Is there a way to network with TiVo and second computer?

AKA gray asphalt wrote:

computer because the router doesn't have gigabit bandwidth.
Yes, the two computers are connected by a cross over cable.

A crossover cable by itself does not go at gigabit speeds.

It's pretty weird to transfer a 1 Gig file in about 6 minutes between
computers and 1.5 hrs. from TiVo to computer.

1,000 MB * 8 b/B = 8000 megabits. 8000/(6*60) = 23 megabits/sec.
The two NICs connected via crossover cable are running in 100 Mbps mode.
Purchasing a gigabit switch will make things different.
-Joe

Joe Smith wrote:
AKA gray asphalt wrote:

computer because the router doesn't have gigabit bandwidth.

Yes, the two computers are connected by a cross over cable.


A crossover cable by itself does not go at gigabit speeds.

It's pretty weird to transfer a 1 Gig file in about 6 minutes between
computers and 1.5 hrs. from TiVo to computer.


1,000 MB * 8 b/B = 8000 megabits. 8000/(6*60) = 23 megabits/sec.
The two NICs connected via crossover cable are running in 100 Mbps mode.
Purchasing a gigabit switch will make things different.
-Joe

You're probably correct, I don't think 2 directly connected NIC's will
autonegotiate to Gigabit speeds. I would think it ought to be possible
to set them manually to that rate, yes? I don't see any reason that a
switch would be required to operate at Gigabit speeds.

Randy S.

How, please. Is it a hardware hack? Someone wrote that
it can be done by telnet but I doubt it.

"Randy S." wrote in message ...

Given AKA's clarifications, I agree with Greg's advice. Note that Mike's point is also correct, the Tivo's transfer speed is not
limited by the network speed, but by the CPU-limited encryption. Hacked boxes that don't encrypt are much faster.

RandY S.


Can a Series 2 be hacked to avoid encryption?



Absolutely.

Randy S.

"Randy S." wrote in message ...
Joe Smith wrote:
AKA gray asphalt wrote:

computer because the router doesn't have gigabit bandwidth.

Yes, the two computers are connected by a cross over cable.


A crossover cable by itself does not go at gigabit speeds.

It's pretty weird to transfer a 1 Gig file in about 6 minutes between
computers and 1.5 hrs. from TiVo to computer.


1,000 MB * 8 b/B = 8000 megabits. 8000/(6*60) = 23 megabits/sec.
The two NICs connected via crossover cable are running in 100 Mbps mode.
Purchasing a gigabit switch will make things different.
-Joe

You're probably correct, I don't think 2 directly connected NIC's will autonegotiate to Gigabit speeds. I would think it ought to
be possible to set them manually to that rate, yes? I don't see any reason that a switch would be required to operate at Gigabit
speeds.

Randy S.

Then you guys think tha possibly I'm going to get an 10X increase in
bandwidth between the 2 computers by adding a switch or manually
setting the NIC cards? How fast should a 1Gig file transfer on a Gigabit
network?

How fast can a hard drive (100 133 150) transfer data? I've got most
of my hard drives on external USB boxes. They have ata 100 controllers.
Does that mean that they are limited to 100 in the same way that a network
is 10/100/1000 ... I mean are the units the same?

Thanks.
: -)

Then you guys think tha possibly I'm going to get an 10X increase in
bandwidth between the 2 computers by adding a switch or manually
setting the NIC cards? How fast should a 1Gig file transfer on a Gigabit
network?

No, you will not likely get a 10x speed increase. There are too many
other choke points, some of which you have identified. Beyond your hard
drive's sustained read and write rate (which is less than IDE's max of
100 or 133 MB/s (1 MB/s = 8 Mbps)), there's also the PCI bandwidth
limitation (which is shared with all PCI devices and is only slightly
greater than 1000 Mbps itself).

Most consumer PC's can't maintain a full 1 Gbps of bandwidth at this
time. That doesn't mean they won't see a significant bump in speed when
using a gigabit NIC, just that you won't see a full 1 Gbps of throughput.


How fast can a hard drive (100 133 150) transfer data? I've got most
of my hard drives on external USB boxes. They have ata 100 controllers.
Does that mean that they are limited to 100 in the same way that a network
is 10/100/1000 ... I mean are the units the same?

No, the units aren't the same. HDD throughput numbers are usually
stated in Megabytes per second (MB/s), while network throughput is in
Megabits per second (Mbps). There are 8 bits in a byte, so the
conversion is simple, fortunately. Harder is the bus bandwidth which is
usually stated in Mhz, i.e. cycles per second. To get throughput you
have to multiply that by the bits per cycle, so a 32 bit bus operating
at 33.3 Mhz would yield 32/8*33.3*1,000,000/1024^22 = 127 MB/s. (The
*1,000,000/1024^2 converts the "Mega" in MegaHertz which is 1,000,000,
to the "Mega" in Megabyte which is 1024^2). For comparison, 1 Gbps =
1024 Mbps = 128 MB/s, so you can compare the standard 33.3 Mhz x 32 bit
PCI bus to Gigabit network speeds. Just remember that your network card
is only *one* of the data sources crossing the PCI bus, and they all
must share the total bandwidth (fortunately your Video card uses it's
own bus, either PCI-x or AGP).

