# TiVoPlayList v0.67 Available



## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

A new version of TiVoPlayList v0.67 is now available for download at
http://tivoplaylist.dyndns.org

New Features Include:
- Added new 'Options' screen to allow configuration of some previously available but hidden options (i.e. anchor size, always estimate quality, etc.)
- Added new option to allow Quality to be displayed as Mbps
- Added Quality as new constraint for Auto Downloads
- Added option to allow or disable auto download of Suggestions
- Added option for Auto Shutdown after Downloads Complete


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Thanks, Downloading now.

Question: What is "anchor size"?


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Awesome! Great bitrate indicator.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

HomeUser said:


> Thanks, Downloading now.
> 
> Question: What is "anchor size"?


Anchor Size sets the number of shows to grab information about from the TiVo at once (i.e. 16 of 84... 32 of 84... 48 of 84... is Anchor Size of 16).

Sorry, I plan on having the TiVoPlayList_Readme.txt file updated tonight or tomorrow with the information on the new 'Options' window.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

I did notice what appears to be one minor bug.

You are calculating bitrate based on the assumption of 1,073,741,824 bytes per gigabyte. However, all indications are that TiVo reports recording sizes based on 1,000,000,000 bytes per gigabyte.

You're using: Bitrate in Mbps = (Size in GB * 8 * 1073.741824) / (Minutes * Seconds)

Whereas it should be: Bitrate in Mbps = (Size in GB * 8 * 1000) / (Minutes * Seconds)


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> I did notice what appears to be one minor bug.
> 
> You are calculating bitrate based on the assumption of 1,073,741,824 bytes per gigabyte. However, all indications are that TiVo reports recording sizes based on 1,000,000,000 bytes per gigabyte.


Nope.

It's calculating Quality in Mbps = Total_Bytes * 8 / Total_Seconds / 1000000

I'm not sure what you mean by 'all indications are that TiVo reports recording sizes based on 1,000,000,000 bytes per gigabyte', but if they are doing that, that is their problem.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

bkdtv, some of the differences you see may be that the file size TiVo reports and the actual file size of files saved to your PC never match exactly. 

I believe this may be partially caused by the fact that the TiVo encodes the file as it is being transferred. This is definitely the reason for such slow transfers from a TiVo, but also causes the file size to change slightly.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

dcahoe said:


> It's calculating Quality in Mbps = Total_Bytes * 8 / Total_Seconds / 1000000


But where are you getting the *total bytes*?

As far as I can tell, problem arises because you are calculating total bytes in your own way (or the Windows way), which is not the way TiVo does it. The TiVo simply reports file sizes in GB.



dcahoe said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by 'all indications are that TiVo reports recording sizes based on 1,000,000,000 bytes per gigabyte', but if they are doing that, that is their problem.


You've probably noticed that every recording downloaded to a computer is ~7% smaller than reported by TiVoPlayList. If you calculate bytes as I've noted above, and compare that to the bytes for the same recording downloaded to a PC, you'll find that the numbers on the TiVo and PC only differ by about 0.5%, rather than ~7%.

As it is now, TiVo Playlist reports impossible bitrates. It reports 20+Mbps for recordings from some ATSC channels when only 19.4Mbps is possible.

The fix is simple. You just change your calculation of total bytes. Or don't calculate bytes at all, and just do (Size in GB reported by TiVo * 8 * 1000) / (Total seconds). That is the only way you are going to provide a result that is accurate.

I want to thank you again for all your effort to bring this feature to TiVoPlaylist. I am grateful, I just want it to be as accurate as possible.

Your next feature addition should be a donation link directly from the application.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> But where are you getting the *total bytes*?
> 
> As far as I can tell, problem arises because you are calculating total bytes in your own way (or the Windows way), which is not the way TiVo does it. The TiVo simply reports file sizes in GB.
> 
> ...


Absolutely wrong. TiVoPlayList does not calculate total bytes. The TiVo is reporting the total bytes in the <SourceSize> field of the XML file retrieved using:

https://x.x.x.x/TiVoConnect?Command=QueryContainer&Container=/NowPlaying

It does convert this Byte count to GB for displaying the Size of the recording in the PlayList. It uses 2^30 for the conversion to GB and not 1,000,000,000. If it used the later as you suggest the reported size would be even larger and the difference compared to the downloaded file would be even greater.

The larger than actual file sizes (and thus impossible bitrates) are also caused by the TiVo allocating extra space to the file as it records. When the recording finishes, there is sometimes extra space left on the end that is wasted which is actually taking up disk space as reported. When you transfer a file to your PC, it re-encodes it as it transfers (as stated in my previous post) and truncates off this space so that the file size to recording time ratio changes.

