# HD hours for Bolt 1TB?



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

My Roamio Plus has a 1TB hard drive and shows "up to 154 HD hours" of recording capacity. Weaknees is showing the 1TB Bolt as holding just 120 hours of HD. Does anyone know why the large discrepancy? Thanks.


----------



## gigaguy (Aug 30, 2013)

It's being discussed elsewhere...nobody knows as of yet.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

We assume they've increased the reserve space to account for the possibility of 4K live TV buffers.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

I was wondering if the smaller physical hard drive means more capacity is lost when the drive is formatted?


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

epstewart said:


> I was wondering if the smaller physical hard drive means more capacity is lost when the drive is formatted?


Nope, bytes are bytes


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> We assume they've increased the reserve space to account for the possibility of 4K live TV buffers.


OK, then that sounds like the most reasonable explanation.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> We assume they've increased the reserve space to account for the possibility of 4K live TV buffers.


The numbers don't really match that theory IMO. If they were reserving space for 4K live TV buffers it should be a fixed decrease in the number of hours even on bigger drives. If you look at the experiences here with 2TB - 4TB drive upgrades and the Weaknees kits, it's an across-the-board percentage.

With Roamios and Premieres, estimating 160 hours/TB would get you pretty close to the SI screen. Bolts are roughly 122 hours/TB.


----------



## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Perhaps an increased quality of HD recordings with the new processor hardware? Either that or for some nefarious use of data.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

series5orpremier said:


> Perhaps an increased quality of HD recordings with the new processor hardware? Either that or for some nefarious use of data.


Probably just an estimate based on a combination of HD & 4K content, even though there isn't any of the latter except for streaming at this point. Even a dump of every 1P, the entire recording history & every remote click would only take a few KB.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

ggieseke said:


> The numbers don't really match that theory IMO. If they were reserving space for 4K live TV buffers it should be a fixed decrease in the number of hours even on bigger drives. If you look at the experiences here with 2TB - 4TB drive upgrades and the Weaknees kits, it's an across-the-board percentage.
> 
> With Roamios and Premieres, estimating 160 hours/TB would get you pretty close to the SI screen. Bolts are roughly 122 hours/TB.


I asked weaKnees tech support, which said:

"So far, we don't know the full answer. We think that TiVo is just counting hours more conservatively with this unit to account for 4K content."

I'm not sure about your hypothesis of a fixed percentage. The 500GB stock Bolt holds 53 hrs. of HD content, weaKnees says; the 1TB Bolt, 120 hrs. Doubling 53 gives only 106 hrs., so the larger drive holds 13% more HD than one might otherwise expect. The fixed-percent hypothesis, if true, seems to need an auxiliary explanation to account for the 13% discrepancy.

Whatever the full explanation, if TiVo is making room for 4K content, and if that's the main reason why the HD numbers are so conservative, then perhaps TiVo wants even more 4K buffer space, percentage-wise, on more expensive units in order to make sure there are fewer complaints about buffering delays.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Well if it's just the estimate that changed then they went from assuming HD was 14-15Mbp to 19-20Mbps. That's quite a leap considering ATSC maxes out at 19.2Mbps and typically has at least a couple sub channels, and cable is usually even lower trying to cram 3-4 HD channels into a 38Mbps QAM. 

We should run a test. Anyone got both a Bolt and a Roamio they're willing to experiment with? If you can install the same drive into both units, then transfer the same program from a PC to each TiVo over and over until it's full. That will twll you if it's just an estimation change or if the two units actually hold a different number of hours.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> We should run a test. Anyone got both a Bolt and a Roamio they're willing to experiment with? If you can install the same drive into both units, then transfer the same program from a PC to each TiVo over and over until it's full. That will twll you if it's just an estimation change or if the two units actually hold a different number of hours.


A good idea. But I'd think it'd be more appropriate to keep the original drive in each unit, because what we need to know is how many copies of the same HD program the two stock TiVo units can hold. If the 1TB stock Roamio Plus and the 1TB stock Bolt each hold the same number of copies, then it's a change in estimation. If the number of copies is significantly different, then something else is going on.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I thought it might be easier, and faster, to test with a smaller drive like a 32GB SSD or something. That's why I suggested using the same drive. But using a Roamio and a Bolt with the same drive size would work as well.

If someone has a 500GB Bolt they're willing to run this test on I have a 500GB Roamio OTA I can run it on. We just need to share a video that we can both use as the sample.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm just going to fill mine up like I always do with a new TiVo. So far I have 1.25TB on my Bolt. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have filled the 4TB up. I will just use KMTTG to see how much storage space is used


----------



## agredon (Jul 26, 2011)

In my experience, 1 hour of HD runs about 4-6 GB and 1 hour of SD runs 1-2 GB. So, for 1 "TB" -- 167 to 250 Hours of HD or 500-1000 Hours of SD.

1 Hour (NBC HD) -- 5.7 GB (BHN)
1 Hour (CBS HD) -- 5.2 GB (BHN)
1 Hour (Sci-Fi HD) -- 3.8 GB (BHN and Comcast)
1 Hour (Disney HD) -- 3.8 GB (BHN)

Of course, these figures will vary by cableco and channel. A year or so back, Comcast started super compressing some lesser watched channels like FXX HD to the point that I began wondering (based on size of recordings) if the SD channel had been recorded by mistake. So, if you have Comcast, figure a lot more hours if you record FXX HD or another super compresses HD channel.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I thought it might be easier, and faster, to test with a smaller drive like a 32GB SSD or something. That's why I suggested using the same drive. But using a Roamio and a Bolt with the same drive size would work as well.
> 
> If someone has a 500GB Bolt they're willing to run this test on I have a 500GB Roamio OTA I can run it on. We just need to share a video that we can both use as the sample.


