I'm not complaining!
I absolutely LOVE TiVo HD and the Tivo2go feature that lets me transfer shows to my Macs for watching or burning to DVD.

However, I can't believe how long the process takes.

Last night I started 3 one hour episodes of the new Sarah Connor Chronicles: Terminator. Granted they are in HD and weigh in at about 4.2-4.9GB each. I started the transfers around 8:30PM last night and they finished around 11:30PM. This is over 802.11g. I've tried over Ethernet and it's no faster.
Then before going to bed I told the TiVo app to "Toast It" which means transfer those shows over to Toast 8 Titanium and burn them to a DVD. Toast has to encode them of course and downside them to fit on a standard def DVD. After over 12 hours, it's only 64% complete (on an iMac G5).
Next time I'll try it on my Mac Pro, but still that seems a bit extreme to take close to 24 hours to transfer, encode and burn 3 one hour shows.

I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering is there any way you can think of to speed this up?
I love the abilities that I have to do this, but I just wish it was FASTER!

I've found that transfers from my Tivo HD take about as long as they do to watch (over Ethernet), which would be about what you're reporting. I haven't tried converting any of them yet. About the only way to speed that up would be for the Tivo to support Gigabit Ethernet.

Are you transferring Standard Def or HD shows?

I, too, have found that the transfer from the Tivo to your computer takes "real time" time, just like viewing it. Once you have those video TS files transferred over to your computer from the Tivo, you might try a trial run of FastDVDCopy. It is MUCH faster compressing and burning than Toast. I doubt it would take more than an hour. I don't know if it works on Intel though--I have the PPC version.I think you can download and try it once. It is tied to one particular computer.

The Toast DVD finished at 5:02PM.
Donna, I'm not sure what video TS files you're referring to? The files that transfer over from TiVo HD are .tivo movie files.
In order to fit 3 hours of HD onto a standard DVD there will need to be some (read - A LOT OF) compression.

Yes, I have FastDVDCopy and yes it does work on an Intel Mac.

I'm now testing a transfer directly to the Mac Pro from TiVo HD via Ethernet. I started it right at noon (same 3 one hour shows) and it's now 6PM and it claims to have 56 minutes to go on the last of the 3. So while transferring standard def shows might be "real time" in speed, HD takes at least twice as long.

As soon as it's done transferring, I'll start the Encoding process in Toast to see if the Mac Pro is that much faster than the iMac G5.

Check tomorrow for the results as I'm sure it will go well into the night. I won't be around/awake to see it finish, but if it's done when I wake up, then we know it's faster than the iMac G5 which took about 17.5 hours just to do the Encoding/Burning.

Now I remember why I bought a Mac Pro! Rendering Rendering Rendering!

The Mac Pro did the same encoding job in about 4 hours time! That's about one quarter the amount of time the iMac G5 took to do it.

With FastDVDCopy it takes about no more than 2 hours to rip, compress (to fit on a 4.7 GB DVD blank, not dual-burner) and burn a regular-length movie from a DVD. For the Tivo transfers, it is already ripped, so you only have the compression and burn part, which usually is no longer than an hour--even less. This is not hi-def though, just regular. And this is on a 1.25Ghz PPC eMac running 10.4.11. The same procedure takes longer in Toast.

You must be referring to TiVo series 2. TiVo HD is different and doesn't provide Video TS folders from transferred shows. So there would be no way to use FastDVDCopy. Shows in HD are about 5 times the size of Standard Def shows.

quote:

Originally posted by Donna:
With FastDVDCopy it takes about no more than 2 hours to rip, compress (to fit on a 4.7 GB DVD blank, not dual-burner) and burn a regular-length movie from a DVD. For the Tivo transfers, it is already ripped, so you only have the compression and burn part, which usually is no longer than an hour--even less. This is not hi-def though, just regular. And this is on a 1.25Ghz PPC eMac running 10.4.11. The same procedure takes longer in Toast.

Yes, I do have a series 2.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry White:
Now I remember why I bought a Mac Pro! Rendering Rendering Rendering!

The Mac Pro did the same encoding job in about 4 hours time! That's about one quarter the amount of time the iMac G5 took to do it.

So if one was to buy a 24" iMac, would it render faster than a G5 iMac?

Intel iMacs are much faster than G5 iMacs for rendering with equal amounts of RAM installed. Since the new iMacs can recognize more RAM, this probably explains why many video companies are buying a few new iMacs instead of a single tower.

I have a series 2 TiVo, I do not get a Video TS folder, just the .tivo. So I am confused too where you are getting a video TS folder Donna.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry White:
You must be referring to TiVo series 2. TiVo HD is different and doesn't provide Video TS folders from transferred shows. So there would be no way to use FastDVDCopy. Shows in HD are about 5 times the size of Standard Def shows.

I'm out-of-state. I haven't done that Tivo stuff in a while, so I can't recall off the top of my head.

Calvin,

Remember that Intel iMacs all have dual processors, where PPC iMacs do not. That makes a huge difference right there in rendering times. Many of the programs for rendering use multiple processors it present.

Dave and Jack

Thanks for the Feedback!