If you have a problem with accuracy, blame TiVo.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

BTW bkdtv, thanks for the feedback, I do appreciate it.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

dcahoe said:


> Absolutely wrong. TiVoPlayList does not calculate total bytes. The TiVo is reporting the total bytes in the <SourceSize> field of the XML file retrieved using:
> 
> https://x.x.x.x/TiVoConnect?Command=QueryContainer&Container=/NowPlaying


I stand corrected on what the TiVo is reporting through its https server. My apologies for suggesting that you were doing something wrong.

I still find it odd that TiVo reported sizes are always ~7% larger than recordings on my PC, the _same number_ you get when dividing 2^30 by 10^9.

As for as encoding, TiVo has said previously that there is no re-encoding on HD files, only muxing of the proprietary file format into a compatible MPG. That's probably what you meant. Still, assuming the size reported by the TiVo is accurate, then it looks like that muxing is sufficient to reduce PC file sizes by ~7%.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

I upgraded from .64 to .67 and now can't get any Tivo to report programs. I keep getting Load Error: Internet Read Timeout. How can I debug this?


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

jfh3 said:


> I upgraded from .64 to .67 and now can't get any Tivo to report programs. I keep getting Load Error: Internet Read Timeout. How can I debug this?












Do you have your MAK entered under advanced settings?

Are you using DHCP? Have your IP addresses changed?

Have you cycled power on your router or your TiVo's?


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

None of those were issues, however I hadn't rebooted my PC after install. After a reboot, everything works fine on my primary Tivo, but I now get a Load Error: Unknown HTML error on another box where the IP hasn't changed in quite a while and is static. Box is pingable, etc.


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## sandjam (Oct 24, 2001)

Hey, just wanted to say loaded new version... works great...excellent job dcahoe


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

jfh3 said:


> None of those were issues, however I hadn't rebooted my PC after install. After a reboot, everything works fine on my primary Tivo, but I now get a Load Error: Unknown HTML error on another box where the IP hasn't changed in quite a while and is static. Box is pingable, etc.


The MAK needs to be entered on the advanced screen for each separate TiVo. Being able to ping it is good, but a reboot of the TiVo is still in order.

rinse, repeat...


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

Thanks dcahoe for this tool! I am trying to transfer a bunch of episodes today and encountered a couple of annoyances:

1. Although I can shift-click on multiple episodes and it appears I'm selecting multiple episodes, when I click a SAVE button it only saves the one whose SAVE button I"ve clicked. Is this the way it works (you can select one program at a time only) or am I doing something wrong.

2. As I work my way down the list trying to add my episodes one-at-a-time, if I accidentally click SAVE for an episode that has already been queued for download I get a dialog box (something about how I've already queued that one) and whether I click Cancel or OK I can no longer add any more episodes to my download queue (note there is a download in progress as I attempt to add more episodes to the queue). So I'm stuck i.e. I can't add to my queue until the present queue is emptied at which point I'd start over.

:?


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

Hi laserfan, in answer to your items:

1) yes, it will just add one download at a time to the queue, unless you use the Auto DL function

2) I'll check it out and see if a bugfix is in order 

Thanks for the feedback.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

OK, grab TiVoPlayList v0.67c and it should fix the above problem.


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

dcahoe said:


> OK, grab TiVoPlayList v0.67c and it should fix the above problem.


Wow, here I am fiddling with Auto DL (the obvious solution to my issue #1) and you have an update already! I will try it!

BTW I looked High & Low for the Readme before I found it on top of the Questions section of your website. 

I wonder why you don't just bundle it with the install--I didn't know how to tell Auto DL to work until I looked in the readme.


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

It looks like Cancel is working now with .67c--thanks for the fast response!


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

I installed v0.67c, and every time I start the Tivoplaylist program it runs the installer/uninstaller for another program that I have on my computer (Peachtree Accounting). I uninstalled and reinstalled TivoPlayList, and it still does the same thing. Peachtree still runs fine. Any ideas?

A few general comments:

- The information dialog that displays at startup doesn't need to display every time. When it is displayed automatically, it shouldn't disappear until the user clicks the OK button.

- It would be helpful to include info about the appropriate "Disk Space" for other standard models like the Series 3 and HD.

- It would be nice not to have to see the tivo login dialog every time the program is started.

Thanks!


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

spocko said:


> I installed v0.67c, and every time I start the Tivoplaylist program it runs the installer/uninstaller for another program that I have on my computer (Peachtree Accounting). I uninstalled and reinstalled TivoPlayList, and it still does the same thing. Peachtree still runs fine. Any ideas?