OK, I see what you meant. I have a 1TB Roamio Plus. I'm not sure what size Bolt I want yet. In fact, I'm thinking that my decision ought to depend in part on the question asked here: why the estimates of HD recording capacity are so low for the Bolt compared to the Roamio ...


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I'm just going to fill mine up like I always do with a new TiVo. So far I have 1.25TB on my Bolt. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have filled the 4TB up. I will just use KMTTG to see how much storage space is used


Sorry, I'm not up on some of your expertise. According to my recent WeaKnees e-mail, the largest internal drive capacity they sell the Bolt with is 2TB. I assume you self-modified your Bolt to hold 4TB, right? But if that's possible, why doesn't WeaKnees offer it? What am I missing here? Also, doesn't self-modifying the Bolt void the warranty? Thanks ....


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

agredon said:


> In my experience, 1 hour of HD runs about 4-6 GB and 1 hour of SD runs 1-2 GB. So, for 1 "TB" -- 167 to 250 Hours of HD or 500-1000 Hours of SD.
> 
> 1 Hour (NBC HD) -- 5.7 GB (BHN)
> 1 Hour (CBS HD) -- 5.2 GB (BHN)
> ...


I'm incredibly surprised at the wide disparity among the various channels and cablecos! Also, would the figures change depending on the visual complexity of the program, as with football game images being more complex than art gallery images?


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

epstewart said:


> I'm not sure about your hypothesis of a fixed percentage. The 500GB stock Bolt holds 53 hrs. of HD content, weaKnees says; the 1TB Bolt, 120 hrs. Doubling 53 gives only 106 hrs., so the larger drive holds 13% more HD than one might otherwise expect. The fixed-percent hypothesis, if true, seems to need an auxiliary explanation to account for the 13% discrepancy.


I did use the word "roughly". Smaller drives like the 500GB lose a higher percentage of recording space to overhead like the swap space, MFS app partitions & the SQLite partition. That's about 3GB, and the rest may be buffer space for the tuners and Teleworld ads. As you get into the larger weaKnees kits their numbers become remarkably consistent at around 122-123 hours/TB.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

ggieseke said:


> I did use the word "roughly". Smaller drives like the 500GB lose a higher percentage of recording space to overhead like the swap space, MFS app partitions & the SQLite partition. That's about 3GB, and the rest may be buffer space for the tuners and Teleworld ads. As you get into the larger weaKnees kits their numbers become remarkably consistent at around 122-123 hours/TB.


OK, that's interesting info, new to me, about the formatting overhead coming more into play with the smaller drives. It accounts for the "roughly" discrepancy I questioned in my earlier post. Now a relevant question would be whether the more conservative HD capacities for the Bolt, relative to the Roamio, might in fact be due to a change in how buffer space is being allocated.


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

epstewart said:


> I'm incredibly surprised at the wide disparity among the various channels and cablecos! Also, would the figures change depending on the visual complexity of the program, as with football game images being more complex than art gallery images?


It is strange how much the bit rate varies with different feeds. On my 1080i channels it takes about 8GB per hour. ABC is really bad, at 3.5GB/hour. Fox and the other basic cable channels use about 6 to 7GB/hour.

With the TiVo box Diagnostics, you can map every channel to its frequency. You can then see how many subchannels are squeezed in the 6MHz needed per channel. You might die of boredom in the process though.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

epstewart said:


> OK, that's interesting info, new to me, about the formatting overhead coming more into play with the smaller drives. It accounts for the "roughly" discrepancy I questioned in my earlier post. Now a relevant question would be whether the more conservative HD capacities for the Bolt, relative to the Roamio, might in fact be due to a change in how buffer space is being allocated.


That's a damn good question. I'd guess that they decided to use a much more conservative hours estimate based on a mix of HD & 4K content, but anyone's guess is as good as mine at this point.

There are some changes in the partition tables like a 2X bigger swap space and a much smaller SQLite partition. The /var partition has also been moved entirely to flash. Overall it's "roughly" (I love that word) the same amount of overhead as a Roamio, so the the change in the predicted number of hours must have been intentional.


----------



## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

JoeKustra said:


> ABC is really bad, at 3.5GB/hour.


ABC isn't bad per se, they broadcast in 720p which uses less bandwidth.

Folks who only watch ABC and ESPN can enjoy many more hours of recording space.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> With the TiVo box Diagnostics, you can map every channel to its frequency. You can then see how many subchannels are squeezed in the 6MHz needed per channel. You might die of boredom in the process though.


OK, I checked my Verizon FiOS frequencies for channels 526, WETA-PBS HD, and 474, the WETA UK standard-def channel. They are both on 465000 KHz. I guess that means that the latter is a subchannel of the former and eats into the former's bandwidth, such that recording the former takes fewer gigabytes per hour than it otherwise might?


