Fix for TTCB corrupted transfers

[wgw]

I think I may have found a way to get .tivo and compatible mpegs to transfer back to the Tivo without pixelation and fast forwarding playback issues. The trick is to limit the data transfer rate below 8mbps. I've only tested a couple 8 minute HD clips of Las Vegas so far but it appears to work. Both had playback problems when transferred at 16mbps, and played with only one glitch when transferred at 7.2mbps. I suspect that lowering the transfer rate even more will get rid of the last glitch.

I think the best way to limit the transfer speed to the Tivo is to use a bandwidth limiter like BWMeter. I configured BWMeter to limit uploads to my Tivo IP's to 0.9 MB per second, which correlates to 7.2mbps. The Netlimiter2 software didn't work well because it blocked the TivoServer from showing up in the NPL and Bandwidth Controller allowed lots of transfer peaks as high as 17mbps which resulted in playback problems.

You can also limit the transfer rate by changing the advanced settings of the network card and set the Link Speed to 10mbps. But that limits all transfers, not just those made to the Tivo. For wireless, you would configure the computers wireless network card or the router to use only 11b instead of 11g.

[YupYup]

I think you may be on to something, and I wanted to try it this weekend, but got a BSOD in XP-pro on my PC while installing BWMeter. Did you have any problems getting this app installed and running?

[wgw]

No, no problems. I'm running XP Pro with McAfee Antivirus Enterprise and Windows Firewall. You might try uninstalling or disabling firewall and antivirus software to see if that helps. And then reinstall after installing BWMeter.

[Laserfan]

The trick is to limit the data transfer rate below 8mbps. I've only tested a couple 8 minute HD clips of Las Vegas so farVery interesting indeed--a problem in the Tivo's ethernet hw/fw/sw? I haven't had a chance to test this yet--have you been able to do more testing wgw?

[YupYup]

Ok, I've given up on BWMeter, I see other folks on the web have had problems getting it installed, and when it craps out like it did for me, you end up with a partial install that is near impossible to clean up. :mad: So I simply abandonned it as is, and disabled the drivers it installed via the MS hardware manager.

I downloaded NetLimiter 2 (Lite) and it installed painlessly. I too had problems with it not actually slowing down the transfers from the PC to my S3s, until I noticed that the tool declares different "zones" and by default you are looking at / tweaking the "internet" zone. I then tried "my computer" and that zone also had no effect (when setting a limit on the outgoing side of "tivoserver.exe"). Finally I tried "local network", and shazzam! it started slowing down the transfer rate. The first full show that I tried was an episode of Smallville that had played terribly on both S3s when transferred previously, so with the limit set to 1000 Kbyte/sec, the transfer took longer than before (of course), but the result was wonderful, I only observed one minor glitch in the entire show. :)

Yes, I too quickly found out that when a limit is "on" for tivoserver, my PC will disappear from the TiVo's "Now Playing List" :( , but the work-around I'm currently using is to leave the limit "off", navigate the TiVo NPL to my PC and select the show I want to transfer. Before hitting "select" on the "start transfer" option, I turn "on" the limit on my PC for "tivoserver.exe", and then hit "select" on the TiVo remote. The transfer starts and will complete, even though the PC no longer appears in the TiVo's NPL. :rolleyes:

I then tried a HD mpeg2 video file I had gotten some time ago from a friend, which had also been terrible on a previous transfer, and used the same limit value. The file tranferred and later, when attempting to watch it, it looked great for the first 2 hours, and then it suddenly went into severe pixelization. :confused: The show was 9600 seconds in length (TiVo's play bar display for non-TiVo source material), and started pixelating exactly at 7230 seconds. Its like something got hosed after 2 hours, as the rest of the show was pixelated, yet there wasn't a single glitch in those first 2 hours.

I had forgotten the details in the initial "wgw" post, so next time I'll try with a lower limit, as my limit (as displayed by NetLimiter was 7.81Mbps) seemed to work pretty well, until that 2 hour mark, for some reason, so I'll see if I get a better result with a slower rate. I really don't care that I can't watch in real-time, I just want to be able to retrieve the shows that I've archived.

Thanks wgw, for suggesting this! :up:

[wgw]

I'm glad to hear this worked for you as well. It's been working quite well for my transfers as long the source is free of glitches.

Activity on the tivo during the transfer such as jumping around the menus and paging up and down the NPL still seems to interrupt the transfer stream sometimes and introduce an occasional glitch. But it's hard to reproduce.

Try doing a VideoReDo Quickstream fix on the 9600 second program to see if it will fix any glitches in the source.

[lrhorer]

I really don't care that I can't watch in real-time, I just want to be able to retrieve the shows that I've archived.

I definitely do, because my main use for TTCB is to have guests over and watch a movie. There simply isn't enough space on the TiVo. My Series III in the theater has a full 2TB - just below the limit of 2.2TB - of drive space and is absolutely 100% full as it is with copy protected movies. Without TTCB, the number of choices my guests have is severely limited, and there is no way they want to select a movie and then wait around an hour or more so they won't have to have multiple interruptions while watching the movie while we wait for the TiVo to transfer more of the movie.

[bicker]

I'm interested in pursuing this solution, though I'm wondering if perhaps routers have the ability to control this? I have QoS controls...

[YupYup]

Try doing a VideoReDo Quickstream fix on the 9600 second program to see if it will fix any glitches in the source.

Ok, I downloaded the trial version of VideoReDo's TV Suite, and ran Quickstream Fix on the 9600 second movie I've been experimenting with, the result was that the file that was produced would not transfer to my S3. The file played OK on my PC (as did the original file), but shortly after starting the transfer, it would stop. I'm talking about a time period of less than a minute. Tried this several times, with different, and even "no" throttling by NetLimiter2, and still no success.

Just to see if the result I had with the throttled original transfer was a fluke, I transferred itr again, and got the same result. At 7230 seconds, I went from great to pixelization.

So I tried something else... I used VideoReDo and split the file a few seconds before the pixelization cuts in, and sent that final part of the movie to my S3 (using my previous NetLimiter2 throttle of 1000 KB/sec). On the first attempt, the file transfer ran a long time, and when it completed, I found that it was not in my NPL on the S3. Checking the ToDo list log, it said there was an error on the transfer. So I tried again, and this time started playing the file as the transfer proceeded, and hit pause a couple of minutes into the show, and left it that way until the tranfer completed. When I exitted from playing the show, it remained in my NPL. The final result was that final segment of the movie did transfer, had a few minor glitches of pixelization, but was entirely watchable.

I'm suspecting that TiVo, when attempting to transfer a MPEG file, since it isn't able to determine the size of the final product, reserves a 2 hour buffer, and if the transfer exceeds that length, it has to dynamically allocate additional space as the transfer proceeds. My guess is that the work of doing that causes it to fall behind on processing the incoming stream, and the result is a terribly pixelated show from that point on.

So for now, I'll keep experimenting with splitting MPEG shows that are over 2 hours in length, into chunks under that limit. I also have not gone back and tried a 1080i TiVo originated show and transfer it back while using NetLimiter2, to see if that clears up the pixelization I was having on those files.

[wgw]

I can transfer 3 hour .mpg's with no problem. It still sounds like the original file was damaged in some way that the tivo did not like. PC software players may be more forgiving than the tivo. Splitting the file with VideoReDo may have helped correct the error. The tivo may not have liked the way the original was ripped, split, cut, joined, encoded or renamed.