There have been reports of this happening with Microsoft Office installer also. With Office I believe if you put in the Install CD and let it install what it thinks it needs, it is happy after that. This may be caused by selecting some Office features as 'Install on Demand'.

I don't have any knowledge of Peachtree accounting software, but searching the web shows this as a common Microsoft Installer issue with various seemingly random programs. It may also be caused by an incomplete or aborted install. I know you unistalled/re-installed TiVoPlayList, but what about Peachtree? Some programs have a 'Repair Install' option that fix some problems.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

spocko said:


> - It would be helpful to include info about the appropriate "Disk Space" for other standard models like the Series 3 and HD.
> 
> Thanks!


I agree this would probably be useful. Believe it or not I don't have a Series 3 or TiVo HD unit.

Perhaps some people could post some feedback on the capacities they have found with TiVoPlayList of these models??? (Please only post if you know for sure you have a good value from a TiVo that has been filled)

BTW, keep in mind spocko, that you don't really need to know the size of your TiVo's hard drive. TiVoPlayList will figure it out over time if you let your TiVo fill up to the point where it is automatically dropping the oldest shows, whenever you run TiVoPlayList it will remember the largest capacity it ever sees.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

dcahoe said:


> Perhaps some people could post some feedback on the capacities they have found with TiVoPlayList of these models??? (Please only post if you know for sure you have a good value from a TiVo that has been filled)


I have a TivoHD with an upgraded 1TB drive.
TPL reports a total disk space of 910.1GB and currently shows 28% free disk space (which I assume is what is in recently deleted).


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

dcahoe said:


> There have been reports of this happening with Microsoft Office installer also. With Office I believe if you put in the Install CD and let it install what it thinks it needs, it is happy after that.


I wasn't willing to uninstall/reinstall Peachtree, but I did take a chance and insert the CD as requested when the installer launched. It did something unknown which took about 15 sec, and now all seems to be well with both programs. Peachtree still works fine, and the installer no longer gets launched when I start TivoPlayList.

Note for reference that I'm running WinXP SP3. Peachtree has no "install on demand" features that I'm aware of. I think it was just a random selection of some other program that happened to use Microsoft Installer.

Thanks!


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

dcahoe said:


> Perhaps some people could post some feedback on the capacities they have found with TiVoPlayList of these models??? (Please only post if you know for sure you have a good value from a TiVo that has been filled)


stock S3 = 209.8 GB

use tivoplaylist all the time - thanks dcahoe!


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## Larry in TN (Jun 21, 2002)

moonscape said:


> stock S3 = 209.8 GB


I've gotten as high as 213.0 GB on my stock S3. I did it by downloading a number of short 4 or 5 minute free programs from Amazon.


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

I noticed yesterday the TivoPlayList seems to use excessive CPU when transferring a recording. I was seeing pretty consistent > 90% CPU usage when transferring, and it would drop back to normal as soon as the transfer was complete or canceled. In comparison, kmttg and Tivo Desptop do not use significant CPU while transferring.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

spocko said:


> I noticed yesterday the TivoPlayList seems to use excessive CPU when transferring a recording. I was seeing pretty consistent > 90% CPU usage when transferring, and it would drop back to normal as soon as the transfer was complete or canceled. In comparison, kmttg and Tivo Desptop do not use significant CPU while transferring.


You didn't mention how powerful your PC is but on mine I usually see TiVoPlayList using < 20-30% of the CPU while downloading.

Are you sure it is TiVoPlayList using 90% of the CPU when you check under the 'Processes' tab of Task Manager? I did have a machine that the CPU usage went up while downloading after upgrading from AVG antivirus software version 7.5 to version 8. Version 8 added a LinkScanner feature that can cause problems (Google avgnsx.exe). This feature cannot be disabled with AVG Free, it must me removed during the install process by doing a selective install.

http://free.avg.com/faq.num-1338#faq_1338

You might also go to the 'Options' and change the 'Chunk Size' to a smller umber like 16384 (16k). I don't know how this might effect your CPU usage but it is something to try.


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

I like the new version. Works great. In some future release, please consider a single entry for the MAK that associates with all the TiVos. When setting up a TiVo, I get a login dialog box a couple of times until I get the MAK in place. Not as painful as 0.65 by a long shot. But how many people need different MAKs for multiple TiVos?


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

lafos said:


> But how many people need different MAKs for multiple TiVos?


Agreed lafos


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

dcahoe said:


> You didn't mention how powerful your PC is but on mine I usually see TiVoPlayList using < 20-30% of the CPU while downloading.
> 
> Are you sure it is TiVoPlayList using 90% of the CPU when you check under the 'Processes' tab of Task Manager?


