TiVo Wireless G Adapter Performance

[SIGShooter]

I conducted a quick experiment with my TiVo, comparing the performance of my NETGEAR 54MBPS Wireless B 2.0 (Model WG111) adapter with a brand new TiVo Wireless G Network Adapter. It had been suggested that the TiVo adapter contained some wireless encryption offload hardware resulting in big transfer speedups.

Conclusion: the TiVo adapter is 40% faster.

Observations: I transferred a 1 hour show recorded at best quality (2.588 GB) from my TiVo Series 2 (Model 540, Software version 8.1-01-2-540) using each adapter, through my Linksys WRT54GX2 Wireless-G router (using 64 bit WEP) to my Mac Mini attached to a 10/100 Ethernet wired port on the router, using the curl command (v. 7.13.1). Wireless signal strength was good, as reported by the TiVo device.

curl reported a transfer time of 2:36:46 (281 kb/sec) for the NETGEAR and 1:51:08 (397 kb/sec) for the TiVo adapter.

Command syntax used was as follows:
curl -c cook -n -L -o foo.TiVo --digest "htp://192.168.1.102/download/ProgramName.TiVo?Container=/NowPlaying&id=id_number"

My $HOME/.netrc file looks like:
machine 192.168.1.102 login tivo password My_MEDIA_ACCESS_KEY

I received a second TiVo - a Dual Tuner (Model 649) for Christmas, and intend to repeat the experiment after buying a second TiVo adapter from Amazon ($45).

Mike

[greg_burns]

Make sure your Tivo isn't busy doing anything or it won't be a fair test. Seen suggestions of changing to a channel you don't receive so it is not even recording the live buffer.

[TydalForce]

Excellent experiment, nice to see some sample numbers for comparison....

[Mover480]

My 649 DT with a wired ethernet connection does 1MB/s through a Linksys WRT54G router. On wireless, with a dlink DWL122 adapter from my other 565 S2 I get about the same a the OP... 275 KB/s.

[donchanger]

I have one S2 and one S2DT. On my S2, I would get roughly 300 KB/sec with a DLink wifi (G) adapter, and now get about 500 KB/sec with the Tivo adapter. I was pretty pleased with that, so I went and got a second Tivo adapter for the S2DT.

I was very pleased (!) to get roughly 850 to 900 KB/sec on the DT. This is despite the Tivo reporting only "marginal" (45-50%) signal strength.

In all cases, I transfer with the Tivo unit in standby. I don't bother changing the channel.

I also have the same problem as many other people, being unable to transfer from the S2 if the cable box had to change channels. I have not (yet, not tried many times) had that problem with the S2DT.

[worachj]

500 KB/sec for a 540 S2 Tivo with Tivo adapter and Tivo in standby, 400 KB/sec when Tivo is not in standby.

[ACraigL]

I average about 700KB/sec using a Belkin Pre-N router with a Netgear WGE101 wireless bridge. Been as high as 840kB/sec with TiVo on non-channel.