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

A 6Mhz QAM frequency can do about 38Mbps. ATSC, used for OTA, can only do 19.2Mbps. Most OTA channels have at least a couple of SD sub channels leaving 12-15Mbps for the main HD channel. Cable will typically stick 3 HD channels on a QAM giving them each 12-13Mbps. So in some cases they have to recode the OTA signal to a lower bitrate to make it fit. Some cable companies get really crazy and squeeze 4 HD channels onto a QAM, that can result in really poor quality.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

ggieseke said:


> That's a damn good question. I'd guess that they decided to use a much more conservative hours estimate based on a mix of HD & 4K content, but anyone's guess is as good as mine at this point.
> 
> There are some changes in the partition tables like a 2X bigger swap space and a much smaller SQLite partition. The /var partition has also been moved entirely to flash. Overall it's "roughly" (I love that word) the same amount of overhead as a Roamio, so the the change in the predicted number of hours must have been intentional.


So when we say 4K content is being allowed for by the Bolt's conservative advertised HD recording capacity, we're ignoring the fact that, for now, the Bolt only streams 4K but doesn't record it?

As a practical matter, my real concern is not with 4K but with the fact that I'll be swapping my 1TB Roamio Plus over to a less-used TV to replace a Premiere that no longer works, and I'll put the Bolt I want to buy where the Roamio Plus is now, hooked to my main TV. I want the Bolt to hold as much HD (and SD) programming as the Roamio Plus does now. So the more conservative Bolt capacity estimates have me spooked: Will a 1TB Bolt actually hold as much as a 1TB Roamio Plus?

I guess no one really knows the answer to that yet ...


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> A 6Mhz QAM frequency can do about 38Mbps. ATSC, used for OTA, can only do 19.2Mbps. Most OTA channels have at least a couple of SD sub channels leaving 12-15Mbps for the main HD channel. Cable will typically stick 3 HD channels on a QAM giving them each 12-13Mbps. So in some cases they have to recode the OTA signal to a lower bitrate to make it fit. Some cable companies get really crazy and squeeze 4 HD channels onto a QAM, that can result in really poor quality.


OK, that's valuable information. Do you know whether it applies to Verizon FiOS, which supposedly has greater bandwidth than ordinary cable?


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

epstewart said:


> OK, that's valuable information. Do you know whether it applies to Verizon FiOS, which supposedly has greater bandwidth than ordinary cable?


FIOS uses fiber, which has the potential for way more bandwidth, but they carry the linear TV stations as standard QAM. The only real difference between a traditional cable system and FIOS is that FIOS uses a different bit of the fiber for internet and VOD, rather then using QAM or DOCSIS like cable, so they have the full spectrum just for TV.


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

jonw747 said:


> ABC isn't bad per se, they broadcast in 720p which uses less bandwidth.
> 
> Folks who only watch ABC and ESPN can enjoy many more hours of recording space.


Ok, bad was the wrong word. My HD CW channel is also a low bit rate channel, It doesn't even use DD 5.1.

My feed combines CBS with Fox and NBC with ABC. Until 2015, these were not encrypted, so finding the sub-channels was easy.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

epstewart said:


> So when we say 4K content is being allowed for by the Bolt's conservative advertised HD recording capacity, we're ignoring the fact that, for now, the Bolt only streams 4K but doesn't record it?
> 
> As a practical matter, my real concern is not with 4K but with the fact that I'll be swapping my 1TB Roamio Plus over to a less-used TV to replace a Premiere that no longer works, and I'll put the Bolt I want to buy where the Roamio Plus is now, hooked to my main TV. I want the Bolt to hold as much HD (and SD) programming as the Roamio Plus does now. So the more conservative Bolt capacity estimates have me spooked: Will a 1TB Bolt actually hold as much as a 1TB Roamio Plus?
> 
> I guess no one really knows the answer to that yet ...


I'm in the process of filling up my 4TB Bolt drive. It's over 50% so far. Hopefully KMTTG will show how much is actually used like it does with the Roamios.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> My HD CW channel is also a low bit rate channel ...


OK, I'm not sure how you discovered the bit rate from the TiVo Diagnostics. Was it from the Channel Bits parameter? On mine I seem to see that parameter reported at 2127902 for SD channels and 3176478 for HD channels. Do those numbers relate to the bit rate?


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

epstewart said:


> OK, I'm not sure how you discovered the bit rate from the TiVo Diagnostics. Was it from the Channel Bits parameter? On mine I seem to see that parameter reported at 2127902 for SD channels and 3176478 for HD channels. Do those numbers relate to the bit rate?


It's simple. The TiVo records the data without changing it. So a smaller program size for the equal time period means there isn't as many bits. If you use the info button on any recording and scroll down, the size is there. It's a good thing, since if you _really_ want to hold a lot of content, those 480i SD sub-channels, being digital, take a lot less space. I never use them, but when I see a program from 1999 on an HD channel, it can look pretty bad on a large screen. Mine is only 40", so PQ is pretty good.

Programs, like kmttg, display the program size and bit rate also. That saves having to do the math.

I have seen one anomaly though. The new The Late Show with Stephen Colbert seems to have a really good PQ. HD is HD, but maybe CBS bought some new cameras?

I'm sure channel bits mean something, but I have no clue.


----------



## tre74 (Nov 12, 2010)

Is there even a standard one can use to calculate the space available for use? My OTA shows are huge. Somebody with cable is certainly going to get more shows on their machine than somebody using an HD antenna. But, wouldn't even the comparison have to take place on the one machine since cable and antenna signals will be different for everybody?


