I Don't Believe Them

Jinx

Jinx

I like cats, cats like me. Cats and I fully agree.
20+ Year Stangneter :roc</strong><span class=
Oct 2, 2003
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Cat Country
#1
So I get a letter from the cable company yesterday. It simply states that there is a know flaw with the HDD in some of the DVRs they issue out. I have one these defective systems.

I asked "what about all my recorded shows?" They replied "Sorry, can't transfer to new box"
I asked "what about my recording list? can I export just the list?" They replied "Sorry, No"

I'm gonna call BS. I don't want put my recordings to an external drive to watch later (I know that's not possible because of encryption) however, I just want to temporarily move the files for storage to upload the to the new box. There has to be a way, why else would these things be designed with an ethernet port on the back?

Any suggestions?
 
#2
There's only one way.

You would have to remove the hard drive from each unit. Hook them to a PC each, through an ATA or IDE (probably ATA) to USB adapter, transfer the files then reinstall them in their respective units.

The firmware that is installed on cable boxes does not allow transfer between units.

Their may exist, some expensive piece of equipment somewhere that can but it's much more likely that each hard drive is imaged BEFORE it's installed in the machine.
 
#4
Sounds like your box still works. Why not just keep it and watch your shows? Tell them you want the new box but want to keep the old one for now too.


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#5
DocG said:
Sounds like your box still works. Why not just keep it and watch your shows? Tell them you want the new box but want to keep the old one for now too.


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Click to expand...
as long as they don't want to charge me any "mustang go fast money" that may be an option.
 
#6
I'd bet they would charge you for it. It is "their" box, you're just leasing/renting it.

Seems to me the TV providers (and maybe TV and movie producers) just want to keep ownership of all their programming and productions, so they have finally found ways to make it difficult to impossible for us to copy and save shows and movies. We can watch their stuff, so long as we keep paying more and more for it. :mad:
 
#8
My sister uses and swears by TiVo. She uses it with her cable provider and it's her box.

I do not know if this is possible with all cable providers.

Not to worry though... Soon, very soon, your cable box will have no hard drive or storage whatsoever. It will all be cloud based and when your box craps out, you get a new one and log back in to all your saved media.

Shortly after that, the device that you carry will (probably a smart phone) will carry authentication to your media environment (and pretty much all other digital environments that concern you specifically). Any cable box you are in the vicinity of will be capable of accessing your media (even your cousin's in Duluth) by your mere presence.

When you use your cousin's PS9, all of your games and saves will be accessible from her console or computer.

So I recommend that you just hold on to that cable box for another 15ish years so you can just put all that stuff in your cloud. :shrug:

IN the meantime.... Send them cats.
 
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#10
how about going a bit old school here? have you tried using an external dvr/vcr and hooking it up with either an hdmi cable or component stereo cables and recording what you have on the internal dvr hard drive?
 
#11
rbohm said:
how about going a bit old school here? have you tried using an external dvr/vcr and hooking it up with either an hdmi cable or component stereo cables and recording what you have on the internal dvr hard drive?
Click to expand...


That doesn't usually work. Most videos are encoded with a signal that talks to the firmware in the video recorder.

It might be worth a shot but I think there will be lines across the whole recording.
 
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#12
Yeah the digital info on the dvr is encoded. so there is no moving of any file extention to a network drive. I tried connecting the ethernet port of the dvr to the network router with no luck. I even tried a usb ethernet converter with no luck. at this point I am pretty much fawked into having to binge watch. so bye bye to the crap daily cooking shows and chick flicks. viva la walking dead.
 
#15
Ok let's go even more old school technique with newer technology.

Webcam in front of the tv. Bam all new digital recordings on your computer.

Come on, who didn't record tapes from the radio back in the day.


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#17
Jinx said:
Yeah the digital info on the dvr is encoded. so there is no moving of any file extention to a network drive. I tried connecting the ethernet port of the dvr to the network router with no luck. I even tried a usb ethernet converter with no luck. at this point I am pretty much fawked into having to binge watch. so bye bye to the crap daily cooking shows and chick flicks. viva la walking dead.
Click to expand...

there used to be a converter available to allow you to record from dvd to vcr, or vcr to vcr, even though you used copy protected tapes and dvds. it basically turned the target vcr/dvd into a "tv" so it got a clean signal.
 
#18
we've decided to try the binge watching method. Most of the movies got deleted, because I can Amazon Prime or Netflix them. The same goes for some of the series.
 
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