Tivo Desktop Plus 2.4 vs. Tivo.net vs. pyTivo

[Bluesfan77]

I might have missed it in my search, so I will ask...

Has anyone done a head-to-head-to-head comparison of Tivo Desktop Plus 2.4, Tivo.net and pyTivo? I'm curious how they all match up.

The main issue I'm concerned with is conversion/transfer times. Which of the three does the best job? I understand that Tivo Desktop Plus doesn't do as many formats, but for the formats it does do, how do those conversions compare to the other two programs?

I'm trying to decided which of the three to go with. I've tried Tivo.net, but have yet to try pyTivo or pay for "Plus". I figure if someone else has already done all the legwork, I'd ask and see.

TIA

[Bluesfan77]

Was this covered elsewhere and I missed it in a search? If so, could someone point me to the post that I must have missed?

[morac]

It was sort of covered, but the comparison's are kind of easy:

TiVo Desktop Plus - Can serve tivo and mp2 files. Can convert wmv, mov and mp4 files on the fly and send it to the TiVo. It does not display sub-folders. Works well from my testing.

Tivo.net - Can convert nearly any video format on the fly. It does work with subfolders, but the 8.3 software broke this feature. It seems to work well from my testing, but it has some issues with transfers being deleted or truncated when transfered. It currently isn't being maintained.

pyTivo - Same features as Tivo.Net, but it has been fixed to prevent the deletion and truncation of transfers. Also suffers from the subfolder issue, but there is a partial work around. It is currently being maintained. Requires Python to be installed.

[dlfl]

Excellent summary Morac.
I would add there is a Wiki for pyTivo (http://pytivo.armooo.net/) and it will transfer TiVo-compatible mpeg2's and .tivo files without transcoding. Installing Python is relatively painless and definitely harmless. The Wiki gives instructions.

Also, Tivo.Net is GUI-orented. It can be configured and operated via a HTTP connection, i.e., a browser. pyTivo is configured by a fairly simple text file. It can run as a program or a service.

[Bluesfan77]

Thanks.

@morac:
Which of the three do you use? Or do you use certain ones for certain files?

@everyone:
I would assume that pyTivo and Tivo.net (both using ffmpeg) convert a file in about the same length of time? So in that respect they'd be equal? How does that compare to the conversion time with Tivo Desktop Plus?

[morac]

I actually don't do much transferring of shows from my PC to my TiVo. I have too many SP's to catch up on to watch PC videos. :)

Conversion time for all 3 is not an issue since the video is streamed as it is being converted. I have a Pentium M 1.87 GHz laptop and a 802.11g wireless connection and I'm able to start watching video almost immediately with any of the 3 above programs and am able to watch without having to stop and wait.

[KRKeegan]

Transfer time to your TiVo depends on a couple things:
1. Network Speed
2. CPU Speed
a. Transcoding
b. Bitrate

For most people the network speed will not be the limiting factor. However, if you want to get shows to transfer live or faster than live you may want to consider a wired ethernet connect at 100mbps. 802.11b was not fast enough for me. I did not have a chance to try 802.11g but I suspect the spotty issues with wireless will always cause some issues.

The main bottleneck is the CPU and simple the transcoding rate. Of course limiting other running applications will help this. But also altering the encoding bitrate will help too. If you have a slower CPU lowing the encoding rate will speed up the conversion time. This of course starts to lower image quality, but most people will not notice the difference between superhigh and medium bitrate.

pyTivo and TiVo.net both have the ability to alter bitrate. TiVo Desktop does not.

For a frame of reference I run a linux machine at 3000Mhz and I can convert a show at about 120% so about 20% faster than live. I can select a show give TiVo 10 seconds to request the file and start immediately without any skipping.

[Tobashadow]

Speed wise with pytivo with my setup.

Running a windows xp box at 2ghz and 512mb ram just for dealing with the Tivo's 95% of it's time.

802.11b connection.

I can select a file and give it about a 3-5 min headstart (good time to get drink and snack etc.) then hit play and i maybe one out of twenty times ever hit the head of the transfer.

[morac]

Oh, there is one other limiting factor for transfer speed.

The 540 series boxes transfer at about 1/2 the speed as 240 series ones. It has something to do with the USB chipset used. So if you have a 540 TiVo it will be slower. TiVo's with built in ethernet ports should be faster.

My current setup on my 240 is to have it connected via a linksys USB200M wired network adaptor to a wireless 802.11g bridge. The transfer speeds I see are slightly faster than real time using TiVo Desktop. pyTivo and TiVo.net transfer speeds depend on quality settings.