Another mad scientist - 522 drive swapping

[Mark_AR]

Yup,

It's encoded & decoded on the fly by the chipset. But you can always connect your computer to the VID out and record it thataway.

 

[phat_bastard]

Don't tell me there's nothing....
Am I now realizing what a mistake I made going with dishnetwork...

If you didn't do your homework before investing in this monumental piece of techno-trash, then welcome to the DVR 522 beta testers group! There are better Dish DVRs to be had out there, but if you're lucky then you got a DHA with no terms commitment and can get out of it at any time. We hope the other issues with this unit will some day be resolved, but I doubt that you will ever be able to grab anything useful off these unit's hard drives. The 522 is something akin to The One Ring. Those who possess one both love and hate it. Maybe that's Dish's new marketing tactic???

Although you won't hear it confirmed anywhere, I believe that the tsp stream is stored on the disk enciphered with echostar's protection system - the same encryption that is applied to their broadcast mpeg streams. The DVR basically just writes this stream to disk and decodes it during playback just like it would the normal broadcast. While decrypting it would likely get you in trouble by way of the DMCA's clause on decryption, finding the necessary methods needed to facilitate the decryption would require one to produce a method of circumventing their CAM (conditional access module), which would be even more taboo. You won't see anything like that on this or any other public forum. Definitely not today, and likely not in the future.

Alternatives are:
1) set-top DVD recorder
2) pc based video capture card

I use #2, but unfortunately since firmware 2.32 I rarely have a recording that's unafflicted by audio dropouts and video corruption (mistakenly termed pixellation by many here).

 

[Smith P.]

"Although you won't hear it confirmed anywhere, I believe that the tsp stream is stored on the disk enciphered with echostar's protection system - the same encryption that is applied to their broadcast mpeg streams."
I would definitely recommend you reread that BCM's chip spec on their web site.

 

[KE4EST]

Going to try to put a bigger HD in my old 508

 

[Pepper]

be careful!

Going to try to put a bigger HD in my old 508

You need to do some serious reading at http://groups.yahoo.com/dishmod/ before you proceed. The 508 requires some slick manoeuvers to change the drive. This trick works ONLY with the 522 (and possibly but untested/unconfirmed with the 625 or 942).

 

[Gary Murrell]

I started a thread asking about hard drive swapping in the 942, I was just wondering if anyone had a definitive answer as to if the 942 encrypts it's recording's to that single box, not allowing swapping between 942 units

I know in this thread we discovered the 522 allowed that, so that should be good news for the 942

I am going to setup a 942 for playback only and another 942 for recording duty, but my dream won't work if the recording's are tied to one box

-Gary

 

[phat_bastard]

...I was just wondering if anyone had a definitive answer as to if the 942 encrypts it's recording's to that single box...

I've not seen anything regarding this, so you'll be the first.

I am going to setup a 942 for playback only and another 942 for recording duty, but my dream won't work if the recording's are tied to one box

Isn't most of the entertainment factor derived from experimenting and finding these things out? I know it is for me....

Keep us posted on your results, I've been considering upgrading to HD with a 942 for a while now.

 

[Gary Murrell]

I got my first 942 and I have been tinkering with it, I got a great deal on it so I am not that worried about it, it will be for playback only

the Drive inside the 942 is a Western Digital Caviar WD2500JD, very easy to come by and not that expensive, on ebay all the time for 99$

I will be ordering a second brand new 942 to subscribe to Dish for recording, I can experiment with hooking drives up to my brand new 942 without voiding the warranty and breaking that seal

I will simply swap drives and see how it goes, if it works you may be able to hear a loud YES!!! around the world in a few days

after that will be to get a image of the virgin 942 in my new 942 that has never been recorded on, I will do that with Ghost, take that image and stamp it on all new WD drives that I purchase, also with Ghost and simply start having fun archiving

-Gary

 

[phat_bastard]

after that will be to get a image of the virgin 942 in my new 942 that has never been recorded on, I will do that with Ghost, take that image and stamp it on all new WD drives that I purchase, also with Ghost and simply start having fun archiving

Before you go to all that trouble you might try putting an unformatted / unpartitioned drive in your 942 and see what happens. In the case of the 522 / 625 there is only user data on the drive (no os or executables), and when it sees a disk that isn't partitioned correctly it will automatically partition and format a new drive for you in a very short time. I'd venture a guess that the 942 will handle a virgin or improperly partitioned / formatted drive in exactly this same manner.