The machine in question is an Athlon XP @ 2GHz. It's no speed demon, but file xfers don't generally take much CPU. TPL was taking ~70% and ZoneAlarm's vsmon task was taking the rest.



dcahoe said:


> You might also go to the 'Options' and change the 'Chunk Size' to a smller umber like 16384 (16k). I don't know how this might effect your CPU usage but it is something to try.


This makes a huge difference. CPU usage seems to be proportional to chunk size. Reducing the chunk size reduces CPU usage for both TPL and ZA. At 512k, CPU usage is pretty much 100%. At 32K, the CPU usage averages about 40%. Throughput might be slightly less with smaller chunk size, I'd have to do more testing. I'm doing a big xfer right now with 32k chunk and getting about 790KB/s. With larger chunks I think I was getting a little over 800.


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## Sturmie (Jun 11, 2007)

download site seems to be down...any mirrors anywhere?


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

dcahoe said:


> OK, grab TiVoPlayList v0.67c and it should fix the above problem.


Sturmie, the link above worked for me just now.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Any idea when the download site will be back up? It's been down for awhile now.

Or could someone mirror a copy of 0.67c?


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

I tried to transfer my 5 "American Experience" TivoHD captures, each about 8.5Gb in size, but TPL was never able to transfer more than one at a time--it would quit after the first one, and sometimes part-way into the 2nd. I'm guessing there's an issue with my using TivoDecode at the tail end of each transfer (using decode1.bat). Seems I saw an earlier post somewhere about TPL needing to wait to give TD time to work or some such. In any case I'm betting I could have transferred all 5 at one time if I'd skipped the "Command to Execute After DL Completes" feature.


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

Laserfan said:


> I tried to transfer my 5 "American Experience" TivoHD captures, each about 8.5Gb in size, but TPL was never able to transfer more than one at a time--it would quit after the first one, and sometimes part-way into the 2nd. I'm guessing there's an issue with my using TivoDecode at the tail end of each transfer (using decode1.bat). Seems I saw an earlier post somewhere about TPL needing to wait to give TD time to work or some such. In any case I'm betting I could have transferred all 5 at one time if I'd skipped the "Command to Execute After DL Completes" feature.


Hey LaserFan.

I think that problem was fixed. I just added a slight delay between consecutive downloads. I didn't test it much though so a longer delay may possibly eventually be needed for some machines. The sympton was a message saying 'Server Busy' and it would download every other show (1, 3, 5 etc with the error on 2, 4, 6 etc).

The command it executes after finishing a download should be asynchronous to program execution. If it quit downloading halfway through a show something else is happening. Did your 5 episodes each have a different filename?

Did you start any other transfers with something elese like TD while these transfers were running?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Please see this post in an older TiVoPlayList thread in the Home Media Features forum.

I posted there before I discovered this newer thread existed.


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## propain500 (May 11, 2009)

Not to dig up an old post --- but are I haven't found any mirrors anywhere - as it seems the download is unavailable... any ideas?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

The link in the first post just worked for me.


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## propain500 (May 11, 2009)

Roger that - the site must have been down for some maintenance - she is working now!!!


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

steve614 said:


> I have a TivoHD with an upgraded 1TB drive.
> TPL reports a total disk space of 910.1GB


Steve, are you still at 910GB are has your number increased since your earlier post? Just curious since I have the same config as you. I'm currently showing 906GB. I'm a little surprised that we don't get more usable space out of a 1TB drive.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

spocko said:


> Steve, are you still at 910GB are has your number increased since your earlier post? Just curious since I have the same config as you. I'm currently showing 906GB. I'm a little surprised that we don't get more usable space out of a 1TB drive.


Actually, my number has decreased.
TPL now shows a total disk space of 824.6GB with 0% free space.
I'm on a machine with Windows 7 RC, and I just installed TPL to see what the number would be.
The earlier number I posted was from a machine with XP on it, if that makes a difference.

ETA: The above number was with 14 shows in recently deleted. I "recovered" all the deleted shows to put them back in now playing and restarted TPL.
My total disk space now shows 907.6 GB


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

I believe I have confirmed that the max available disk space on a Tivo HD with an upgraded WD 1TB drive is right about 915MB. I saw 915.1MB while a recording was in progress. Less than a minute later something got automatically deleted to create more space for the recording. Thus my Tivo decided that it was "full" at just over 915MB.


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## Spire (Jun 6, 2001)

FWIW, my stock TiVo HD XL's "Total Disk Space" stabilized at 916.5 GB after a couple of months of TiVoPlayList use.


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