A Fresh Start for My HD TiVo
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 11:53AM 
For more than two years, my TiVo Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder has faithfully captured my every televised whim. About a year ago, I upgraded the Series3's 250GB hard drive to a relatively spacious 1TB model (thank you MFSLive!) and in no time my Season Pass list expanded to 50-some items - at any given moment there were approximately 200 standard- and high-definition recordings saved on the drive. There is no way that I had time to watch all of that content, but it practically guaranteed that I would have something I wanted to watch available 24/7.
I've never been satisfied with my TiVo's network performance using the TiVo Wireless G Adapter - file transfers were inconsistent (i.e. slow, halting, or failed altogether) and I've yet to successfully view an HD stream from Netflix's Watch Instantly service (SD streaming was fine). My PlayStation3 using the same wireless network from approximately the same location in the room has never had an issue streaming Netflix's HD content. In a effort to diagnose my Series3's sluggish network performance, I've decided to start clean by "Clearing and deleting everything." From there I plan to reinstall/retest the wireless adapter and compare the results to using a wired connection. I'll post my findings as soon as possible.
Reader Comments (4)
Robert - I have no problem with Netflix streaming HD on my Tivo HD - Heroes for example. I also have a Samsung 2550 bluray player. No noticeable picture quality difference on my Samsung LN52A850 TV.
I prefer the Tivo as it is faster and more reliable with making connection to Netflix.
Bob
Forgot to say that my Internet connection is wired 10/100.
Gratz2u Robert! It's always good to flesh out the ole TiVO and fall in love all over again.
I was watching one of the more (if not the most) recent HD Nation's, I noted with much surprise that you have never spoken to someone that has been able to get HD via Netflix! WOW! I've been doing this for the past 2 months with no problem at all. It works GREAT! It's exactly what you think it should be, and it just works. The only thing to think about is whether the movie is in your instant queue.
Just like Bob - I am ALSO able to stream HD (that is 720p) from Netflix without any problem. The Netflix HD connection on the TiVO HD is stellar. In fact I rewatched nearly all of Lost via this method (at least 4 whole seasons). I would say 80-90% of it stayed at 720p. From time to time it DOES drop down. I can't say for certain why. It isn't someone in my home using the Itnernet, I suspect it might just be Netflix servers, or sowmthing with the ISP routes thats keeping folks from doing it. Comcast seems to work just fine for me here.
I wonder if you know of any hardware differences betwixt the Series 3 (with it's sexy OLED readout on the front) and the TivoHD the latter being what I purchased this past holiday season. I always wondered if I was missing out.
I also used MFSlive and went from the included paltry 160GB drive up to a full 1TB. If I need more I can still upgrade via esata to another terabyte.... As now I'm up past 35 season passes, my suggestions went over a hundred.
My Internet connection is a 16mbit/2mbit Comcast line. I'm using a sort of convoluted network setup - as the wife won't let me pop holes in the apartment walls. I have all the devices at the TV - including the WinXP Media Center PC running PYTivo, PS2, Wii, TiVO (series 2) and TiVOHD, all on an 8 port switch. I have an 802.11g bridge across the apartment (using devices that run DD-WRT), into the back room where the Cable feed comes into a router. THe rest of the network is there, including my own PC and the wifes Mac. Yes this means that the large storage server is on the other end of a 30mbit or so wireless link. Yes it also means that this possibly high-usage channel is also our main wireless access. We don't notice.
Most transfers from say a PC to the pyTivo or Tivo to the PC are one shot deals, set it up to copy and go to sleep.
As for the Windows XP Media Center box running PYTivo (really thats all it runs, I had the hardware to spare but it won't display HD very well) - its actually an old dell workstation with a Netburst era 2.4ghz Xeon and 1.5GB DDR1-266 RAM, with 1.3TB of space for movies. It's got enough horsepower to transvert 1080p to a bitrate the Tivo is a bit happier with, but not enough to do HD OTA even with a card that has HW MPEG-2 decoders.
My HD Netflix experience is mixed. I too use the TiVo wireless adapter and (at times) get buffering on the HD content. Sometimes alot...other times not at all. Today for example I was able to watch Beer Wars (3 thumbs up btw) and it played seamlessly in HD. My router is a floor below and approx 40ft. from the TV. Signal ranges between 75-80%.
While my overall signal and local traffic no doubt affect the Netflix stream, I also have the feeling it may be related to the time of day and high demand content. My worst experiences (buffering every 2-3 minutes) always seem to be in "prime time" (early/mid evenings and weekends).
That said, given that your PS3 appears to have no issues...I'm inclined to think that it has more to do with TiVo's caching/decoding forgiveness or better said.... unforgiveness.