Bufferhack - What is the limit?

[zollymonsta]

Hi All,

Just wondering, what is the limit for bufferhack?

Currently I have mine set to 60 minutes.

I have a tivo sitting here doing nothing, and was thinking of using it to timeshift my radio station, using live tv... Is a 12 hour buffer out of the question? ;)

I guess I would also need to feed a video source into the tivo else it would not recording any incoming audio? (I can just spit any old video into this.. probably a split feed from one of my cable boxes).

Thinking of using it to timeshift 12 hours for overseas listeners of my radio station.. ie: live feed and a timeshifted -12 hour feed.

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta.

[Darren King]

I think from memory there was an issue of unstable performance after 60 minutes.... But one of the software guys may be able to clarify that. How about a string of 12 TiVo's all with an hour bufferhack :P

Regarding having a valid video input: Yes. The TiVo will need this and yes anything will do. I once used a TiVo to record a marathon radio special and it worked perfectly with the video input from a VCR.

Cheers

[petestrash]

Why not just image it up with the NZ image, the use the manual record function to record a 12 hour block.

Peter.

[Darren King]

I think the idea is to have a never ending cyclic buffer to create a 12 hour delay rather than having to instruct the TiVo to play back a block recording.

[petestrash]

I don't use the live buffer much as I never watch live TV anymore :)

But, I thought there was some issue with using it the way suggested.

Try it with the 1 hour buffer overnight and see if you are still one hour behind by morning.

Peter.

[segger]

I run 2 hour buffers on all my TiVos, and configured most of the ones I used to sell that way too... Never a problem at 2 hours, but I don't recall ever trying longer, why not just try it and see what happens?

Cheers
Ron

[zollymonsta]

Hmm yeah.. worth a shot I think.. If it doesn't work I can always put it back to 1 hour :)

[zollymonsta]

Ok.. I've set it to 12 hours (720 mins) it seemed to take...though the live screen shows 1 hour.

I went into the mfs via tivoweb and looked at:

Directory listing of /Recording/LiveCache

This lists:

Name Type Id Date Time Size
3209880 tyDb 3209880 01/05/07 13:13 488

So I clicked on the name and it returned:

RecordingBehavior 3209880/12 {
DiskBehavior = 12
PresentationBehavior = 8
ProgramGuideBehavior = 6
TunerBehavior = 8
IndexUsedBy = 3209880/10

So it looks like it's set to 12 hours (Disk Behaviour).. maybe..
The on screen timeline might be displaying incorrectly?

I'll leave it going for a day or so then see what it's doing.

Something I've noticed is the skip keys don't appear to skip to the beginning of the live cache.. Is there a certain key combination to do this, rather than having to sit and wait for 12 hours (hopefully) to rewind?

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

[zollymonsta]

I think the idea is to have a never ending cyclic buffer to create a 12 hour delay rather than having to instruct the TiVo to play back a block recording.

Correct.. the plan is to fit another soundcard into my streaming server, and feed the audio from TiVo (rewound to beginning of live buffer.. 12 hours) so that one of my shoutcast feeds will be -12 hours of the current live program. Its so overseas listeners wherever they may be (or local listeners) can tune to that stream if they've missed a live program. :)

I'm just being sneaky really, but it might just work. :)

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

[zollymonsta]

I don't use the live buffer much as I never watch live TV anymore :)

But, I thought there was some issue with using it the way suggested.

Try it with the 1 hour buffer overnight and see if you are still one hour behind by morning.

Peter.

I don't twiddle with my tivos much at all anymore. In fact the one Im playing with now has been switched off since August last year.. A lot of guide data to download ;)

Hmm.. I could sell this second one.. but figure its probably better to hold onto it should the one in the lounge break, then I can scrounge this one for parts.

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

[petestrash]

Something I've noticed is the skip keys don't appear to skip to the beginning of the live cache.. Is there a certain key combination to do this, rather than having to sit and wait for 12 hours (hopefully) to rewind?

From memory if you press rewind then skip it should move the marker backwards, but I'm not at home to confirm this.

Peter

[zollymonsta]

Nah tried that.. rewind.. and hit the skip key just below the fast forward key.. get the tivo DOOOOH error sound :)

[zollymonsta]

Hmmm odd... The tivo is staying set on 60 mins no matter what I set it for.

I do get a message of 'txt file busy' about four times, then bufferhack.tcl says it's made the changes. I reboot, but no change.

The filesystem is set to RW before I make the change.. then back to RO once it's made.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

[segger]

I used to always do an "update resources" from the resouce editor in TiVoweb after running bufferhack30, because in the same telnet session I would also update many strings in the MFS with my changes to Guided Setup... The resource update was necessary to make my MFS changes permanent, but may also have had an effect on the buffer hack, I'm not sure... You could try it, it wouldn't hurt...

You have tried just 2 hours, and that didn't work either? It should for sure, unless broken by something in the new release (which I haven't had cause to try yet)

Cheers
Ron

[zollymonsta]

ok, just tried Resource Editor and updated resources and rebooted.

No change in the timeline.. stil saying 9:30 to 10:30 (yes, time is currently one hour out).

I'll keep monitoring and post back here.. Perhaps the buffer duration isn't being updated.

[zollymonsta]

Ok, well I did a search on the oztivo wiki :)
Found the problem here...

http://www.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howto/IncreaseLiveBuffer

So followed the instructions, re-ran bufferhack and set at 720 mins :)

Rebooted

Now the time line is showing 10:00 to 10:00 (12 hours). :) so I will check it tommorow morning and see if I can successfully rewind back 12 hours, or wether tivo has melted into a glob of melted plastic :)

Cheers,
Grant

[zollymonsta]

Good news.. it all works.

I have bufferhack set to 720mins (12 Hours).

Currently it's 5:26pm. I am listening to 5:26am this morning :)

Time bar shows times 05:00 to 05:00 and the bar incorrectly displays when rewinding, until you get to the two hour buffer time then it displays on there.

Still, it works good.. Just got to keep video signal intact (can use tv output on video card of my security camera pc) and all good. tivo will keep downloading guide data and pretending its a tivo. No season passes set, and recording of sugggested tv shows is turned off.

Thanks everyone for your help.. now I just got to find out if this is legal for me to stream. :)

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta