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View Full Version : TiVo Ethernet Card Speed?

reub
06-05-2008, 04:39 PM
Hi all,

Apologies if this has been covered, but I couldn't find it via search.

Does anyone know the speed of the wired ethernet cards within the Series 3 TiVo and/or TiVoHD boxes?
NA9D
06-05-2008, 05:08 PM
They are 100BT cards but you don't get that sort of transfer rate from the Tivo...
reub
06-05-2008, 05:22 PM
They are 100BT cards but you don't get that sort of transfer rate from the Tivo...

Thanks - that's what I was looking for.

I'm aware that the CPU is the gating factor for transfer speeds because it's working on encrypting/decrypting the video stream, just trying to plan out some home networking.
BH9244
10-17-2009, 11:24 AM
I Have a Tivo XL, anyone know the ethernet transfer specs on this. I just changed my connection from the wireless adaptor to hardwired ethernet and don't see a noticable increase in the speed of transfer ?

Continuing with that thought are there any plans for a "N" wireless adaptor or would that not improve things anyway ?.

Thanks for any input..
SNJpage1
10-17-2009, 12:26 PM
I have a ser 2 and a HD hardwired to my network. If you want to know if it can live stream between them the speed just misses it for live streaming between them. I can watch about 5 minutes and then it needs to transfer more.
lafos
10-17-2009, 02:22 PM
That really depends on which Series 2 unit you have. The earliest units had no ethernet connector and used USB 1.1 with an external adapter. The DT units have 100 mbit ethernet installed. As pointed out in the 3rd post, the CPU can be the limiting factor. The slowest was in the 540 series 2.

With S3 and HD TiVos connected on 1Gbit ethernet, I see >30 mbs transfer rates. It is about half that on an HD connected by the TiVo wireless adapter.

With MRV, there is less CPU overhead than TTG, which runs at only 12 mbps on my network.
SNJpage1
10-17-2009, 03:02 PM
Yes the ser 2 was hard wired by way of a USB adapter. I was using the tivo wireless adapter but was running some cat 5 to another room near by and decided to run a piece to the ser2 and go all wired.
westside_guy
10-17-2009, 03:13 PM
Continuing with that thought are there any plans for a "N" wireless adaptor or would that not improve things anyway ?.

On an uncongested network, an 802.11n adapter for the Tivo is not going to speed transfers up at all (compared to the current 802.11g adapter).

Having said that, there are tangible non-Tivo-related benefits in having an 802.11n home network, especially if you use the 5GHz band exclusively instead of the 2.4GHz band. Many of us have made that move already; but since Tivo still only offers a 802.11g adapter, we're either stuck with keeping an extra base station around, or else running our 802.11n networks in 802.11b/g compatibility mode, which slows down the maximum transfer rates on the network.

I personally have my 802.11n network running 5GHz only, and am using an older 802.11b/g base station acting as a bridge (more or less) for a few older devices that need that network. My Tivo, though, is connected via ethernet to a 100/1000 switch that's hooked up to an 802.11n Airport Express (set in "client mode").
ShoutingMan
10-21-2009, 09:03 PM
What are "good" and "typical" transfer times via wireless?

I've got one Tivo HD on 100 mbit ethernet through a wireless router; the other with Tivo WiFi adapter. It seems to take about 3 hrs to transfer a 1 hr HD program. The wireless Tivo gives 65%-75% (good) connection rating.

I've just started looking into this, and I've not yet found a way to get a read on the transfer rate on my network.
lessd
10-22-2009, 03:37 PM
What are "good" and "typical" transfer times via wireless?

I've got one Tivo HD on 100 mbit ethernet through a wireless router; the other with Tivo WiFi adapter. It seems to take about 3 hrs to transfer a 1 hr HD program. The wireless Tivo gives 65%-75% (good) connection rating.

I've just started looking into this, and I've not yet found a way to get a read on the transfer rate on my network.

After any xfer the TiVo will give you the speed of that xfer (under networks) in the TiVo menu. My max speed from a wired TiVo S3 orignal to a wireless S3 orignal is about 22Mb/sec. That is faster than 1 to 1. When I xfer from a TiVo-HD wireless to a S3 wireless the speed drops in half.
ShoutingMan
10-22-2009, 07:06 PM
Thanks, I'll check that menu.

Part of our confusion is SD vs HD. SD transfers wirelessly about about realtime, 1:1. HD transfers slowly, about 2.5:1
spocko
10-22-2009, 07:55 PM
There is some good info about throughput for video transfer to/from the Tivo HD and S3 in the "Download Recordings" and "View Computer Videos" sections of bkdtv's excellent FAQ:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7097289#post7097289

Read the numbers carefully. In some cases "Mbps" is referring to the encoded bit rate of the video. In other cases it is referring to the network transfer rate ("throughput").

For example, this line is talking about encoded bit rate:
MPEG-2 (MPEG, MPG, MP2, VOB), MPEG-4 (MP4), and certain VC1AP (WMV) video files are supported at up to ~30Mbps.

And this is talking about network transfer rate ("throughput"):
"Push" transfer throughput is limited to ~20Mbps for MPEG-4 and VC1AP videos, but only ~8Mbps for MPEG-2 videos. Other video types, such as DIVX and XVID, must be converted to MPEG-2 on the fly, and are thereby limited to ~8Mbps throughput.

Also keep in mind that throughput is typically lower when using a wireless network connection.