super slow pulls..how to remedy?

You should still be able to start watching it almost immediately before the transfer is finished. You mentioned a 1.5 hour show transferring in 16 minutes with wifi so in the first minute you should have almost 6 minutes of show transferred.

Scott

 

Where are you getting that number?

 

Maybe I missed it but if you're using pyTivo, I didn't see any mention your having added "ts = on" to the pyTivo settings so that compatible videos are only remuxed rather than transcoded.

 

You can either add it using the browser interface - from the main local pyTivo page -

Settings->Global Server Settings->Add a Setting

or

edit pyTivo.conf and add

ts = on

to the [Server] section

then stop and restart pyTivo.

Note: This only works for Series 4 or later TiVos.

 

I don't recall for sure, but didn't transport stream get added to a recent release as a default a few months ago? That if you don't have anything in the .conf file the default action now was ts=auto?

 

Yes. Although "auto" is subtly different from "on".

 

It will decrease the total transfer time if it makes it smaller and is in a supported format.

 

If converting, wrap the compatible h264/ac3 codecs in a .ts container and avoid "on the fly" transcoding altogether:

Code:

...
2017-01-12 06:36:56,428 INFO  pyTivo: 192.168.1.20 [12/Jan/2017 06:36:56] "GET /TiVoConnect?Command=QueryFormats&SourceFormat=video%2Fx-tivo-mpeg-ts HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2017-01-12 06:37:02,397 DEBUG pyTivo.video.transcode: CACHE HIT! \\sy-6ba-100\Disk2\ToTivo\Downloaded\TV\Mr Pickles\Mr Pickles.S01E01.ts
2017-01-12 06:37:02,397 DEBUG pyTivo.video.transcode: TRANSCODE=NO, all compatible, \\sy-6ba-100\Disk2\ToTivo\Downloaded\TV\Mr Pickles\Mr Pickles.S01E01.ts
2017-01-12 06:37:02,397 INFO  pyTivo: 192.168.1.20 [12/Jan/2017 06:37:02] "GET /AToTivoTV/Mr%20Pickles/Mr%20Pickles.S01E01.ts?Format=video%2Fx-tivo-mpeg-ts HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2017-01-12 06:37:02,397 INFO  pyTivo.video.video: [12/Jan/2017 06:37:02] Start sending "\\sy-6ba-100\Disk2\ToTivo\Downloaded\TV\Mr Pickles\Mr Pickles.S01E01.ts" to TivoS4
2017-01-12 06:37:02,397 DEBUG pyTivo.video.video: "\\sy-6ba-100\Disk2\ToTivo\Downloaded\TV\Mr Pickles\Mr Pickles.S01E01.ts" is tivo compatible
2017-01-12 06:38:08,476 INFO  pyTivo.video.video: [12/Jan/2017 06:38:08] Done sending "\\sy-6ba-100\Disk2\ToTivo\Downloaded\TV\Mr Pickles\Mr Pickles.S01E01.ts" to TivoS4, 413471408 bytes, 47.74 Mb/s

 

To copy from a command window, click on upper left corner, select edit->mark, click and drag to mark the text, then edit->copy.

 

I made several attempts at converting some .MP4 files with the following specs (from VLC Codec info) using ffmpeg version N-82966-g6993bb4:
Stream 0
Type: Video
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 640x386
Display resolution: 640x360
Frame rate: 29.970000
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

Stream 1
Type: Audio
Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
Channels: Stereo
Sample rate: 48000 Hz

No luck in getting a transfer without conversion to a much larger size. I did try with the ts=on setting. Any advice on the correct ffmpeg parameters to convert to a TiVo compatible .ts file ?

Thanks

 

Are you certain that it is being transcoded and not just re-muxed?

What orangeboy was suggesting was that when you do the conversion, put it in a ts container, although what it avoids on the transfer is re-muxing rather than transcoding.

H.264 recordings in an MP4 (or MKV for that matter) container do not have to be transcoded when being pulled to an S4 or later, merely re-muxed.

 

Sounds like maybe those movies have some kind of naming issue if adding them make the others disappear. What are the file names for the ones that are causing the other movies to disappear?

Scott

 

Thanks for the info. I updated my setup to use the latest "wmcbrine" build and ffmpeg and it is being remuxed as you suggested. With my previous version and config, I was seeing the filesize on the TiVo as up to 10 times the filesize of the original .MP4 file. I did not have this problem when I could use the "push" option but as we all know, that option appears to be history, so I moved on.

I still saw an increase in filesize but it appears to be due to the audio being converted from AAC to AC3.

Here is some info from my debug logging:

Stream mapping:
Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> ac3 (native))

ts/s speed= 126x
video:78257kB audio:223083kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB m
uxing overhead: 14.877426%
INFO : pyTivo.video.video:[13/Jan/2017 22:48:48] Done sending "I:\Video Projects\T
WIT TV Shows\This Week In Enterprise Tech\twiet0222_h264b_640x368_256.mp4" to 19
2.168.1.16, 354479828 bytes, 82.69 Mb/s

The original filesize of my .MP4 was 126 MB (132,581,628 bytes). It appears that the audio conversion caused the size increase. Still much better at a factor of only about 3X original size.

The transfer speed was very good. My old setup was definitely causing a transcode as it would take almost the time length of the .MP4 file to pull from the PC to the TiVo Roamio.

Much happier with this result.