02-29-2008, 05:55 PM
TIVO, Toast 8, transfers, encoding and burns. It takes a while but it works and works well.
Hi everyone,
Jsut want to see if my experience with the aforementioned tasks are similar to yours. One of the reasons I bought Toast 8 was for the TIVO transfer software. So, before I delve into the summary, I can tell you, the TIVO transfer software is actually quite nice.
The interface has the iTunes mentality and is super easy to navigate and makes transferring content from a TIVO remarkably easy. It also doubles as a organization package. But, based on a few tests, the actual transfer is slow! Incredibly slow!
A 30 minute show recorded in high quality takes approximately 1 to 1.5 hours to transfer. A 120 minute movie takes about 3 to 3.5 hours to transfer. My G5 has 802.11g, the Toshiba RSTX-20 TIVO DVD Recorder is connected to a TIVO brand 802.11g wireless dongle and my router is an Apple 802.11n model. Then again, I am transferring over a gig of content from the TIVO. But, still, I was hoping for higher transfer rates.
Once the content is in the TIVO transfer software, all you need to do to have Toast work with it is press a single button. Very cool. But, before you can burn it to disc as a plain ol DVD, Toast must encode it. This took about an hour or so on a G5 Dual 2.0. I usually tell Toast to save items as a disc image and then burn it to disc at a later time.
The end result is a nicely done DVD. Unfortunately, it’s time consuming. The reality is it’s vastly faster and far more convenient to use my Toshiba’s built-in DVD recorder to archive content to disc. The Toshiba can fit 2 hours of content at high quality on a single DVD. So, I’ll probably still use the built-in burner to archive content that is two hours or less in length.
Content that is more than two hours at high quality requires more than one DVD. So, the next test is to see how the transfer/encode/burn will handle a show the Toshiba can’t fit onto a single DVD. In theory, Toast will be able to compress the content to fit. I just don’t know if the quality will make it worth the effort.
I’ll post results with more detailed times when circumstances allow. But, agaion, the TIVO transfer software, which also doubles as a content organization package is very nice. Very very nice. It gives you good detaisl about the show, it’s length, the format, etc.
Robert
Hi everyone,
Jsut want to see if my experience with the aforementioned tasks are similar to yours. One of the reasons I bought Toast 8 was for the TIVO transfer software. So, before I delve into the summary, I can tell you, the TIVO transfer software is actually quite nice.
The interface has the iTunes mentality and is super easy to navigate and makes transferring content from a TIVO remarkably easy. It also doubles as a organization package. But, based on a few tests, the actual transfer is slow! Incredibly slow!
A 30 minute show recorded in high quality takes approximately 1 to 1.5 hours to transfer. A 120 minute movie takes about 3 to 3.5 hours to transfer. My G5 has 802.11g, the Toshiba RSTX-20 TIVO DVD Recorder is connected to a TIVO brand 802.11g wireless dongle and my router is an Apple 802.11n model. Then again, I am transferring over a gig of content from the TIVO. But, still, I was hoping for higher transfer rates.
Once the content is in the TIVO transfer software, all you need to do to have Toast work with it is press a single button. Very cool. But, before you can burn it to disc as a plain ol DVD, Toast must encode it. This took about an hour or so on a G5 Dual 2.0. I usually tell Toast to save items as a disc image and then burn it to disc at a later time.
The end result is a nicely done DVD. Unfortunately, it’s time consuming. The reality is it’s vastly faster and far more convenient to use my Toshiba’s built-in DVD recorder to archive content to disc. The Toshiba can fit 2 hours of content at high quality on a single DVD. So, I’ll probably still use the built-in burner to archive content that is two hours or less in length.
Content that is more than two hours at high quality requires more than one DVD. So, the next test is to see how the transfer/encode/burn will handle a show the Toshiba can’t fit onto a single DVD. In theory, Toast will be able to compress the content to fit. I just don’t know if the quality will make it worth the effort.
I’ll post results with more detailed times when circumstances allow. But, agaion, the TIVO transfer software, which also doubles as a content organization package is very nice. Very very nice. It gives you good detaisl about the show, it’s length, the format, etc.
Robert