Slingbox

[irishrjh]

I am a happy 2+ year user of Beyond TV! Problem is that I live in Japan and am limited on what TV I get over here. I only have Armed Forces Network satellite programming...

ENTER the slingbox- Now I could drop a slingbox off with my folks in the states, hook it up to a dedicated source (satellite receiver) and stream a full US line-up to my living room compyter in Japan... TaDa, right?

But, I want to be able to PVR the stream... SO, I called slingbox support and was told that their software does not timeshift (PVR style). But, the tech suggested that I could use my Beyond TV and TV Card to work around this.

I could use the slingbox to stream video to my PC, run S-video out of my graphics card as a source input to the TV card, and record it from there... Right?? The problem- how would I control the channel at the slingbox end????? So, when I set up a recording- I would tell the Beyond TV (or Hauppauge PVS software) to start recording channel X at X:30 pm, which would trigger it to start recording from the source at that time, but how would it change the channel?

Any other solutions/suggestions??

[SwissMoose]

The problem with that kind of setup (if I am reading correctly) is that your DVR is with you in Japan. That means that even if you have the Slingbox attached to it's own dedicated cable/satellite feed back home, you would actually need two computers on the recieving end in Japan. One to recieve from the Slingbox and another to capture. Unless you were using some software like Camtasia to capture the video from the stream. This whole process would leave you with a 3rd-4rth generation copy that would look pretty crappy and you would have to be dead sure that the network connection to your home won't ever go down.

It would be ideal if your DVR setup was back a home. Then you have a couple simpler options. One would be to not worry about the Slingbox and just have BTV ShowSqueeze your shows down to WMV for later downloading or streaming to Japan. Or if you wanted to go with the Slingbox you could just hook that up to the TV out of your BTV and use it to control the Beyond TV and stream. You would need a an IR reciever on the BTV machine back home to let you control it.

I think if it isn't for super long term use you would be better off just using a set top Tivo like device or DVD recorder at home and use the Slingbox to stream. I guess it just depends on if you think your parents at home can handle setting up something more complicated.

[DonK]

Or use a software encoder card, set up the appropriate ports on your router at home and simply stream live tv from BTV to your computer in Japan, or do as the other user suggested, showsqueeze and download.

[kandlg]

I live in Qatar and have the same problem you do - very little good TV. I set up a BTV server in the US and download the programs over the internet. It's not real time, but the picture quality is very good and I don't have to worry about streaming internet problems.


I use BTV on the US PC to record the shows just like normal. I use the web admin and remote recording on snapstream to set up the shows. I also use PC Anywhere so I can work on the computer remotely. It's a little easier to manage BTV with PCAnywhere. I use AutoGK to convert the shows to XviD and then run GuildFtp for an ftp server so I can download the shows. I end up with better than VCR quality shows with file sizes at about 800 mb per hour.

To watch the shows in Qatar I have a media PC with BTV connected to a TV. I just download the shows to the default recording directory and BTV recognizes them and adds them to the library. I use a firefly remote and it's just like using a DVR in the US.

I had a very reliable set up using BTV 3.7.4 that ran unattended (my parents aren't very computer literate) for about 8 months without a glitch. I upgraded to BTV 4 and am now having a few issues. If they can get the showsqueeze copy issue fixed I will be OK, but right now I have to manually move the shows for transcoding. I was dissappointed with the quality of the built-in DiVX encoding in BTV 4 and switched back to Xvid.

I have a friend in Japan that uses the slingbox and he says it stutters because of internet lag. He has a DVR in the US that he controls through the slingbox but it takes about 5 seconds for his commands to go the distance. It doesn't sound very efficient.

If you are interested I can post links, etc.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by DonK

Or use a software encoder card, set up the appropriate ports on your router at home and simply stream live tv from BTV to your computer in Japan, or do as the other user suggested, showsqueeze and download.

Hehehe. Funny story time. For Christmas I received a SlingBox. My parents were "so proud" that they had finally found a piece of technology that I have _never_ heard of and thought I would love to death. It didn't take me long to realize this SlingBox does nothing more than what I can do with BTV WebServer already. Oh well.

-Brett

[irishrjh]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't actually have a tv card running on a pc in the states... the tv card is on my pc here in Japan. Slinging has worked pretty well and the DVR in the states is working out fine for timeshifting. I was worried about filling up space on my parents DVR, but it hasn't been a problem. The bigger problem is that they are moving to Australia... now I am shopping for someone to host my slingbox...

