		New Tivo Mega has 24TB of storage. That's 26,000 hours - nearly three years - of nonstop TV shows, or almost half the average Farker's porn collection (mashable.com)		38
		More: Interesting, TiVo Mega, DVR, addictions, Ladies and gentlemen

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860 clicks; posted to Fandom » on 09 Sep 2014 at 10:52 AM (8 years ago) | Favorite | share:

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UberDave

2014-09-09 9:02:27 AM

More like 1/64th...

wildcardjack

2014-09-09 10:51:01 AM

I go all magpie and tell my DVR to record lots of things, then I go through and either binge watch a month worth of something, or delete all. And that's the real beauty of a DVR, you can get bored with something and just stop. You aren't obliged to finish the show or movie.

Wellon Dowd

2014-09-09 10:57:54 AM

The 1GB drive in my Tivo seems adequate.

Dr Dreidel

2014-09-09 11:13:58 AM

Cheers ran for 275 episodes, roughly 25 minutes apiece. 275 x (25/60) = 114.58 hours of Cheers.
M*A*S*H ran for 255 episodes, also 25 minutes apiece. 255 x (25/60) + 2.5 (the finale) = 108.75 hours of M*A*S*H.
The Simpsons' 552 episodes, at 22 minutes apiece, is 202.4 hours.

To get to 26,000 hours, you'd see marathons of all three series 61 times. If it was the Star Wars films (805 minutes or 13.4 hours), you'd watch all six special editions 1937.8 times (I guess the last time through, you can skip TPM and the first half of AoC).

// just to put that in some sort of perspective.

Wellon Dowd

2014-09-09 11:18:13 AM

Wellon Dowd: The 1GB drive in my Tivo seems adequate.

That should be 1 TB.

xria

2014-09-09 11:21:15 AM

Dr Dreidel: Cheers ran for 275 episodes, roughly 25 minutes apiece. 275 x (25/60) = 114.58 hours of Cheers.
M*A*S*H ran for 255 episodes, also 25 minutes apiece. 255 x (25/60) + 2.5 (the finale) = 108.75 hours of M*A*S*H.
The Simpsons' 552 episodes, at 22 minutes apiece, is 202.4 hours.

To get to 26,000 hours, you'd see marathons of all three series 61 times. If it was the Star Wars films (805 minutes or 13.4 hours), you'd watch all six special editions 1937.8 times (I guess the last time through, you can skip TPM and the first half of AoC).

// just to put that in some sort of perspective.

A movie in 4K is up to about 100GB per hour or so. So 360 hours at 4K, making it pretty much in line with a lot of current PVR capacities.

SFSailor

2014-09-09 11:27:06 AM

Wellon Dowd: The 1TB drive in my Tivo seems adequate.

Yeah, this.

I was an early adopter (and evangelist... no, a "cableco DVR" is not a TiVo!), then bought an HD version when a new tv dictated doing so... but with a swapped-in TB of space, I really don't see a need to replace it.

And, frankly, the fact that loyal customers can't migrate their lifetime subscription (even for a small fee) to a new box just feels like a slap in the face. When the current one dies, it'll be time to investigate "other methods." Allow me to move the lifetime service and give a modest discount on a new box, and I might consider it, but otherwise...

/ my main concern is that they push some upgrade(s) that ruin the interface/performance... no, I don't want YouTube/Netflix/too-slick-gui/whatever on my TiVo!

Dr Dreidel

2014-09-09 11:34:51 AM

xria: A movie in 4K is up to about 100GB per hour or so. So 360 hours at 4K, making it pretty much in line with a lot of current PVR capacities.

Space is all over the map. I'm fine watching 700MB rips of movies on my 1080p TV (or the occasional 1.4GB rip), but I know that Blu-Ray rips are in the 7-8GB range.

I went with "viewing time", even though it's the squishiest measure in TFA, because it's pretty constant across all media and formats.

flaminio

2014-09-09 11:56:05 AM

Dr Dreidel: Space is all over the map. I'm fine watching 700MB rips of movies on my 1080p TV (or the occasional 1.4GB rip), but I know that Blu-Ray rips are in the 7-8GB range.

Explain something to me, please: why do people rip to a certain file size? I get that in the olden days one might need to burn the file to a disc, but these days no one does that. It seems picking a size like "700MB" will probably be overkill for some movies, and for others make it look crappy. Why not pick a certain quality that one finds acceptable, and let the file sizes float to match the quality?

I really stay up nights wondering these things...

LesserEvil

2014-09-09 12:04:50 PM

In SD...

I would like to build out my next media server with 8 6TB drives in a RAID5 configuration (That's 42TB of storage with parity, so any drive failure will not result in data loss - just replace the drive).

My current media server has an odd mix of RAID0 arrays (2 2x4 arrays) and 6 external 2TB drives plugged in as I needed to expand and move stuff into archives. Hosted on Linux Ubuntu with the usual SABNZBD/Sickbeard/CouchPotato/Headphones server software running. I use TVMobili for sending the media files to my TVs (One "Smart" Samsung TV, the rest have Samsung BluRay players for the "smarts")

Dr Dreidel

2014-09-09 12:05:49 PM

flaminio: Explain something to me, please: why do people rip to a certain file size?

They're not my rips (ahem...moving on), but I think it has much to do with CD-R(W) size. Anyway, I say "700MB" because most of them are between 690 and 750MB. Which is a large spread, to be sure.

It might also have to do with the bitrates (which I think are roughly standard, even across codecs*? Are movies all variable bitrates these days?), multiplied by 90-200 minutes (or 5,400-12,000 seconds), coming out to that size range. I usually see movies falling into size "tiers" - 690-750MB, 1.3-1.7GB, 3.5ishGB, 7ishGB, etc.

// being kind of anal about my file system (don't judge), I should think "flat GB" sizes are most desirable, right?
// wouldn't you rather have an even 1 or 2GB than 1.3 or 2.6GB?
*I admit to having next to zero knowledge of video encoding

imfallen_angel

2014-09-09 12:06:46 PM

meh.. my system in already over 34TB and as I switch the 2TB for 3 or 4 TB ones, it'll just grow bit by bit.

imfallen_angel

2014-09-09 12:13:39 PM

flaminio: Explain something to me, please: why do people rip to a certain file size? I get that in the olden days one might need to burn the file to a disc, but these days no one does that. It seems picking a size like "700MB" will probably be overkill for some movies, and for others make it look crappy. Why not pick a certain quality that one finds acceptable, and let the file sizes float to match the quality?

I really stay up nights wondering these things...

Codec and quality

Resolution, and framerate also.

A good codec and a DVD resolution can give you a very decent file at 300MB, but a crappy one and you easily need 700MB, even up to 2Gb.

sendtodave

2014-09-09 12:20:52 PM

imfallen_angel: flaminio: Explain something to me, please: why do people rip to a certain file size? I get that in the olden days one might need to burn the file to a disc, but these days no one does that. It seems picking a size like "700MB" will probably be overkill for some movies, and for others make it look crappy. Why not pick a certain quality that one finds acceptable, and let the file sizes float to match the quality?

I really stay up nights wondering these things...

Codec and quality

Resolution, and framerate also.

A good codec and a DVD resolution can give you a very decent file at 300MB, but a crappy one and you easily need 700MB, even up to 2Gb.

Isn't 700 MB a pretty arbitrary number at this point?

flaminio

2014-09-09 12:22:02 PM

Dr Dreidel: flaminio: Explain something to me, please: why do people rip to a certain file size?

They're not my rips (ahem...moving on), but I think it has much to do with CD-R(W) size.

That's what I suspect; people are used to ripping to a standard disc size, even though no one ever burns rips to disc anymore (do they?).

My ripping strategy usually involves ripping the entire disc to an ISO for archival purposes, and then pulling out the actual video files with Handbrake. There are a gazillion twiddles in Handbrake, and I don't pretend to understand them all, but the "Quality" one seems self-explanatory -- move the slider to a lower number to get better quality and larger file sizes, a bigger number to get lower quality and smaller sizes. I ended up with "20" for most rips, as it produces a reasonable file size with no perceived loss in quality from lower numbers. This morning I ripped a Doctor Who serial (Carnival of Monsters), and got file sizes of 261.55, 272.57, 298.37, and 247.93 MB for the four episodes. I suppose the seemingly random file sizes should bother me, but really, it doesn't matter -- once I copy them up to my NAS I won't ever look at the file sizes again; I'll just watch the shows.

WilderKWight

2014-09-09 12:34:40 PM

Jeez. Even my SD files are around 1.25 GB now, simply because I'm including the higher quality audio track.

My HD files get ripped to somewhere between 2.5 GB and 6 GB. Give or take 500 MB.

Perturbance

2014-09-09 12:36:45 PM

wildcardjack: I go all magpie and tell my DVR to record lots of things, then I go through and either binge watch a month worth of something, or delete all. And that's the real beauty of a DVR, you can get bored with something and just stop. You aren't obliged to finish the show or movie.

I get a strange sense of satisfaction when I delete a chunk - or maybe an entire season - of a show that I started to watch but eventually lose interest in. The same goes for new series: I don't start watching (from the beginning) until a handful of episodes have already aired. That way I don't get emotionally invested in something that will get canceled. Plus if it turns out to be a terrible show I likely would've heard as such before starting to watch any of it myself.

imfallen_angel

2014-09-09 12:58:47 PM

sendtodave: Isn't 700 MB a pretty arbitrary number at this point?

Yes and no, most software are defaulted for it, as the codecs were geared towards that file size.

lordargent

2014-09-09 1:05:40 PM

Dr Dreidel: To get to 26,000 hours, you'd see marathons of all three series 61 times.

The 26,000 hour figure is only for SD content.

Hitting the 4000 hours of HD is much easier ... assuming there's stuff on TV you actually want to watch.

// My S3 tivo sits idle now ... since I canceled my cable TV subscription

// I think I need to sell it since I'm all streaming these days, my hate of cable companies overwhelmed my love of TiVo :(

lordargent

2014-09-09 1:06:41 PM

^ and the series 2 I sold years and years ago is still running somewhere :)

HaywoodJablonski

2014-09-09 1:20:51 PM

Does this version work with uverse? If not, fark off!

Barricaded Gunman

2014-09-09 1:27:33 PM

SFSailor: my main concern is that they push some upgrade(s) that ruin the interface/performance... no, I don't want YouTube/Netflix/too-slick-gui/whatever on my TiVo!

Ugh... goddamn THIS. I was an early adopter, too, and always thought Tivo was one of the best things ever, until last year when I replaced my old HD box with the "Roamio." Instead of the old clean interface I'd come to love, it's now a hot mess of icons and flashing annoyance, like a 14 year old's first iphone.

And I've turned off that loud, irritating "channel preview" window at least a dozen times, and it always comes back on.

kittyhas1000legs

2014-09-09 1:44:34 PM

The big question is, can it do OTA? I'd love a mega-capacity DVR for OTA rather than cable, since cable compresses the signal and is a waste of money (since I don't watch sports or reality shows). A 1-hour HD ATSC recording is around 6-7GB, and my computer's getting kinda full.

flaminio

2014-09-09 1:49:16 PM

kittyhas1000legs: The big question is, can it do OTA? I'd love a mega-capacity DVR for OTA rather than cable, since cable compresses the signal and is a waste of money (since I don't watch sports or reality shows). A 1-hour HD ATSC recording is around 6-7GB, and my computer's getting kinda full.

I've got one of these:

http://www.channelmaster.com/Products_s/329.htm (ChannelMaster DVR+)

It works well, mostly. Free guide data. Bring your own hard drive. Records in lovely OTA HD, as long as you have a good antenna and signal. Two tuners so you can watch and record at the same time (yes, four would be better).

TNel

2014-09-09 2:19:11 PM

lordargent: Dr Dreidel: To get to 26,000 hours, you'd see marathons of all three series 61 times.

The 26,000 hour figure is only for SD content.

Hitting the 4000 hours of HD is much easier ... assuming there's stuff on TV you actually want to watch.

// My S3 tivo sits idle now ... since I canceled my cable TV subscription

// I think I need to sell it since I'm all streaming these days, my hate of cable companies overwhelmed my love of TiVo :(

[lordargent.com image 400x125]

A lot of times Tivo will allow you to buy a lifetime sub for like $99 for older boxes. Get it then sell the box. That's what I did. Made good money on it.

abhorrent1

2014-09-09 2:19:28 PM

Who the fark watches that much TV. I watch TV but geez. Get a life.

exparrot

2014-09-09 2:35:19 PM

I can use this to prove my thesis!

SFSailor

2014-09-09 2:37:06 PM

Barricaded Gunman: replaced my old HD box with the "Roamio." Instead of the old clean interface

Barricaded Gunman: at least a dozen times

Alllllll right, no Roamio for me! I had suspected, but was still on the fence. Not only do I have no compelling reason to upgrade, I explicitly -won't- unless they release some kind of "TiVo classic" or something.

I really, *really* hope they don't do some "we're making your interface better!" unavoidable, unwanted push to the old boxes. Make it faster, make it more efficient, fix the damned "it's the 21st century -- why can't I not worry if the live event will be capture entirely?" issue, but do -not- turn it into some "ooooh! Shiny! We can do microsoftappleandroid flashy-busy-ness too!"

Thanks for sharing -- I appreciate it!

Mikey1969

2014-09-09 2:45:17 PM

Subby, why do you own pron?

Barricaded Gunman

2014-09-09 2:50:07 PM

SFSailor: I really, *really* hope they don't do some "we're making your interface better!" unavoidable, unwanted push to the old boxes. Make it faster, make it more efficient, fix the damned "it's the 21st century -- why can't I not worry if the live event will be capture entirely?" issue, but do -not- turn it into some "ooooh! Shiny! We can do microsoftappleandroid flashy-busy-ness too!"

Thanks for sharing -- I appreciate it!

Hang onto that old box, brother. There's no going back. :-)

Dinjiin

2014-09-09 2:56:03 PM

xria: A movie in 4K is up to about 100GB per hour or so. So 360 hours at 4K, making it pretty much in line with a lot of current PVR capacities.

Not necessarily. You can use whatever bitrate you want with 4K video, quality withstanding. Most of the sample clips I have average around 35 Mbps (15 GBph), which is in line with BD-ROM 1X playback rates. The 100 GBph (225 Mbps) rate you quoted is near the top of the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) peak 4K theatrical bitrate, which is total overkill for home consumer needs.

For reference, it appears that the new Bluray 4K disc is going to be a triple layer 100GB disc. I imagine that they'll probably use BD 2X playback speeds, which is about 31 GBph.

So if you went with BD 2X bitrates, that's about 800 hours with this PVR.

Dinjiin

2014-09-09 3:08:29 PM

Setup a home theater PC with an ATSC tuner card. I use Windows 7 with Microsoft Media Center as my DVR software. You can also use Linux with MythTV. Install a couple of TB hard drives and you're good.

If space is a concern, MythTV allows you to transcode ATSC MPEG-2/H.262 streams to MPEG-4/H.264 streams on-the-fly. Although, I don't believe that it utilizes H.264 hardware acceleration, so you're going to burn a lot of extra juice running the CPU at max. Might just be cheaper to get more storage.

Closed_Minded_Bastage

2014-09-09 3:22:42 PM

TFA: The TiVo Mega is made up of 10 hard drives in a RAID-5 array...

No way in hell would I run that many drives as RAID-5. It would be have to be running RAID-6 for that one time another drive fails when rebuilding from a degraded array. I could afford loosing that 4TB to parity.

/of course you'd need to have backups of everything

Hiro-ACiD

2014-09-09 4:01:46 PM

Closed_Minded_Bastage: TFA: The TiVo Mega is made up of 10 hard drives in a RAID-5 array...

No way in hell would I run that many drives as RAID-5. It would be have to be running RAID-6 for that one time another drive fails when rebuilding from a degraded array. I could afford loosing that 4TB to parity.

/of course you'd need to have backups of everything

Came to complain this.

RAID-5 is so 1990s.

BalugaJoe

2014-09-09 10:26:34 PM

Read a book.

fisker

2014-09-09 11:07:07 PM

We're almost there.

GrailOfThunder

2014-09-09 11:57:24 PM

xria: Dr Dreidel: Cheers ran for 275 episodes, roughly 25 minutes apiece. 275 x (25/60) = 114.58 hours of Cheers.
M*A*S*H ran for 255 episodes, also 25 minutes apiece. 255 x (25/60) + 2.5 (the finale) = 108.75 hours of M*A*S*H.
The Simpsons' 552 episodes, at 22 minutes apiece, is 202.4 hours.

To get to 26,000 hours, you'd see marathons of all three series 61 times. If it was the Star Wars films (805 minutes or 13.4 hours), you'd watch all six special editions 1937.8 times (I guess the last time through, you can skip TPM and the first half of AoC).

// just to put that in some sort of perspective.

A movie in 4K is up to about 100GB per hour or so. So 360 hours at 4K, making it pretty much in line with a lot of current PVR capacities.

How many cable companies do you know that broadcast a 4K signal?

Remember, this is a DVR, not a media center. If you want to store a 4K movie, there are much cheaper ways (3TB drives are down to like $99 now).

kittyhas1000legs

2014-09-10 10:02:42 AM

Dinjiin: kittyhas1000legs: The big question is, can it do OTA? I'd love a mega-capacity DVR for OTA rather than cable, since cable compresses the signal and is a waste of money (since I don't watch sports or reality shows). A 1-hour HD ATSC recording is around 6-7GB, and my computer's getting kinda full.

Setup a home theater PC with an ATSC tuner card. I use Windows 7 with Microsoft Media Center as my DVR software. You can also use Linux with MythTV. Install a couple of TB hard drives and you're good.

If space is a concern, MythTV allows you to transcode ATSC MPEG-2/H.262 streams to MPEG-4/H.264 streams on-the-fly. Although, I don't believe that it utilizes H.264 hardware acceleration, so you're going to burn a lot of extra juice running the CPU at max. Might just be cheaper to get more storage.

Space is the only concern. I just need a RAID, and the money to build it. the 2TB is getting pretty full. I have a WinTV 950Q USB tuner (NTSC/ATSC), HDHomeRun Prime (ClearQAM/CableCard), and WinTV Nova-S2 (DVB-S2 satellite card waiting for a southern sky). Once I have the money I'll put some sort of big RAID in.

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