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

tre74 said:


> Is there even a standard one can use to calculate the space available for use? My OTA shows are huge. Somebody with cable is certainly going to get more shows on their machine than somebody using an HD antenna. But, wouldn't even the comparison have to take place on the one machine since cable and antenna signals will be different for everybody?


Please feel free to quote me: All cable is local. At least with OTA you can use Wiki and see what a station is doing. There are no rules for cable also no standards. You check a show, say 1080i DD5.1 CBS for an hour. I need just under 8GB. For 720p Fox, about 6. CW about 4. But I have seen postings that are lower and higher. It's all about the $$$$.

Like was posted. Record 1 hour of OTA ABC and 1 hour of NBC. Check the file sizes.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

tre74 said:


> Is there even a standard one can use to calculate the space available for use? My OTA shows are huge. Somebody with cable is certainly going to get more shows on their machine than somebody using an HD antenna. But, wouldn't even the comparison have to take place on the one machine since cable and antenna signals will be different for everybody?


I don't think the estimate is very accurate one way or the other. The big question here is whether they just changed the way the estimate is calculated for the Bolt, meaning the actual space is the same, or if they are actually reserving a chunk of the drive that we don't have access to.

To figure that out we'd pretty much need a controlled test with a file of a known size. Or maybe we could get a rough idea by adding up the listed sizes in the web UI.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I just looked at my Bolt through KMTTG and I guess the big file(a manual recording) I have been using to transfer doesn't even show up in KMTTG. It is listed in teh My SHows list. But it isn't even list when I go to teh Now Playing list from a web address. ANd I've transferred that 116GB file a dozen times so far. SO I guess I can't use KMTTG unless I get actual recordings from the tuners or if I transfer a bunch of files. WHich will take a long time.

So I'll just continue to fill up the Bolt for now. I might be sending this one back to Best Buy when I get the ebay Bolt. It depends on if I hear the same audio anomaly with the second Bolt from pcm output. If I don't hear it with the second Bolt then I will return the first Bolt.


----------



## keenanSR (Oct 13, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> I just looked at my Bolt through KMTTG and I guess the big file(a manual recording) I have been using to transfer doesn't even show up in KMTTG. It is listed in teh My SHows list. But it isn't even list when I go to teh Now Playing list from a web address. ANd I've transferred that 116GB file a dozen times so far. SO I guess I can't use KMTTG unless I get actual recordings from the tuners or if I transfer a bunch of files. WHich will take a long time.
> 
> So I'll just continue to fill up the Bolt for now. I might be sending this one back to Best Buy when I get the ebay Bolt. It depends on if I hear the same audio anomaly with the second Bolt from pcm output. If I don't hear it with the second Bolt then I will return the first Bolt.


Audio anomaly?


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

keenanSR said:


> Audio anomaly?


When in pcm mode, like in the network settings page, and no audio is being sent though, I get a slight hum through my speakers. Any other time it is silent. I'll see what the second Bolt does in the same situation.


----------



## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jonw747 said:


> ABC isn't bad per se, they broadcast in 720p which uses less bandwidth.
> 
> Folks who only watch ABC and ESPN can enjoy many more hours of recording space.


720p and 1080i are actually natively pretty close to the same. The size of the file is dependent on the information in that file. 1080i @ 30fps has the equivalent of 1080x1920x30 pixels per second = 62,208,000 pixels to encode. For 720p @ 60 fps it is 720x1280x60 = 55,296,000 pixels to encode per second.

These are quite similar and hence why in HD Digital Television broadcasts there's some who use 720p and others who use 1080i.

(paraphrased from here)


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I don't think the estimate is very accurate one way or the other. The big question here is whether they just changed the way the estimate is calculated for the Bolt, meaning the actual space is the same, or if they are actually reserving a chunk of the drive that we don't have access to.
> 
> To figure that out we'd pretty much need a controlled test with a file of a known size. Or maybe we could get a rough idea by adding up the listed sizes in the web UI.


Yes, that's the real question.

Has TiVoMargret been asked about this?


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

epstewart said:


> Yes, that's the real question.
> 
> Has TiVoMargret been asked about this?


Hmm... not sure Margret's the best option if we're looking to inquire re: drive capacities...

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/649272069566304257


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

My Bolt was over 80% full this morning. It was showing only 96 hours of HD available.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> My Bolt was over 80% full this morning. It was showing only 96 hours of HD available.


You have a 4TB (internal drive) Bolt, right? If 80% is full, that leaves 20%, or 800GB, available to hold 96 hrs. So the HD capacity for 1TB on your Bolt ought to be roughly 1000GB/800GB X 96 hrs. = 120 hrs. That is the advertised HD recording capacity for a 1TB Bolt. So this seems to be evidence that the 1TB Bolt really does hold less HD than the 1TB Roamio Plus does. If we assume that the advertised 154 hrs. of HD for the latter is accurate, then there does seem to be an unknown X-factor on the Bolt that cuts into its recording capacity!


----------



## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

epstewart said:


> You have a 4TB (internal drive) Bolt, right? If 80% is full, that leaves 20%, or 800GB, available to hold 96 hrs. So the HD capacity for 1TB on your Bolt ought to be roughly 1000GB/800GB X 96 hrs. = 120 hrs. That is the advertised HD recording capacity for a 1TB Bolt. So this seems to be evidence that the 1TB Bolt really does hold less HD than the 1TB Roamio Plus does. If we assume that the advertised 154 hrs. of HD for the latter is accurate, then there does seem to be an *unknown X-factor* on the Bolt that cuts into its recording capacity!


Oh, so that DOES explain it. It's there for Simon Cowell's extremely large, ego filled cranium! 

I believe, and have said from the beginning, that I think it's there to account for 4K/UHD buffering and/or recording.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I believe, and have said from the beginning, that I think it's there to account for 4K/UHD buffering and/or recording.


Very probably. It means I'm not likely to be happy with a 1TB Bolt and will need to upgrade to a 2TB Bolt at WeaKnees.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

epstewart said:


> You have a 4TB (internal drive) Bolt, right? If 80% is full, that leaves 20%, or 800GB, available to hold 96 hrs. So the HD capacity for 1TB on your Bolt ought to be roughly 1000GB/800GB X 96 hrs. = 120 hrs. That is the advertised HD recording capacity for a 1TB Bolt. So this seems to be evidence that the 1TB Bolt really does hold less HD than the 1TB Roamio Plus does. If we assume that the advertised 154 hrs. of HD for the latter is accurate, then there does seem to be an unknown X-factor on the Bolt that cuts into its recording capacity!


I still need to go through and add up the total amount of space taken up by the shows.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I got to a point this evening where the Bolt showed "DISK FULL" in the sys info screen. So then I deleted two short programs so they would be in the "recently Deleted" folder. And they should be the first ones to be deleted when a TiVo drive is full. I've now transferred over 200GB more of shows since it started showing "DISK FULL" but nothing has actually been deleted yet.

I have more things being recorded tonight and more transfers so I'll check in the morning to see if it has actually deleted anything yet.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I got to a point this evening where the Bolt showed "DISK FULL" in the sys info screen. So then I deleted two short programs so they would be in the "recently Deleted" folder. And they should be the first ones to be deleted when a TiVo drive is full. I've now transferred over 200GB more of shows since it started showing "DISK FULL" but nothing has actually been deleted yet.
> 
> I have more things being recorded tonight and more transfers so I'll check in the morning to see if it has actually deleted anything yet.


H-m-m-m ... That's an unexpected result, right there!

The first explanation that occurs to me is that, whatever the purpose of the "extra" space that is set aside and which reduces the nominal number of HD hours to roughly 120, it seems to be a "soft" purpose. Say, for instance, that it is a buffer space for 4K streams. If the user records more than the nominal HD capacity and starts to get "DISK FULL," the Bolt sacrifices some of that "extra" space to make room for new recordings, rather than start deleting existing recordings. So there is a "soft" limit on recording capacity that can be exceeded up to some point that you will discover as you transfer more shows. Interesting indeed ...


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

At some point between 200GB and 250GB it started to delete the shows. I just know with other TiVos I could not get it close to 100% without making programs KUID. But none of the shows on my BOLT were set for KUID. SO I was surprised when it showed up as DISK FULL.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> At some point between 200GB and 250GB it started to delete the shows. I just know with other TiVos I could not get it close to 100% without making programs KUID. But none of the shows on my BOLT were set for KUID. SO I was surprised when it showed up as DISK FULL.


Now we're homing in on a result.

That point was 200GB to 250GB of transferred files after the DISK FULL started to appear, I assume?

How big were your transferred files?

Given the range of 200GB to 250GB within which the tripwire for deletion was tripped, can you determine a range for how many GB of space were used when deletions began to occur?


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

epstewart said:


> Now we're homing in on a result.
> 
> That point was 200GB to 250GB of transferred files after the DISK FULL started to appear, I assume?
> 
> ...


I was transferring a bunch of football games last night and they were 20GB to 25GB in size. Around 4 hours each.

I was going to count up all the space being used last night until I realized it would take much longer than I thought so I never calculated it. And KMTTG was only showing info for around half the stuff I had on there.

My main purpose in putting as much stuff on the drive as possible was just to make sure there were no obvious issues with the 4TB drive in the Bolt. Although I was curious about the total storage available.

At some point after I get this other Bolt I'll try it again with the 500GB drive. And only use one file that shows up properly in KMTTG. And only use that one file to fill up the drive to see exactly how much space gets used.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> At some point after I get this other Bolt I'll try it again with the 500GB drive. And only use one file that shows up properly in KMTTG. And only use that one file to fill up the drive to see exactly how much space gets used.


OK, I guess it would be a good idea to conduct a more controlled experiment. But I think you have already established that there is a certain amount of "softness" in the range between when the DISK FULL message first arrives and when the Bolt actually starts deleting recordings.


----------



## markjrenna (Mar 23, 2006)

I let my disk hit 100%. I wanted to see how the Bolt handles making space for new recordings. I never saw Disk Full. But it did start deleing programs. Suggestions went first.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

markjrenna said:


> I let my disk hit 100%. I wanted to see how the Bolt handles making space for new recordings. I never saw Disk Full. But it did start deleing programs. Suggestions went first.


You might wish to try using the kmttg app on your computer to find out how many gigabytes correspond to 100%. (How big is the hard drive on your Bolt, by the way?)


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Last night I checked the 500GB Bolt and the 4TB Bolt in KMTTG. Neither one shows up properly for the storage amount in KMTTG. It's like KMTTG has no idea what size it should be. With no content it shows 0GB as max capacity. With 100GB of shows it's shows the max capacity as 100GB, 1TB of shows is shown as 1000GB max capcity etc...


