disagree with that as I've never personally used a TiVo with more than about 200 items in the NPL.


Pete77 said:


> Although you clearly find it easier to somewhat oversimplify to suggesting that total disk space and menu speed have a direct correlation.


I have never said 'direct'. There is a correlation, but it's pretty vague, which is why I never say "you must have a cachecard with RAM", even to customers who buy an 800gb upgrade. However, I do suggest that they _might_ see some benefit for drives over 200gb.


Pete77 said:


> if I upgraded to 1000Gb from 500GB but recorded everything in Mode 0 and did not use VBR then my Tivo recording capacity would be only just over 300 hours and my Tivo would run a hell of a lot faster than than it does now with the present 500Gb but far more Now Playing entries in low recording qualities.


That sounds entirely possible. Why don't you try it and see...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Why don't you try it and see...


I will do when Samsung or Seagate make a 500Gb hard drive that the Tivo can cope with two of power supply wise and when HD prices for 500 Gb fall to only £70 per drive.

That may not be for another year or so though.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I would hope that a 500gb offering from Samsung would be OK in pairs - certainly their 400gb HD400LD is very nice and pairs appear to cause no problems for the TiVo's puny PSU. 

I'm not so hopeful that Seagate will fix their drives though, as they appear to think the DB35s are PVR-friendly already


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

I'd recommend a cachecard with 512Mb RAM for ANY expanded Tivo to be honest. 

I've run one with several hundred entries and no RAM and it works, it's just slow.


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