Full HDD, Can I transfer to PC and stream with Beyonwiz?

Mike in Bris · Post by **Mike in Bris** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 14:23

Hi Guys,

Sounds like such an obvious request that I figure you guys will know the answer straight away. I have filled my 500GB HDD on the DP-P2 but my wife won't let me delete content I reckon we'll never watch. Can I transfer it to my PC using something like WizFX, then share it and stream it on the Beyonwiz as I do currently for AVI content. I know the WizFX transfers as .TS and I figure I can't stream that, so is it a convoluted process to actually transfer it to a shared folder on the PC and stream? If I have to use all sorts of third party editors to change the format then it might be more work than its worth.

Really just want to take advantage of the 1TB external HDDs I have hanging off the PC and that extra storage capacity for my recorded content but still want to watch it in the loungeroom via the DP-P2.

Maybe a third party app other than WizFX?

Cheers,
Mike

prl · Post by **prl** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 14:39

Mike in Bris wrote:Hi Guys,

Sounds like such an obvious request that I figure you guys will know the answer straight away. I have filled my 500GB HDD on the DP-P2 but my wife won't let me delete content I reckon we'll never watch. Can I transfer it to my PC using something like WizFX, then share it and stream it on the Beyonwiz as I do currently for AVI content. I know the WizFX transfers as .TS and I figure I can't stream that, so is it a convoluted process to actually transfer it to a shared folder on the PC and stream? If I have to use all sorts of third party editors to change the format then it might be more work than its worth.

Really just want to take advantage of the 1TB external HDDs I have hanging off the PC and that extra storage capacity for my recorded content but still want to watch it in the loungeroom via the DP-P2.

Maybe a third party app other than WizFX?

Cheers,
Mike

There are several user-contributed replacements to WizFX, but they all do similar sorts of things.

It's not the case that WizFX only transfers as a single TS file; it can also copy the Beyonwiz recording as-is. All the user-contributed WizFX replacements can do the same. The Beyonwiz can stream both, but startup is faster and navigation is better in the Beyonwiz native format.

You don't need to do any editing or conversion if all you want to do is stream the content from the PC. You may want to do editing, and you will need to convert if you want to, say, burn to a DVD Video disk or creating an AVI from the recording.

Also, if you set up Windows Sharing so you can play the recordings from your PC, all you need to do is make the shares and shared folders writable by the Windows Shares user configured on the Beyonwiz, and you can copy recordings to the share from the FilePlayer (Menu>Copy to/Move to) without using WizFX (or friends) at all. This only allows copying as a Beyonwiz recording, though.

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 14:59

Hi Mike,

You can use WizFX, any of the user contributed similar tools or the Beyonwiz UI to transfer your recordings to a PC. Leave the recordings as .TVWIZ format on your PC and they will play back exactly as they would if the recordings were still on the Beyonwiz.

Just have a play with copying a single recording to see how easy, although slow, the process can be.

Regards,
Ian.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 15:09

I just had to do the same the other day, I nearly ran out of space and Wizfx was way way faster to transfer the files than doing it from the GUI (I tried doing 8 files from 3am last night from the GUI just to see if all was ok, was still chugging away at 8am), leave them as native (.tvwiz) rather than .ts for best compatibility, you can always change them to ts with WizFX if you want later.

Mike in Bris · Post by **Mike in Bris** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 15:59

Awesome!

Thanks guys. I transferred one over the other day as .ts and it did take forever. But I'll leave them native and set the destination as a shared drive on my L: external HDD and give it a go. That way my wife can still watch the content if she wants to (not likely) but I'll have freed the space to record more content.

Many thanks!!

Cheers,
Mike

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 16:28

ts, tvwiz, whatever, take the same time. It is just doing it from the GUI uses less efficient (and possibly more CPU intensive) windows sharing, where as WizFX uses the more efficent WizPNP protocol. When you set WizFX to tvwiz, it means the file gets kept in native format, I was more trying to explain the transfer speed things related to Windows sharing vs WizFX.

prl · Post by **prl** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 16:36

tonymy01 wrote:ts, tvwiz, whatever, take the same time. ...

Yep. There are some very small differences between the amount of data transferred by WizFX in .tvwiz and .ts format. For .ts format, there's a bit over 256kB of header files that aren't transferred, and for each edit done on the Beyonwiz, .ts format can copy up to 64MB less data. But for typical recordings, this makes very little difference to the copy time. The same copy mechanism is used for both .ts and .tvwiz, and the conversion from .tvwiz to .ts format costs pretty much no computation time at either end.