----------



## keenanSR (Oct 13, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Last night I checked the 500GB Bolt and the 4TB Bolt in KMTTG. Neither one shows up properly for the storage amount in KMTTG. It's like KMTTG has no idea what size it should be. With no content it shows 0GB as max capacity. With 100GB of shows it's shows the max capacity as 100GB, 1TB of shows is shown as 1000GB max capcity etc...


Have you entered the drive size in the kmttg 'Total Disk Space' box in the 'Disk Use Analysis' popup? Unless something has changed, that has to be done manually, kmttg doesn't figure disk size automatically, once you enter the size it computes used/free space from there.

Or are you saying you've done that and it's still not reading right?


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

keenanSR said:


> Have you entered the drive size in the kmttg 'Total Disk Space' box in the 'Disk Use Analysis' popup? Unless something has changed, that has to be done manually, kmttg doesn't figure disk size automatically, once you enter the size it computes used/free space from there.
> 
> Or are you saying you've done that and it's still not reading right?


No I have not done that. But I don't recall doing it with my Roamios but they show the proper total size.

I'll check it when I get home tonight.


----------



## markjrenna (Mar 23, 2006)

I will have to try that. Stock 1 TB drive (for now).



epstewart said:


> You might wish to try using the kmttg app on your computer to find out how many gigabytes correspond to 100%. (How big is the hard drive on your Bolt, by the way?)


----------



## keenanSR (Oct 13, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> No I have not done that. But I don't recall doing it with my Roamios but they show the proper total size.
> 
> I'll check it when I get home tonight.


Yes, if you hover over the entry box it says something like 'enter the total disk space capacity for this TiVo and the press enter to update'. I had to enter it when I added my Roamio Basic awhile back.

The below is for the 2TB I put in the Basic,


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

keenanSR said:


> Yes, if you hover over the entry box it says something like 'enter the total disk space capacity for this TiVo and the press enter to update'. I had to enter it when I added my Roamio Basic awhile back.
> 
> The below is for the 2TB I put in the Basic,


If that is what you are talking about then I did try that with the Bolt. It wouldn't accept any number I entered. When I would come back to the screen it would be showing the same info as before.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Hmmm... I don't know what the heck I did before, when I was sitting in front of the PC. but I just used Google Remote Desktop from my cellphone to access the PC running KMTTG. And I entered numbers for both the 500GB and 4TB Bolt and they both stuck.

So any idea what the actual storage numbers should be for 500GB and 4TB with the Bolt?


----------



## keenanSR (Oct 13, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Hmmm... I don't know what the heck I did before, when I was sitting in front of the PC. but I just used Google Remote Desktop from my cellphone to access the PC running KMTTG. And I entered numbers for both the 500GB and 4TB Bolt and they both stuck.
> 
> So any idea what the actual storage numbers should be for 500GB and 4TB with the Bolt?


That I don't know, you might post in the kmttg thread though I don't know if there's been enough experience with the Bolt file system yet to be able to determine that. The number I've used for past TiVos has always been the actual bytes, which for a 2 TB drive comes out at about 1.8 GBs. The numbers used for the various size discs have been discussed in the kmttg thread, but as I noted, nobody has much experience with the Bolt yet.

The flat number for a 4 TB drive is about 3.6 GBs(3.628) and 465 GBs for a 500 GB drive, but those numbers really aren't all that important, it's how many hours of content that fits is the number we're looking for.

I believe that number and the resulting size/space tabulations with the kmttg app are really only estimates anyway. The HD hours of storage are estimates as well. I don't think there can be an accurate accounting of how much the drive will hold given all the variables, all one can really do is fill it up(as you've done) and count up the total hours recorded and go with that. Of course, that will change depending on the content/channel/resolution/bitrate that gets recorded in the future. If you check it say every 2-3 months eventually over time you'll come up with a reasonably accurate HD hours of storage number.

<edit>

Check the below post, apparently it can tell you how much space, at least on pre-Bolt TiVos, not sure on Bolts.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10667686#post10667686


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> If that is what you are talking about then I did try that with the Bolt. It wouldn't accept any number I entered. When I would come back to the screen it would be showing the same info as before.


There is a way to get kmttg to fill in the total disk space for you. I asked in the kmttg thread, and ThAbtO responded:

"Go to the REMOTE tab, Info. Select the Tivo, if you have more than 1. Click Refresh. go back to your Tivo tab and click Usage. The space should already be filled in."

I tried that with my Roamio Plus and it seemed to work. Once you do that, then if your Bolt is 100% full, the amount of recording space used that kmttg reports in GB should tell us how many GB are _actually_ devoted to recording space out of the nominal number of GB for the Bolt in question.

Edit: if someone with a Bolt wants to make the experiment, you can record on the Bolt a reasonably large number of HD recordings from different channels. No SD at all. You don't necessarily have to get it full, because kmttg will tell you in its disk usage analysis what the total time for all recordings is. (Just be sure you use the procedure given above to have kmttg fill in the correct total disk space for your Bolt.) If you have nothing but HD material on the Bolt, the figure kmttg gives for total time is based on an analysis of the (HD-only) material on the Bolt, taking into account the fact that the different channels use different bitrates. That's why you should record a representative sample of the HD channels you actually watch, but no SD. What you would wind up with is a figure for how many HD hours you personally can expect to put on the Bolt.

Now, add in some of the SD shows you typically record, and kmttg will tell you the total time of that particular combination of HD/SD material that you can expect to put on the Bolt as you keep using it. This will be a figure that pertains, again, to your own viewing habits and would not be very comparable to that obtained by another user.

The HD-only figure would be more comparable, user to user, but would not be perfectly so. But if a number of Bolt owners did the HD-only experiment and reported back here, we could all get a better feel for the accuracy of TiVo's estimate of (say) 120 HD hours on a 1TB Bolt.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

I now have a 1TB Bolt to go with my 1TB Roamio Plus. In kmttg v2.0t (necessary to get kmttg to work with a Bolt) I used the procedure:



> Go to the REMOTE tab, click Info. Select the Tivo, if you have more than one. Click Refresh.


I did this on both of my TiVo boxes. The information displayed includes *userDiskSize*. For the Roamio Plus, it was 874.05 GB. For the Bolt, it was 891.03 GB. I interpret these figures as representing how much space can be used for recordings. The 1TB Bolt has about 2% _more_ usable space than the 1TB Roamio Plus! This is despite the fact that the Roamio Plus estimates its recording capacity to be 154 HD hours, while the Bolt estimates its capacity at 120 HD hours.

In kmttg, if you now, after doing the above:



> Go back to each of the Tivo tabs in turn and refresh the Now Playing list, then click Disk Usage for each TiVo in turn.


(Doing these two procedures in sequence fills in the correct total disk space in the disk space usage panel, so you don't have to guess at it.) For each TiVo, you will see a summary of its disk space usage. In it, kmttg computes the "recording time remaining" based on the HD and SD recordings currently on the TiVo. The result depends on the actual bitrates of the various recordings.

On my Bolt, I just have one recording right now, a 30 minute recording of an HD program. Its average bitrate, which depends on the particular cable channel, is 13.75 Mbps. So "recording time remaining" turns out to be 154h : 08m. And "total time" is 00h : 30m. Adding the two, I get 154h : 38m.

That means that if I never recorded anything other than HD material with the same 13.75 Mbps average bitrate, I'd be able to record over 154 hours.

On my Roamio Plus, with a mixture of HD and SD recordings from channels using various average bitrates, I see Total time: 518h : 55m and Recording Time Remaining: 103h : 29m. Adding these two figures gives 622h : 24m. So if I keep using the same mix of bitrates, that figure gives me how many hours I can record: over 622 hours.

This comparison is, of course, apples and oranges, since I have both HD and SD recordings on the Roamio Plus and only HD on the Bolt. I am giving it, for what it's worth, just to illustrate how anyone with a Bolt and another TiVo can make a like comparison at any time.

Anyway, the figures of merit are the respective values for *userDiskSize*. The Bolt's is larger than the Roamio Plus's! This seems to be evidence that the Bolt's estimate of 120 hours of HD recording capacity is intentionally more conservative than the Roamio Plus's of 154 HD hours.


----------



## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

The HD compression algorithms compress different types of shows differently.
TiVo uses 154 HD Hours per TB.
WeaKnees use 120 HD hours per TB.
The number of HD hours per TB varies from 120 to 154.
One vendor uses and OPTIMISTIC Marketing answer of 154 and 
the other vendor uses an Engineering Conservative or Pessimistic answer of 120.



epstewart said:


> My Roamio Plus has a 1TB hard drive and shows "up to 154 HD hours" of recording capacity. Weaknees is showing the 1TB Bolt as holding just 120 hours of HD. Does anyone know why the large discrepancy? Thanks.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

zerdian1 said:


> The HD compression algorithms compress different types of shows differently.
> TiVo uses 154 HD Hours per TB.
> WeaKnees use 120 HD hours per TB.
> The number of HD hours per TB varies from 120 to 154.
> ...


True. 120 HD hours is also the estimated HD recording time shown by the 1TB Bolt itself, so WeaKnees is not the only one being conservative with respect to the Bolt.


----------



## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

From WeaKnees:
The difference isn't the vendor, it's the hardware. TiVo doesn't claim the BOLT gets more than we do.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

I believe it's been mentioned that the size of an hour HD show varies by channel. (Forget that the shows are different. Even if they were the same.) 

ESPN's HD broadcasts for me on FiOS are typically 7 plus GB/hour.
Some of ABC's HD Broadcasts are less than 5 GB/hour.

However, (and I don't think this has been mentioned) it also varies by cable provider.

A one hour Game of Thrones broadcast on FiOS is 6.12 GB/hr
A one hour Game of Thrones broadcast on Charter in NC is 2.68 GB/hr !!!!!!

For this comparison I used episode 507 "The Gift."

For Mother's Mercy it's 6.26 GB vs 3.66 GB.


----------



## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

waynomo said:


> I believe it's been mentioned that the size of an hour HD show varies by channel. (Forget that the shows are different. Even if they were the same.) ESPN's HD broadcasts for me on FiOS are typically 7 plus GB/hour. Some of ABC's HD Broadcasts are less than 5 GB/hour. However, (and I don't think this has been mentioned) it also varies by cable provider. A one hour Game of Thrones broadcast on FiOS is 6.12 GB/hr A one hour Game of Thrones broadcast on Charter in NC is 2.68 GB/hr !!!!!! For this comparison I used episode 507 "The Gift." For Mother's Mercy it's 6.26 GB vs 3.66 GB.


