TiVo adds support for 802.11g USB WiFi adapters. But there's a catch.

We've whined about this before, but it looks like TiVo is finally adding support for 802.11g WiFi adapters to their Series 2 digital video recorders. Too bad there's a big catch—apparently you won't see any increase in speed switching to 802.11g, which means that copying a TV show over to your PC using TiVoToGo will be just as slow as if you were using 802.11b. So far only two USB WiFi adapters are supported (Netgear's WG111 v2 and D-Link's DWL-G120), but if you can manage it, you may want to stick to Ethernet until they sort things out.

[Via PVRblog]

[gmon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

why would using wired ethernet be advantageous?
you're still need to run it through an USB adapter ... therefore the speed would still max out somewhere between slow and damn slow.

[Cliff @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I could only see one possible advantage to this. Tivo currently is the only wifi device we have on our network that doesn't support WPA encryption. Does the Tivo g support include WPA encryption?

[Cliff @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Ok, so here's the deal. I dug a little deeper and found this link:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=225564

USB 2.0 is supported on some Series 2 Tivo devices depending on the serial #, but they still do not expect higher speeds to take place with Wireless G.

WPA is still not supported :(

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

what ever happened to the tivo-netflix partnership? If seems like if anything could save this company it would be that killer app

[Aaron @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

According to a TiVo employee on the TiVo forums, even though they've added support for 802.11g adapters they have no plans to support WPA. Brilliant.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2625739

[Karim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Does anyone know what the speed of the Ethernet connection would be as compared to 802.11b or g?

[Joey Geraci @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

wouldn't usb 2.0 support make the speed the same as on any laptop or desktop that you plugged the adapter into, tivo really needs to get their act together if they want to be in business in the next couple of years. You pay $12 a month for a service and expect any problems to be fixed quickly and the service to be spruced up regularly. Tivo just needs to be bought out by a company with real respect for its customers, that is the only way that the company is going to survive.

[Larry @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

It's good that the 802.11g adapters are supported even though the transfers aren't faster. If you have a 802.11g wireless network in your house and have an 802.11b adapter on the network, it slows down everything to the 802.11b speed

[Larry @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

It's good that the 802.11g adapters are supported even though the transfers aren't faster. If you have a 802.11g wireless network in your house and have an 802.11b adapter on the network, it slows down everything to the 802.11b speed

[Larry @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

It's good that the 802.11g adapters are supported even though the transfers aren't faster. If you have a 802.11g wireless network in your house and have an 802.11b adapter on the network, it slows down everything to the 802.11b speed

[StuBee @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Larry, I believe that's outdated info x 3.
Some of the original G wifi routers did indeed have this issue (that a B wifi device would drop the network speed down to B, even on unrelated G to G network communications).
But I believe for most wifi routers, this has not been the case for quite a long time. For example Linksys WRT54g can communicate G to G, while also talking B to B with another device.

Pls post if someone thinks this is incorrect.