Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Greetings All!

When I connected my Series 2 Tivos some years back for HMO, I went
with wired to get all the throughput I could from the USB 1.1 NIC's.
Now that wifi is up to 802.11g and beyond, would it make sense to
switch to wireless while I'm in the process of adding another Tivo? I
know I'll have to put out the cash for replacement NIC's and a new
router, but I'm really not looking forward to fishing more Cat 5
cable, especially if the wireless throughput will measure up. The
maximum distance from the router would be about 20 ft. through a
cement block wall. Thanks in advance!

-Barry

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

In article <7f4g11lf8og8nvuap023odkakkth3paldr@4ax.com>,
babeckns@nszoominternet.net says...
> Greetings All!
>
> When I connected my Series 2 Tivos some years back for HMO, I went
> with wired to get all the throughput I could from the USB 1.1 NIC's.
> Now that wifi is up to 802.11g and beyond, would it make sense to
> switch to wireless while I'm in the process of adding another Tivo? I
> know I'll have to put out the cash for replacement NIC's and a new
> router, but I'm really not looking forward to fishing more Cat 5
> cable, especially if the wireless throughput will measure up. The
> maximum distance from the router would be about 20 ft. through a
> cement block wall. Thanks in advance!
>
> -Barry
>


You won't notice a difference.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Barry" <babeckns@nszoominternet.net> wrote in message
news:7f4g11lf8og8nvuap023odkakkth3paldr@4ax.com...
> Greetings All!
>
> When I connected my Series 2 Tivos some years back for HMO, I went
> with wired to get all the throughput I could from the USB 1.1 NIC's.
> Now that wifi is up to 802.11g and beyond, would it make sense to
> switch to wireless while I'm in the process of adding another Tivo? I
> know I'll have to put out the cash for replacement NIC's and a new
> router, but I'm really not looking forward to fishing more Cat 5
> cable, especially if the wireless throughput will measure up. The
> maximum distance from the router would be about 20 ft. through a
> cement block wall. Thanks in advance!
>
> -Barry

I don't think Tivo currently supports 11g but maybe that's changed in the
last couple of months. I use my Tivo with an 11b USB adapter and my
broadband (wireless) connection. It works just fine. Transfering Tivo
programming with T2G is still slow but I don't think a wired connection
would have a significant impact on improving the transfer speeds.

TC

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:19:38 GMT, "Tony Clark"
<curiousgeorge1964@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I don't think Tivo currently supports 11g but maybe that's changed in the
>last couple of months. I use my Tivo with an 11b USB adapter and my
>broadband (wireless) connection. It works just fine. Transfering Tivo
>programming with T2G is still slow but I don't think a wired connection
>would have a significant impact on improving the transfer speeds.


I thought a USB 2.0 wired ethernet adaptor was all the rage...?
Don't they plug the 802.11g access points into them and really up the
speed?

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"kryppy" <kryppy@gmail.cc> wrote in message
news:3cts11tpq7kh805k9kim9vmkl5h6uon0im@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:19:38 GMT, "Tony Clark"
> <curiousgeorge1964@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I don't think Tivo currently supports 11g but maybe that's changed in the
>>last couple of months. I use my Tivo with an 11b USB adapter and my
>>broadband (wireless) connection. It works just fine. Transfering Tivo
>>programming with T2G is still slow but I don't think a wired connection
>>would have a significant impact on improving the transfer speeds.
>
>
> I thought a USB 2.0 wired ethernet adaptor was all the rage...?
> Don't they plug the 802.11g access points into them and really up the
> speed?

I have been informed that there are at least 2 11g adapters that are
supported by Tivo, or at least they are known to work. My understanding is
that Tivo 2 does not have USB 2.0 so there's no gain there. It has been
suggested that with USB 1.1 you won't see a significant improvement with 11g
over 11b but I have never personally tested that theory so YMMV.

Cheers
TC

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 02:03:32 GMT, "Tony Clark"
<curiousgeorge1964@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>"kryppy" <kryppy@gmail.cc> wrote in message
>news:3cts11tpq7kh805k9kim9vmkl5h6uon0im@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:19:38 GMT, "Tony Clark"
>> <curiousgeorge1964@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I don't think Tivo currently supports 11g but maybe that's changed in the
>>>last couple of months. I use my Tivo with an 11b USB adapter and my
>>>broadband (wireless) connection. It works just fine. Transfering Tivo
>>>programming with T2G is still slow but I don't think a wired connection
>>>would have a significant impact on improving the transfer speeds.
>>
>>
>> I thought a USB 2.0 wired ethernet adaptor was all the rage...?
>> Don't they plug the 802.11g access points into them and really up the
>> speed?
>
>I have been informed that there are at least 2 11g adapters that are
>supported by Tivo, or at least they are known to work. My understanding is
>that Tivo 2 does not have USB 2.0 so there's no gain there. It has been
>suggested that with USB 1.1 you won't see a significant improvement with 11g
>over 11b but I have never personally tested that theory so YMMV.
>
>Cheers
>TC

Thanks TC - OP here.

I believe you are correct here that the USB 1.1 we're stuck with on
the Series 2 units is the bottleneck to be concerned about. I had
originally used wired connections to get as much of the USB 1.1
throughput as possible because I thought that 802.11b throughput was
somewhat less than the theoretical max for USB 1.1. Now that wireless
has progressed to 802.11g and beyond I thought I might switch to
wireless instead of fishing more cat 5 cable for my newest Tivo.

The only thing I haven't done is make a trip to the Tivo web site and
see if any USB->802.11g NIC's have been shown to work.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Tony Clark wrote:

> My understanding is
> that Tivo 2 does not have USB 2.0 so there's no gain there. It has
been
> suggested that with USB 1.1 you won't see a significant improvement
with 11g
> over 11b but I have never personally tested that theory so YMMV.


if USB 1.1 is the bottleneck, then wired ethernet and wireless g should
be running at about the same speed. It seems like that is not the case
and therefore I think that it is tivos wireless implementation that is
causing the slow speeds.


Mike Cardeiro

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

In article <1109350597.798999.149230@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
<"mcardeiro@yahoo.com"> wrote:

> Tony Clark wrote:
>
> > My understanding is
> > that Tivo 2 does not have USB 2.0 so there's no gain there. It has
> been
> > suggested that with USB 1.1 you won't see a significant improvement
> with 11g
> > over 11b but I have never personally tested that theory so YMMV.
>
>
> if USB 1.1 is the bottleneck, then wired ethernet and wireless g should
> be running at about the same speed. It seems like that is not the case
> and therefore I think that it is tivos wireless implementation that is
> causing the slow speeds.
>
>
> Mike Cardeiro

Maybe there's a little confusion here. Comparing (nominal) data
transfer speeds between various protocols yields the following (from
slow to faster):

128 kbps ISDN Dual Channel
640 kbps ADSL (up to 3 Mbps)
720 kbps Bluetooth wireless PAN (2.4 GHz band)
2 Mbps Cable Modem (avg. depending on subscriber load)
10 Mbps 10Base-T Ethernet
11 Mbps Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b, 2.4 GHz band)
12 Mbps Universal Serial Bus (USB)
54 Mbps Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11a, 5 GHz band)
54 Mbps Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11g, 2.4 GHz band)
100 Mbps 100Base-T Ethernet (Fast Ethernet)
100 Mbps Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11n)
480 Mbps USB 2.0
400 Mbps FireWire (IEEE 1394A)
800 Mbps FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394B)
1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet


Of course, most of these are maxed; real world numbers are slower,
except perhaps for firewire -- still slower, but throughput faster than
USB.

For internet access, of course, anything on the LAN side of a cable
modem is going to be so much faster than the internet connection that
the cable modem is always goping to be the slowest part of the chain.

Transferring large files on a LAN from a USB 1.xx port makes the choice
of 802.11a or g moot, as the wireless LAN is always going to be much
faster. Nobody ever got 11Mbps with 802.11b -- more like 5 or 6 Mbps,
so USB 1.xx which might attain 6 or 7Mbps will be faster than b, but
not nearly as fast as 11a or 11g, which realistically may achieve
40Mbps.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 23:52:55 -0500, Barry wrote:

> would it make sense to switch to wireless while I'm in the process of
> adding another Tivo?

