[icecow]

A FAQ finding mission:

If you have a questions too, please get them down and think later.

I got several 'newbies' asking me questions via IMs and I don't know the answers. I have alot of questions myself.


A> How many shows can a replay simotaneously download at the same time?


B> If the max simotanious downloads is 2, and you accept 4, Do the two waiting downloads make their senders wait till you have downloaded the others before starting theirs? or are the sender's ReplayTVs smart enough to send to someone else and try you later?


C> How many shows can a ReplayTV send simotaneously (I think I heard 2)


D> How many times can one send a show? (I think I heard 15)


E> How many people can be in a ReplayTV address book?


F> How does the sender know that you have finished recieving a video? (I believe there is no way, the reciever has to email the sender). If the sender tries to delete a show awhile someone else is downloading it, does the sender get a warning message?


cow

 

[drisner]

My answers apply to what I have seen with my 45xx machines:


a> The Replay will download only one show at a time. It will let you accept many. I don't know if there is an upper limit, but it queues them up and downloads them one at a time.


c> I have not seen any hard limit on the number of shows my Replay can send at once; however, if you do send more than four or so at a time, you start getting freeze ups and crashes (besides it going very slow for everyone).


b> Since there is apparently no limit on the number of shows the Replay can send, this question is moot. However, I think this question is really a misunderstanding because of the nomenclature. Instead of "Send Show" call it "Offer Show to another User". Instead of "Accept Show" call it "Download Offered Show". It is the receiving Replay that drives the "sending" not the sending Replay.


d> I thought it was 10, but there are ways around this that, while not perfect, can work. (Try hooking up an output to an input and using the Manual Record).


e> Don't know. It is over 40. The big question is: how do you delete someone from your address book?


f> If a show is currently being "accepted", a message will come up when the "sender" tries to delete the show. This is only when the show is actively being sent. If there have been some errors, and it hasn't restarted yet or if it is still in the receiver's queue, no message will come up.


At this point, a note:

There is a bug in the receiving and queueing software that can create some problems:

If you have a queue going and you get to the 100% received point, it will sometimes start up on the next show in the queue and leave the first show showing it is at 100%. It will eventually fix itself when all of the shows in the queue are received, but if the sender deletes the show stuck at 100% before it does fix itself, you are out of luck. Of course, the sender doesn't get any notice when they go to delete the show that it is currently being accepted. Ugh!

 

[TheDreamer]

Let's see.....


a> 1, you can accept them all...providing you enough unreserved space before hand.


b> it will only download one show at a time....though if there is a network glitch and you have other transfers queued...a different show may get some of it downloaded.


c> There is no limit on how many shows can be downloaded at any time....your machine is just an HTTP server that is letting the receivers do GETs from you. It doesn't seem to have any safe guard to limit this.


I once had about 20 different people download from a single RTV. Somedays it would bog down so bad that it was difficult to use....in older versions of software it would cause my RTV to lockup or crash. I try not to get carried away like that anymore.... As my upstream cap gets raised the problem gets worse.....


d> The send limit is 15. It is in the manual somewhere...plus when you reach the limit it says the show has already been sent 15 times.


e> I think the limit is 100. I've only hit it once, now I just go through my address book once in a while and prune systems out. You remove them by going into the Setup Menu for Internet Address Book and delete them (one by one).


The other reason it doesn't get this bad anymore...is I write out my address book (actually a notepad file) on what is in each of my ReplayTVs. And, when the file gets to be too long to easily search through....I go through and clean out the address books.


I do this because if somebody gives me an ISN only, and it is already in my address book...all it says is that the ISN is already in the address book, and it doesn't tell me what the ISN is listed as. And, the send menu does reveal the ISN for the names in the list (and it is too slow to go to the address book and then come back to the send menu).


f> There is a limited warning period while the show is actively being sent there's some kind of time period....because it is possible to delete shows before the receiver is done. But, there are also times when you will get the warning, but the receiver has downloaded 100%....but hasn't yet connected one last time to confirm that there are 0 bytes left to download.


This can lead to being stuck at 100%. Or receiving 100% and then have the transfer fail (because the sender deleted).


The Dreamer.