[TambourineMan]

I am happy to hear that Beyond TV gives our military an additinal means of getting the news and entertainment they want. When I was in Vietnam all we had was the Stars and Stripes and Armed Forces Radio.

I would like to be able to access FOX News at work over the internet as I cannot stand the MSM bias, so I was thinking of getting a Slingbox, but held off to see if another cheaper method would work.

I would appreciate the links to how to do this, or any other help. One problem I foresee will be tunneling through my company's firewall.

[cmcquistion]

Originally Posted by kandlg

If you are interested I can post links, etc.

Please post some links of the software you're using:

-AutoXvid?
-FTP Server?
-do you have a way to automate the compression, uploading, and deletion?

I'm looking into building a similar setup for a friend that is moving to Sweden, but wants to get US shows. My initial setup idea is to have a BTV Server at my home, with AutoXvid to compress and move recordings to another folder. I would have another software (not sure what) to start up and upload any files in that folder every 12 hrs or something. It would be set to delete local files after transfer. I would install an FTP Server on his BTV server at his home, to receive files, directly into his BTV folder. My hope is to keep it all fairly transparent. It would be REALLY nice if I could figure out how to set up a VPN between our two networks and have him be able to use BTV Link, over VPN, for control (setting up shows and settings, etc). Obviously, there wouldn't be enough bandwidth to watch shows over VPN, but if he could control the box, via remote control, from his couch, that would be awesome.

[kandlg]

cmcquistion: Sorry for the late response - I was on vacation.

I set this up about about 18 months ago so the software and procedures are fairly old, but it works. I tried upgrading a few things, but I realized what I have works fine so I decided to leave well enough.

I use BTV 3.7.4 on the recording side. I tried BTV 4, but the DIVX encoding did not work so I went back to the old version. I have an old Athlon 1300 T-bird with 1 PVR 150 and 1 PVR 250 tuner. It was a spare computer I had sitting around. I did put in a 200 GB hard drive and installed a new version of Win XP. I have disabled all extras like windows update, firewall, etc. and it is very stable.

Don’t laugh, but AutoXvid wasn’t around when I set my computer up so I used this technique:
http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=20628
I am using “Better” BTV recording quality (2.3 GB/hour) and an XViD compression setting of 80%. My Athlon 1300 processor takes about 2.5 hours to convert an hour of programming. This gives me a file size of about 850 mb /hr. If I record at “Best” quality it takes too long to convert. Your may do better if you have a faster system. BTV records the show in one directory. Use showsqueeze to copy the file after hours to a conversion directory and delete the original recording. AutoGK will then convert it and puts it in a third directory. These last two files have to be deleted manually.

For an FTP server I use this free software:
http://www.guildftpd.com/
It has very good instructions. Read the FAQ and it will tell you exactly how to set it up. Follow the instructions step by step. Use a user name and password and change the default port from 21 to something else to avoid hackers. There is a special FAQ on using routers that you need to review as well. The program is stable and works very well.

I setup new recordings and delete old programs using the BTV web admin remotely. For web admin, all you have to do is forward the 8129 port in the router to your BTV computer. If you have a dynamic IP address your IP address will change periodically on the US BTV recorder. Just go to www.no-ip.com to fix that. You reserve a name and there is a little program that loads automatically on the BTV computer at start-up and updates your IP address on their servers. To access the web admin remotely (from Sweden in your case) you enter the URL as http://mybtvcomputernamehere.no-ip.info:8129. It will open up the web admin just like you were sitting at the computer. The same thing applies to the ftp server. Set up a password on the web admin for security. New shows can be added using snapstream.net. I use PC Anywhere 11.0 for system maintenance and clean up. OEM versions of version 10.5 and 11.0 are cheap.

I use GetRight to download the files to a remote computer.
http://www.getright.com/
It has a server synchronizer that automatically compares directories and downloads remote files that don’t exist on the local machine. You have to activate the synchronizer manually, but it makes the downloading process easier. You have to be careful to delete the shows on the US machine when you delete them locally or you can end up re-downloading them. I’m not sure how to push the new shows to the foreign computer.

I have an HTPC here in Qatar and I just copy the downloaded files in the BTV directory and it finds the new shows and includes them automatically in the recording listings. In the process I lose the show header information, but that’s not a big deal because the file names include everything I need to know.