Newer computers are starting to get around the PCI chokepoint by
numerous methods. Many newer SATA interfaces connect directly to the MB
chipset without going through the PCI bus at all, and a few on-board
Gigabit NICs are doing similar things. But those are the exception
rather than the rule, as of yet. Remember, most people's computers are
several years old at least, and won't catch up to the current specs for
years to come.

Randy S.

AKA gray asphalt wrote:
How, please. Is it a hardware hack? Someone wrote that
it can be done by telnet but I doubt it.

No, it can't be done with telnet (at least not until *after* it's
hacked, which gets you into the old chicken/egg conundrum).

I'm not definitive on the "how" of this, which is why I deferred the
question to others. Jack Zwick usually has the best references for
this, but his latest one (the "Zipper"?) is only for DTV tivo's I think.
I've thought about doing it a couple times, but there's only been a
few programs that I've wanted to pull off, and TTG works for me in the
rare cases. If I transferred shows more often I'd probably dive into it.

It's not a trivial project, and does involve removing the hard drive
from the Tivo and putting it in a PC (*never* boot to windows with the
Tivo drive attached!), which does void your warranty. But it can be
done with some PC hardware and basic linux knowledge and/or research.

Randy S.

Randy S. ) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
You're probably correct, I don't think 2 directly connected NIC's will
autonegotiate to Gigabit speeds.

If they are within spec, they should negotiate correctly. The problem is
that many NICs will assume they will always be in "slave" mode because a
switch will always be higher in the master/slave negotiation. Manual setting
will solve this, though (if the NIC allows it), as you said.

--
Jeff Rife | "In those days Mars was a dreary uninhabitable
| wasteland much like Utah, but unlike Utah, Mars
| was eventually made livable."
| -- Professor Farnsworth, "Futurama"

AKA gray asphalt ) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
Then you guys think tha possibly I'm going to get an 10X increase in
bandwidth between the 2 computers by adding a switch or manually
setting the NIC cards? How fast should a 1Gig file transfer on a Gigabit
network?

Using two of my machines (with one having PCI-bandwidth limits on the NIC...
the other uses PCI-e), I get actual transfer rates of 33.5MB/sec for large
(1GB or larger) files, so it takes about 31 seconds to transfer 1GB. I
have nothing but gigabit switches, and only the very old hardware has less
than gigabit NICs.

How fast can a hard drive (100 133 150) transfer data?

That depends. I have a RAID-5 array of three SATA-II drives, and I get
about 120MB/sec write speeds, while a standard ATA-100 drive will give you
about 25-30MB/sec.

I've got most
of my hard drives on external USB boxes.

Well, that cuts you down to about 15MB/sec at most (for USB 2.0 at 480Mbps).

--
Jeff Rife |
| http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/Dilbert/NoHelpDesk.jpg

Randy S. ) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
Newer computers are starting to get around the PCI chokepoint by
numerous methods. Many newer SATA interfaces connect directly to the MB
chipset without going through the PCI bus at all, and a few on-board
Gigabit NICs are doing similar things.

Except for AGP, PCI-X, and PCI Express, *everything* goes through a PCI
bus...the trick now is that motherboards now use multiple PCI buses that are
connected in more complex ways. But, you're still stuck at
33MHz * 32 bits = 133MB/sec for most devices. For a good overview of all
the bus technologies, see:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed...ware/pcie.ars/

With PCIe x1 capable of 2500Mbps, it's more than adequate for handling all
types of network traffic and all older hard disk technologies...it's almost
good enough for full SATA-II. PCIe x16 (common for video cards) can handle
40000Mbps...that's 5GB/sec, which *still* isn't enough for some games.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/ArloNJanis/manure.gif

Jeff Rife wrote:
Randy S. ) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:

Newer computers are starting to get around the PCI chokepoint by
numerous methods. Many newer SATA interfaces connect directly to the MB
chipset without going through the PCI bus at all, and a few on-board
Gigabit NICs are doing similar things.


Except for AGP, PCI-X, and PCI Express, *everything* goes through a PCI
bus...the trick now is that motherboards now use multiple PCI buses that are
connected in more complex ways. But, you're still stuck at
33MHz * 32 bits = 133MB/sec for most devices. For a good overview of all
the bus technologies, see:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed...ware/pcie.ars/

Actually, not always true. Certain Intel chipsets hang a separate
communications channel for an onboard Gigabit NIC off the South Bridge:

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/955x/index.htm

(See the "View chipset diagram" link to see where the NIC is logically
connected off the PCI-express bus)

I guess you could argue that this is basically going through the PCIe
bus, but it's not obvious unless you look at the specs, most would
assume it's PCI based like 99.9% of the others.

With PCIe x1 capable of 2500Mbps, it's more than adequate for handling all
types of network traffic and all older hard disk technologies...it's almost
good enough for full SATA-II. PCIe x16 (common for video cards) can handle
40000Mbps...that's 5GB/sec, which *still* isn't enough for some games.

Yep, PCIe has more than enough throughput for Gigabit speeds. I'm just
pointing out that the vast majority of PC's out there aren't PCIe based.
All the cutrate newspaper flier deals that every person who doesn't
know anything about computers just bought over xmas were PCI-only based
systems that the manufacturers are dumping while they still can.

Randy S.