Basically, no.

The main draw of wireless is portability. Since the TiVo itself is
tethered by a number of things other than an Ethernet cable, there really
isn't much benefit to be had from wireless.

If you want to spend more money on a less secure network, to save only the
hassle of running a single cable, go right ahead. But it doesn't make a
lot of sense in my book.

--
Lenroc

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

In article <1109350597.798999.149230@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, mcardeiro@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Tony Clark wrote:
>
>> My understanding is
>> that Tivo 2 does not have USB 2.0 so there's no gain there. It has
> been
>> suggested that with USB 1.1 you won't see a significant improvement
> with 11g
>> over 11b but I have never personally tested that theory so YMMV.
>
>
> if USB 1.1 is the bottleneck, then wired ethernet and wireless g should
> be running at about the same speed. It seems like that is not the case
> and therefore I think that it is tivos wireless implementation that is
> causing the slow speeds.

Since no one else has mentioned it: TiVo has working USB 2.0 as of
Version 7.1 (on all Series 2 except the very early ones with model
numbers of the form 1xx (eg 140)). It almost doubles the speed of MRV
(Multi-Room-Viewing) transfers but has almost no effect on TiVoToGo
transfers, where the TiVo CPU is the bottleneck.

Obviously the CPU is the bottleneck even for the MRV transfers given
that the speed only doubles. 11g MRV transfers are slower than wired,
supporting the Tivo CPU as the bottleneck.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Lenroc <lenroc@NOSPAMFORYOU.hotmail.com> wrote:

> The main draw of wireless is portability. Since the TiVo itself is
> tethered by a number of things other than an Ethernet cable, there really
> isn't much benefit to be had from wireless.
>
> If you want to spend more money on a less secure network, to save only the
> hassle of running a single cable, go right ahead. But it doesn't make a
> lot of sense in my book.

Depends on your layout. My TV room is 2 floors up and on the opposite
side of a large house from my office where my computers are. I already
have a WiFi station in the house to allow me to use my laptop in the
garden, so setting up a WiFi connection to the TiVo would make great
sense if performance were sufficient.

Alas, I have a HD TiVo for DirecTV, so no TiVo-to-go, and thus no WiFi.
:-(

--
- Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> Since no one else has mentioned it: TiVo has working USB 2.0 as of
> Version 7.1 (on all Series 2 except the very early ones with model
> numbers of the form 1xx (eg 140)). It almost doubles the speed of MRV
> (Multi-Room-Viewing) transfers but has almost no effect on TiVoToGo
> transfers, where the TiVo CPU is the bottleneck.
>
> Obviously the CPU is the bottleneck even for the MRV transfers given
> that the speed only doubles. 11g MRV transfers are slower than wired,
> supporting the Tivo CPU as the bottleneck.
>

Umm, actually, I believe I did, but you were more specific.

Randy S.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 23:52:55 -0500, Barry <babeckns@nszoominternet.net>
wrote:

>Greetings All!
>
>When I connected my Series 2 Tivos some years back for HMO, I went
>with wired to get all the throughput I could from the USB 1.1 NIC's.
>Now that wifi is up to 802.11g and beyond, would it make sense to
>switch to wireless while I'm in the process of adding another Tivo? I
>know I'll have to put out the cash for replacement NIC's and a new
>router, but I'm really not looking forward to fishing more Cat 5
>cable, especially if the wireless throughput will measure up. The
>maximum distance from the router would be about 20 ft. through a
>cement block wall. Thanks in advance!
>
>-Barry

I'm not sure what is happening with my wireless TiVo system. After
replacing the USB/11b adapter with a combination of USB/Ethernet and an
11G wireless Ethernet Game adapter I saw a dramatic improvement in MRV
transfers. The transfers easily stayed ahead of viewing. Then the TTG
update occurred and transfers became a little slower than viewing. More
recently, there have been additional updates to TiVo and the transfer rate
is now very slow.

I haven't looked into the performance of the 11G Game Adapter to see if
something has degraded there. I just thought I'd wait awhile and see if
yet additional updates might help.

Anyone else have this experience?

LB