I don’t think this is as transparent as you are hoping, but your friend would be able to manage the shows and recordings remotely without bugging you. It doesn’t take that much work to keep running.

[cmcquistion]

Over the past couple weeks I've been chewing over this project and trying out a few things. Some worked and some didn't, but here is what I have working, so far:

I have the BTV Server set to record some shows and then showsqueeze them to a second video folder (delete originals.) I set up cwRsync Server on the BTV Server (Rsync server running on Cygwin layer). This second video folder is set up as a Rsync share. I have my remote machine (just a test machine, right now) set up with the cwRsync client software. Both computers have Hamachi VPN software installed. This VPN is incredibly easy to use. It is transparent through firewalls, so you don't have to open ports and it encrypts communication, as any decent VPN does. Hamachi assigns each client a unique IP and I have set up a VPN network, networking together the two machines (BTV Server and test computer). This software starts up automatically with Windows and connects to the VPN network. I also have RealVNC installed on both computers, so I can access either one, from either location, via VNC, over Hamachi. I can also run BTV Link over VPN. The bandwidth isn't high enough to watch recordings, but it is fine for setting up recordings or changing settings. The web interface is accessible, of course, over the VPN.

The reason I chose Rsync is that it is fast, you can tunnel it over SSH (even more security, although I'm not using this at the moment), it can resume broken downloads, and it is an older and fairly stable program. The rsync client script was the most time consuming to get right. I had to read a lot of documentation and there was a lot of trial and error to get things working the way I wanted.

I ended up just writing a batch file that runs continuously. It checks for recordings (only AVI files and smartchapter), downloads the recordings, then sleeps for 1 minutes and tries again. This has been running for weeks with no problems. Here is a simplified version of my download.bat file that runs on the remote client: (mine also downloads MP3's, WMA's, ISO's, and JPG's and puts them in the appropriate folder)

:: Chris' Beyond TV Rsync Download Program
::
:: This is my rsync download program which downloads AVI files and the AVI smartchapter files
:: from a remote server into a target directory on the local machine. In this case, it downloads
:: files first to a temporary directory "M:\Temp\".
:: Partially downloaded files are kept here, also, so they will not enter the target directory
:: until completely finished downloading. This is to keep partial files out of the target directory
:: in the case of a failed download. (If the Internet connection is lost or server goes down.)
::
:: The rsync switches and parameters are:
::
:: -a (archive, not sure why this is needed, but it is)
:: -v (verbose, gives output to the screen, otherwise, there really isn't anything to watch...)
:: -u (update only (don't overwrite newer files)
:: -t (preserve times on file creation, modification, etc.)
:: -z (compress file data, probably not very helpful for already compressed files)
:: -r (recursively copies directories)
:: -h (human-readable, shows download in KB, MB, or GB, instead of bytes.)
:: -d (include directories and copy them over)
:: --stats (display statistics of downloads)
:: -P (implies partial and progress, which allows rsync to resume partially
:: downloaded files and progress simply shows the download progress)
:: --timeout (set I/O timeout in seconds. If the server doesn't respond,
:: the download is halted and the rest of the script continues.)
:: --modify-window=2 (this is to overcome Windows lack of precision on files
:: modification times)
:: --remove-sent-files (removes source files after they are successfully sent)
:: --include=*.avi, etc (this tells rsync to only download files which have matching
:: file extensions, like AVI, ISO, etc. We do not want to download other files,
:: like original MPEG recordings or various temp files and such.)
:: --exclude=*.* (tells rsync to exclude every file type. The previous --include line
:: overrides this. The net result is that rsync downloads only the extensions
:: that we explicitely include, like *.avi, *.avi.chapters.xml files, etc.)
:: --temp-dir=/cygdrive/m/Temp (this tells rsync to store all
:: downloaded files in M:\Temp\
:: --partial-dir=/cygdrive/m/Temp (this tell rsync to store all PARTIAL
:: files in the same folder that I'm using for temp files. This isn't absolutely
:: necessary. It could even be a different hard drive, but this keeps things tidy.)
:: 12.34.56.78::compressed (this is the IP address of the Remote Beyond TV Server
:: (over secure VPN) and the remote share name (as configured by the remote
:: rsync server). Since there are double-quotes, this is not sent over SSH. Single
:: quotes would imply an SSH connection, but I haven't figured out how to use
:: this, yet, and I'm not sure how necessary it is, since the VPN connection is
:: an encrypted, secure tunnel, already.
:: /cygdrive/M/Video/Downloaded_files = local target folder = M:\Video\Downloaded_files.
:: Since rsync is running on top of cygwin (a compatibility layer for linux tools),
:: the path name is listed in cygwin terms, which start with /cygdrive/ always and
:: do not use drive letters:: like C: Instead it uses /c/Video to represent C:\Video.
:: Notice that it uses forward slashes, as Linux does, instead of back slashes,
:: as Windows does. This is important.
:: The above target folder and partial/temp folder must be created before this
:: script is started, or it will not work. If you change or move folders, you will
:: have to modify the whole script, accordingly.
::
:START
::
@ECHO OFF
::
:: -- Cleanup of leftover files (from improper program shutdown)
IF EXIST M:\Temp\.* (GOTO 10) ELSE GOTO 15
:10
ECHO Removing any leftover files in the temp directory of the download queue
ECHO .
del /F M:\Temp\.*
:15
::
:: -- Download files
ECHO Downloading AVI files
rsync -avuth --timeout=120 -P --modify-window=2 --remove-sent-files --include=*.avi --include=*.avi.chapters.xml --exclude=*.* --temp-dir=/cygdrive/M/Temp --partial-dir=/cygdrive/M/Temp 12.34.56.78::compressed /cygdrive/M/Video/Downloaded_files
::
:: - the above "rsync..." lines should be one long time, but the forum wraps it
::
ECHO Downloads complete.
ECHO .
ECHO ..
ECHO The current date and time is:
DATE /T
TIME /T
ECHO ...
ECHO Please remember to always close this program
ECHO by issuing Ctrl-C on your keyboard a few times
ECHO and clicking "Y" at the prompt to close the program.
ECHO If you do not do this, the program cannot
ECHO resume unfinished downloads, properly.
ECHO ....
ECHO .....
ECHO Waiting for 60 seconds.
ECHO After waiting, I will try to download more files, if available.
::
SLEEP 60
GOTO START
::

