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Hi Group,
I just purchased an Extermal Hard Drive, for additional storage for all the stuff which I have currently saved on my DVR.
I have a Fantom Drives G-Force Mega-Disk Black, USB3.0+eSATA External Hardrive, 4 TB size.
...for...
A Scientific AtlantA/CISCO HDTV/DVR Explorer 8640HDC (Cable TV box/DVR unit).
When I bought this External Hardrive, my thoughts were that I would be able to transfer everything from my DVR onto the Hardrive.
(Doesn't seem that I will be able to do this(?)
Upon looking at the documentation for the Cable Box/DVR it states, under DVR usage the following:
"...The DVR automatically stores programs to the drive with the highest percentage of available space and will not allow you to specify the location of the next recording on the internal or external drive..."
"...The drive with the most available space will store the next recorded program..."
"...The DVR does not allow you to see where content is stored, either internally or externally..."
"...The DVR unit will not allow you to move existing saved programs to the external hardrive once connected..."
[quote=CTwoodnutt;45554175]Hi Group,
I just purchased an Extermal Hard Drive, for additional storage for all the stuff which I have currently saved on my DVR.
I have a Fantom Drives G-Force Mega-Disk Black, USB3.0+eSATA External Hardrive, 4 TB size.
...for...
A Scientific AtlantA/CISCO HDTV/DVR Explorer 8640HDC (Cable TV box/DVR unit).
When I bought this External Hardrive, my thoughts were that I would be able to transfer everything from my DVR onto the Hardrive.
(Doesn't seem that I will be able to do this(?)
Upon looking at the documentation for the Cable Box/DVR it states, under DVR usage the following:
"...The DVR automatically stores programs to the drive with the highest percentage of available space and will not allow you to specify the location of the next recording on the internal or external drive..."
"...The drive with the most available space will store the next recorded program..."
"...The DVR does not allow you to see where content is stored, either internally or externally..."
"...The DVR unit will not allow you to move existing saved programs to the external hardrive once connected..."
WHY CAN'T I SPECIFY WHICH DRIVE I'D LIKE TO STORE A PROGRAM ON???
WHY CAN'T I MOVE EXSISTING PROGRAMS FROM THE INTERNAL HD OVER TO THE EXTERNAL HD???
C'MON.....this is 2016, we can do anything now, can't we???
Would anyone in this Forum know H-O-W I COULD accomplish this simple task?
There has GOT to be someway that I can do this.
I thought that it might be as simple as 'cut & paste' or 'drag & drop", similar to moving files on a PC.
Would anyone know of any Video Software programs that might allow me to do what I want???
(I know Computers, I don't know much about Video Technology).
Anyone with Video Technology knowledge out there?
Can you help me?
Nothing on the DVR itself will give you the ability to copy the files to an external. In addition it sounds like it may use multiple hard drives to store your video. So a single video may be split across different drives. Remove the hard drive/s from the DVR and connect to your computer will not work since the video is encrypted (from what I read). I cannot post a link here on how to hack it but you can google yourself. If your recordings are important enough then there is way to play it back and capture it on your PC and store on your external. It will require an extra expense however on hardware and/or software.
Exactly. This is as it should be. Why do you care which drive stuff is stored on?
Could it be: BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU CAN THEN MOVE THAT DRIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE AND WATCH THOSE SHOWS?!?!?!
That will not work. By design.
You know computers, then let me put it this way.
Think of a database. The DVR says "OK xyz files are stored on this block". If you move something, how will the DVR ever find it again? It's a database, not a simple file storage system.
Adding an external drive to a DVR has one purpose: increasing the amount of stuff you can save. Period.
Precisely what you want to do, is what the owners of the data don't want you to do. The technique is called Automatic Drive Locking and it uses a 128 bit password to make the data on the external drive useless if you just remove the drive. It is all part of what is generally called digital rights management.
You also pay more for these drives which connect through e-SATA ports instead of USB ports. For example:
Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB $129.99
Western Digital My Book 2TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $99.00
You can connect the DVR to a computer, play the video, and live record and encode. It's not particularly hard to do (about a thousand Youtube videos will tell you how to do it) but basically they're terrified of piracy so they make it burdensome. It really has no effect on piracy. It just makes it burdensome so it's actually easier to turn to piracy which is illegal because of the stupid restrictions on fair use which is completely legal. I mean, we're now at the point where you have of all companies Comcast on the frontier of what is fair use and what is piracy with their cloud DVR. Basically you can DVR something with Comcast and then stream the thing over the Internet meanwhile DVRs are locked to prevent someone from copying a file and potentially distributing it.
It's not quite that easy, and a violation of the digital millenium act. In order to play back something recorded by the DVR on your computer, you'd need a HDMI connector on your computer that will maintain encryption.
A quick google search showed, as of a few years ago, NO computers with HDMI inputs.
Maybe Malloric can give us a link that shows how this is done, with what equipment, legally made and acquired.
It's not quite that easy, and a violation of the digital millenium act. In order to play back something recorded by the DVR on your computer, you'd need a HDMI connector on your computer that will maintain encryption.
A quick google search showed, as of a few years ago, NO computers with HDMI inputs.
Maybe Malloric can give us a link that shows how this is done, with what equipment, legally made and acquired.
It's not quite that easy, and a violation of the digital millenium act. In order to play back something recorded by the DVR on your computer, you'd need a HDMI connector on your computer that will maintain encryption.
A quick google search showed, as of a few years ago, NO computers with HDMI inputs.
Maybe Malloric can give us a link that shows how this is done, with what equipment, legally made and acquired.
Windows 10, Win + G. Plus record. Depends on DVR. TiVo, for example, at least with the older ones it wasn't an issue playing back from the DVR on a locally connected device. Comcast, as I mentioned, has cloud DVR so you can play back from anything, anywhere, at anytime. Hauppauge records from analog outs. Can't record from HDMI as it's copy protected to prevent that. DirecTV has something similar, I believe. Uverse does not. That said, you can watch an awful lot just on demand and then record it that way by pressing Win + G. Not going there with a rented Uverse box as the only way is circumventing the copy protection directly. That may or may not be that hard to do but it's definitely not legal. There's plethora of other screen recorder software out there. OBS, Open Broadcast Software, is pretty commonly used and free. Not the easier to use though. Live recording... well, that's sort of dubiously legal. Perfectly legal to record a LIVE broadcast. Recording a recording off a live broadcast, maybe not. PlayOn has been operating for years now doing just that (time shifting on-demand content so you can watch it offline). I mean, it violates the terms of service of just about everything but that's different than not being legal. Since they've been providing a commercial service for years and no one has bothered to test the legality, to me it's de facto legal. So you're violating, say, Netflix's TOS if you use PlayOn but it's probably legal. Comcast likewise has the Cloud DVR which is dubiously legal. Aereo case supports a consumers right to do what they're doing but did not affirm that what Comcast or PlayOn is doing is either legal or not legal.
Last edited by Malloric; 09-25-2016 at 11:56 PM..
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Whoops.....not done explaining yet...