That's because Charter (and TWC) suck and compress the heck outta everything!


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

waynomo said:


> A one hour Game of Thrones broadcast on Charter in NC is 2.68 GB/hr !!!!!!
> 
> For this comparison I used episode 507 "The Gift."


2.59 GB for this episode (66m recording length) recorded from HBO HD, via a Comcast franchise in downstate Illinois w/ notoriously poor HD coverage. (appallingly few HD channels, overall.)


----------



## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

waynomo said:


> I believe it's been mentioned that the size of an hour HD show varies by channel. (Forget that the shows are different. Even if they were the same.)
> 
> ESPN's HD broadcasts for me on FiOS are typically 7 plus GB/hour.
> Some of ABC's HD Broadcasts are less than 5 GB/hour.
> ...


That why TiVo never wanted to put the record time or how much disk space was left, but we all wanted that so TiVo did it, but from the above one can see how inaccurate that information TiVo provides can be.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Any info is still better than none. 

The most useful indicator imo is percentage.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

waynomo said:


> Any info is still better than none.
> 
> The most useful indicator imo is percentage.


I would point to the usefulness of *userDiskSize* as reported in GB by kmttg. (See my earlier post where I talked about it.) This parameter can be used to compare the hard drive space on (in my case) a 1TB Bolt and a 1TB Roamio Plus. The larger(!) Bolt drive can hold more recordings than the Roamio Plus, other things such as the average bitrates of the recordings being equal.

Keeping this in mind, a potential Bolt buyer might feel more comfortable than he otherwise would be with a stock 1TB Bolt, and not be spooked by the claimed 120 hrs. of HD recordings, which is a bogus number that does not take into account that different HD programs on different HD channels have widely varying bitrates.

And if he elects to buy up to a larger drive, he can be confident that nothing about the Bolt is going to "waste" any of that extra space that he is paying for.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

lessd said:


> That why TiVo never wanted to put the record time or how much disk space was left, but we all wanted that so TiVo did it, but from the above one can see how inaccurate that information TiVo provides can be.


Yes, it's inaccurate as far as the individual TiVo is concerned and it is not even comparable from one TiVo model to the next, as I have found with my Bolt and Roamio Plus. But there's no way it could be made accurate, since we know that HD recordings vary widely in bitrate from provider to provider, channel to channel, and program to program.


----------



## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

epstewart said:


> Yes, it's inaccurate as far as the individual TiVo is concerned and it is not even comparable from one TiVo model to the next, as I have found with my Bolt and Roamio Plus. But there's no way it could be made accurate, since we know that HD recordings vary widely in bitrate from provider to provider, channel to channel, and program to program.


Correct, that the point I was trying to make, TiVo never wanted to put record time on the system because of the unknowns of record space.


----------



## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

This is the info I have from a stock 500 GB Bolt:

My Shows, indicates hard drive is at 100% usage and there are no shows left in the Recently Deleted Recordings folder. 
In TiVo Desktop, when I added up all the files Approx. Size the total was; 439,530 MB (= approx. 440 GB = approx. 88% of the drive)
There are 93.5 hrs. of HD recordings & 4 hrs. of SD recordings on the disk
HD file size ranged from low of 2830 MB/hr. to high of 6860 MB/hr.
SD file size was about 1600 MB/hr.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> This is the info I have from a stock 500 GB Bolt:
> 
> My Shows, indicates hard drive is at 100% usage and there are no shows left in the Recently Deleted Recordings folder.
> In TiVo Desktop, when I added up all the files Approx. Size the total was; 439,530 MB (= approx. 440 GB = approx. 88% of the drive)
> ...


The 4 hrs of SD can be ignored, I think. Your 93.5 HD hrs compare favorably with 75 hrs claimed by TiVo online and 53 hrs stated by WeaKnees.

Does System Information on your Bolt show yet a different figure for HD recording capacity?


----------



## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

epstewart said:


> The 4 hrs of SD can be ignored, I think. Your 93.5 HD hrs compare favorably with 75 hrs claimed by TiVo online and 53 hrs stated by WeaKnees.
> 
> Does System Information on your Bolt show yet a different figure for HD recording capacity?


System Info shows Recording Capacity as: "Variable, up to 58 HD or 255 SD hours" which I believe is what concerned many people as 58 HD hrs. seems pretty low and is lower than what the Roamios where showing with a 500 GB hard drive. I no longer have a 500 GB drive in my Roamio so I can not do any type of comparison.

Based on my numbers it appears TiVo reserves something less than 60GB for the buffers and all system functions which doesn't seem out of line to me.


----------



## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> System Info shows Recording Capacity as: "Variable, up to 58 HD or 255 SD hours" which I believe is what concerned many people as 58 HD hrs. seems pretty low and is lower than what the Roamios where showing with a 500 GB hard drive. I no longer have a 500 GB drive in my Roamio so I can not do any type of comparison.
> 
> Based on my numbers it appears TiVo reserves something less than 60GB for the buffers and all system functions which doesn't seem out of line to me.


So the estimates for HD recording capacity from TiVo online, WeaKnees, and the Bolt itself are all different and vary a lot. No big surprise, as HD recording sizes are so dependent on bitrate. The "overhead" of less than 60GB for system functions and buffers is very reasonable.


----------