I have changed my real Hamachi IP, above, with 12.34.56.78. The forum may do line wrapping, on my file, so it probably won't look exactly right (those need to be continuous lines.) In order to do a SLEEP operation, I had to download the Windows 2003 Resource Kit. This was a free download from Microsoft and included the SLEEP program. This isn't an absolute necessity. You could just have the script run over and over, with no break.

My rsync.conf file for the Rsync/BTV Server is below:

use chroot = false
strict modes = false
hosts allow = *
log file = rsyncd.log
pid file = rsyncd.pid

# Module definitions
# Remember cygwin naming conventions : c:\work becomes /cygwin/c/work
#
[compressed]
path = /cygdrive/m/Video/Compressed_Video
read only = false
transfer logging = yes

Please note that I have not locked down security as tightly as I could. This is something of a project the works, but so far, it works great and is pretty transparent. With this setup, if my remote computer also has BTV installed on it, and the shows are dropped into a valid video folder, they will have program information and smartchapter information. This remote computer can also access my BTV Server, via the BTV web server or using BTV Link, over the VPN. You can setup recordings and manage settings, just like it were a local BTV Server.

Currently, I'm using Snapstream's showsqueeze to compress files. This is the easiest to set up, but I could use AutoXvid, as an alternative. With showsqueeze, I can finish smartchapter and showsqueeze on an hour long show in 1-2 hours. Transmission takes the longest. My upload speed isn't very good (400-600kbps on average) and using the Showsqueeze quality I'm currently using, an hour long show is about 1 GB and takes 4-6 hours to upload.

The time it takes to do smartchapter, compress with Showsqueeze and then upload is what I call my 'window time'. With my test recordings (4 one hour recordings per day) I have set up, right now, my windows time is about 6-12 hours, depending on time of day (Internet bandwidth), recording frequency, length of recordings, and recording density. For my purposes, 6-12 hours is not a bad window time.

I should mention that you don't have to have BTV installed on the remote side. You could just drop files in any directory and watch them with whatever client software you like, even Windows MCE, Windows Media Player, etc. Since rsync is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and more, the remote client can be almost any OS and the local media server doesn't necessarily have to be BTV. Of course, having local and remote BTV systems gives you the real benefits of easy scheduling, Smartskip, etc. In addition, you could also transmit DVD ISO images, MP3's, or whatever file type you wanted. In my implementation, I'm deleting the local file, after it is transmitted, but you could also leave this option off and use this to synchronize video/audio libraries, to keep copies on both sides.

