On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 20:16, Glen Farney <[email protected]> wrote:
> Is one of the units wired and the other wireless ? I've heard that the > wireless connections are limited in terms of file transfer, perhaps the > wired aren't limited in the same way. > WiFi isn't limited in any special way for file transfers, but WiFi has inherent limitations when compared to wired Ethernet that make it slower in general. First of all, 802.11g has a max theoretical speed of 54Mbps, while Fast Ethernet (which is what most people have) is 100Mbps, and, of course, Gigabit Ethernet is 1Gbps. 802.11n maxes out at 600Mbps, but only in very specific configurations - and, again, that's max theoretical. In the real world you're rarely going to see anything close to max theoretical, you're more likely to see maybe half that sustained, often less. Another issue is that WiFi is half-duplex, while modern Ethernet systems are full-duplex. That means that while one WiFi device is transmitting other devices cannot transmit, they have to wait. While with wired Ethernet a device can transmit and receive at the same time. Also, modern wired networks are switched, so network segments only carry traffic for devices on that segment. That means if you have two devices on switch ports 1 & 2 talking to each other, two other devices on ports 3 & 4 can talk to each other at the same time - since the traffic doesn't have to cross the same segment there is no contention. WiFi is not, everything has to pass through the access point and share the same channel(s). So the more devices you have using the same access point, the slower they can all be. There are other issues, but I don't want to get even geekier. Basically, WiFi is great for portability and when you just can't run a wire, but wired Ethernet is still the best solution for performance - not to mention security, reliability, etc. > I've never tried to move a show from Tivo 1 to PC to Tivo 2, so I'm not > sure > how that works given they each have a different Media Access Key. There > are > programs like DirectShowDump that allow you to convert them to basic .mpeg > file format to watch on any PC. > All TiVos on the same account share the same MAK, so you can move content from TiVo 1 to PC to TiVo 2. But TiVos on different accounts will have different MAKs, and you can't transfer content between them, even relaying through a PC, unless you strip the DRM and turn the .tivo file into a raw MPG using DirectShowDump or the like. -- [email protected] / [email protected] Geek, Gweep, Technophile, me. www.GizmoLovers.com / www.MegaZone.org / www.Eyrie-Productions.com Hail Eris Twitter.com/megazone / Facebook.com/megazone / www.LinkedIn.com/in/megazone "A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 432-363-4296 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