*EDIT* I had to change some of the formatting, so smilies wouldn't show up, instead of my characters. I also changed some of the formatting to avoid line-wrapping.

*EDIT 2* If you want to cancel this script, while it is downloading. You need to use Ctrl-C to tell the program to cancel (it will ask you to Y/N confirmation.) If you don't do this, it won't exit properly and won't resume your old download, the next time it is started. This might not be a big deal, but it leaves leftover files around.

*EDIT 3* While downloading massive files, Rsync is using less than 7 MB of RAM and almost no CPU usage on the serving computer and receiving computer, over a WAN connection. Working inside a Gigabit LAN, the CPU usage is much higher because it is transferring MUCH faster. The upside is, the transfers are pretty quick over Gigabit...

*EDIT 4* I'm using "TrayIt 3.1.2.2" to keep this Command Window running minimized in the system tray, instead of running in the Taskbar. This keeps it out of the way, unless I need it.

[kandlg]

Very nice system for automatic transfer. I would like to get something like this running to automate the process. I have a few questions:

1) You mention the VPN loads and connects on start-up automatically. If the VPN connection is broken due to internet issues will it reconnect automatically or do you have to do it manually?
2) Is the VPN necessary for the file transfer? The Rsync site says it is, but it looks like from your post it that you may not be using the VPN for file transfer. I'm not concerned with security in transferring the video files and based on my experience with corporate VPNs the transmission rate is reduced. Also if the VPN is dropped I would not want to reconnect it manually.
3) The compression method I am using (AutoGK) creates the .avi file during compression and it grows until it is finished. Your routine would discover it during compression and try to transfer it. How would I keep the transfer from starting before the file was finished? In my system the file is locked and my FTP program reports an error and doesn't allow it to be transferred intil AutoGK is finished. Would Rsync just keep trying to transfer it until the conversion is finished and the file is unlocked? Or would it just create an error and stop? I don't know if AutoXvid does the same thing or if it creates a temporary file that later becaomes an avi file.
4) The VPN gives you the ability to use BTV Link, correct? Since I am already using the remote web admin for scheduling, library clean-up, etc. and am OK with that, are there any other benefits to the VPN? I probably need to look at BTV-Link. It may be better for me on the remote side. I liked the BTV interface so I just used that for viewing. I don't do any recording over here in Qatar.

Thanks and good post.

[cmcquistion]

1. I just tested this by unplugging my router for a minute and then plugging it back in. The Hamachi sofware automatically reconnected all the VPN members (I have three members of my VPN). This is what I want it to do. I'm not sure how Rsync reacts to this, but I will take a look at it. One of my design goals was to have a system that could resume broken downloads, in case of interruption. This was the largest reason that I chose to use Rsync.
2. The VPN isn't completely necessary. You could use Rsync over the Internet wide open, or with SSH tunneling. In my case, I wanted a secure tunnel, so I could also run VNC, browse remote Windows shares, access BTV Web and BTV Link, all over a secure VPN. It is true that VPN's can reduce transmission. In corporate (high-speed) networks, this can be a real issue. With low bandwidth environments, like my upload speed, the performance loss is less noticable, at least with Hamachi.
3. I thought AutoXvid put the output file in the AGK directory, until it was finished? I know it puts the other temp files, there. If your FTP program is considering the AVI file locked and won't transfer, I think that rsync would do the same. My rsync script just restarts every ten minutes, so if it has any problems, it just tries again.
4. Yes, I can use BTV Link over VPN. This was one of my project goals, but it isn't a requirement, for you. There are several benefits to this kind of VPN. For one, it is transparent across the firewall, so you don't have to open any ports on your router and leave your system vulnerable to outside attack. Second, you have a secure, encrypted tunnel for communication, so you can do various network applications, without anyone being able to snoop in on your communication, possibly gaining access to one or both systems, as a result. As I mentioned, before, I'm using Windows File Sharing, RealVNC, BTV Link, and BTV Web over the VPN. All of these use insecure, unencrypted protocols, but when they're running over Hamachi, it is all encrypted into the VPN tunnel. Third, using Hamachi for VPN is nice because the Hamachi network assigns each member a unique IP address. This stays with the client, even if there external or internal IP address or DNS name changes. (Although you could use a dynamic DNS service, like NO-IP, to accomplish the same.)

For viewing shows, you'll need BTV (not Link). You can use BTV Link to remotely access the BTV Server, but the bandwidth isn't high enough to actually watch programming. In my case, the remote BTV system is going to have BTV, anyway, so I designed my solution, around that variable.

I don't know the details of the BTV license (whether one owner can have it installed on two machines, if they are only recording on one of them), but you might be able to install it on your machine in Qatar, with no local recordings, and just use it to watch shows transferred over.

P.S. I previously tried using a VPN with the software included in Windows XP. This had slower performance, the security was not as high, it depended on static IP addresses or DNS names (which I don't have), and I had to open ports in my firewall, to make it work.

*EDIT* It appears my rsync script really doesn't like it when the connection goes completely down, while it is transferring a file (if it were just SLEEPing, it wouldn't care.( It appears to just freeze the download in place. Closing it (Ctrl-C) and reopenning starts the transmission back up and resumes the download, from where it was left off, but I would rather it be intelligent enough to resume itself, without resorting to closing and reopening the program. I'll do some more reading and see if there are more options that I can pass to the program to make it do this.

*EDIT 2* It appears that if I leave the script alone, it ~can~ recover from this condition. I'm not entirely certain about why or when it will fail transmission, so I'd appreciate any other testing or input on this.

[kandlg]

1) Thanks for the test - sorry it messed up your download.
3) I installed AutoXvid on my BTV server in the US this AM and ran a test. It does not put the file in the output directory until it is done with the conversion. That eliminates my concern with a locked file. It also looks like a better process than AutoGK Squeezer - it includes episode data and keeps smart skip (although that takes too long to run on my old PC). I'll keep testing it on my setup.

I'll probably keep running without VPN. I can manage everything pretty well with the web admin for BTV setup and PCAnywhere when I have to do upgrades or serious maintenance. I do have a dynamic IP address and have to use No-IP to stay connected.

I was interested in Rsync to transfer the files until I saw your note about the interruption. It takes me about 5 hours to transfer a 1 hour show and the transfers are broken fairly often. Please post if you come up with something.

I've been looking at some programs that do automatic backups to FTP servers and have resume capabilities. I was considering moving my FTP server to my remote machine in Qatar and installing one of these programs on the BTV server in the US. The backup software could check for new files every 10 minutes or so and then upload them to my BTV shows folder here in Qatar. That would make the system completely hands-off. I'm still researching and will post back if I get one of them working.

[cmcquistion]

Interruptions don't corrupt the download. They just stop it. You can kill the program with Ctrl-C and then re-run it. It resumes from where the old download left off.

If you kill it by just closing the program window and not using Ctrl-C, it doesn't exit properly and can't resume the download.

*EDIT*, if you kill it without Ctrl-C, not only will not resume the download, it will leave the old junk file in the temporary directory. These could add up, over time, and start taking up some major disk space, so you shouldn't kill the program, except using Ctrl-C and it would still be a good idea to check out this folder, from time to time and delete any junk files that might be there. I might implement another command in the script to look for any leftover files and delete them, but I'm not sure how to implement it and make the program realize what needs to be deleted and what files might be resumed and completed.

[kandlg]

OK - Since it will resume, that may work for me after all. I got another FTP program set up that does the same thing (except it resumes dropped connections automatically), but its not cheap. I'll watch it through the trial period and see how often the connections are broken. If it's pretty infrequent I may give the script a try. Please post if you figure out a way to get it to resume automatically.

After playing with several FTP clients, I finally set up Cute FTP Pro to automate the download process. It has a built-in scheduler that activates a folder sychronization with the US BTV server. I have it configured to check the server every hour and download any new TV shows. It runs in the background without prompts and will resumes downloads if you pause it manually or lose the internet connection. If it can't connect to do a synchronization it just requeues the sync for the next hour. It has an option to delete the files on the server after transfer, but I left that off. One item - When you watch a show locally, it changes the file somehow and it will start to download it again if it is still on the server. There is an option to skip files with matching filenames so it will ignore files with date or size changes. It's been running a few days now without any problems. It's a much better system without having to check and manually start the downloads.

I tried several backup and FTP programs. Most FTP programs don't have schedulers for synchronization. Most backup programs don't have suspend/resume functions. There were a few options for running a program that would monitor the show folder and push the show to the remote computer, but I like to be able to control the download process if I need to. Also, most of those don't support suspend/resume.