 

[Gary Murrell]

Now that would be even better

the 942 is great, you can do everything without having a hard disc connected, view TV, basically anything not releated to the hard drive, the DVR menu is blacked out and such

so you are saying to put a brand new drive
100% clean, no partion, no format, into the 942 and see what happens??

That I will try

-Gary

 

[Pepper]

so you are saying to put a brand new drive
100% clean, no partion, no format, into the 942 and see what happens??

Exactly. As long as the drive is one that is known to be compatible. (for whatever reason, Dish seems compelled to make their firmware only accept certain drive id strings - I guess support could be one reason, they could spend hours on the phone helping some poor guy who is having trouble only to find out he replaced his drive with one that wasn't quite up to spec)

If anybody has tried this yet with the 625 it would be appreciated if they would report their results here as well.

 

[Gary Murrell]

Just tried it with the 942, slapped in a totally blank drive same as the one that was in it, the WD caviar wd2500jd

it booted up partioned and was off with no messages of anykind, it did that just as quick as if it were starting up normally

this is fabulous news, if drives can be swapped between 942's I have it made in the shade

of course this will be useless if Dish release's add on drive capability for the 942, but they told me they were releasing firewire for the 921 also

-Gary

 

[Smith P.]

Gary, did you try play recordings from disk from other 942 ?

 

[Paradox-SJ]

Just tried it with the 942, slapped in a totally blank drive same as the one that was in it, the WD caviar wd2500jd

it booted up partioned and was off with no messages of anykind, it did that just as quick as if it were starting up normally

this is fabulous news, if drives can be swapped between 942's I have it made in the shade

of course this will be useless if Dish release's add on drive capability for the 942, but they told me they were releasing firewire for the 921 also

-Gary

This means an external rail kit can be added to the 942 for easy drive swapping.

 

[stone phillips420]

Exactly. As long as the drive is one that is known to be compatible. (for whatever reason, Dish seems compelled to make their firmware only accept certain drive id strings - I guess support could be one reason, they could spend hours on the phone helping some poor guy who is having trouble only to find out he replaced his drive with one that wasn't quite up to spec)

If anybody has tried this yet with the 625 it would be appreciated if they would report their results here as well.

pepper i succesfully swapped my 625 drive with a new one it works great, i dont archive, i did this because i dont trust dish the new drive i bought is the exact same that came shipped with the 625 i know it a 250gb seagate in the 625, i know i posted exaxct model # of 625 drive somewhere else on this board

ive had no problems with the 625 and my new replacement drive
i couldnt be happier
the 625 seems leaps and bounds better than my 522

 

[Gary Murrell]

external rail kit??, please explain

I don't trust those swapable enclosures because they add extra connections between the 942 and hard drives

If I had some kind of metal rack that i could mount hard drives in, with access to the rear of each drive, that would be great

as soon as i get anther 942 to subscribe with, i will try swapping, my bet is it will work just fine

-gary

 

[David_Levin]

Thanks for the experiments. Drive swapping is certainly a step in the right direction. Now if only they would make the software smart enought to make use of a larger HDD.

 

[kwajr]

by the way the 625 uses sata

 

[Pepper]

by the way the 625 uses sata

That's the first I've heard of that. I think the system boards and ATA IDE ports are identical, unless there's a newer incarnation of the system board out there. Can you post some pictures?

Also, I probably neglected to mention that before all of this, I asked Stone Phillips420 some questions about how he made a DVD image of the 522 hard drive. Without that input, I might not have been inspired to do the additional research and experimentation. Thanks Stone!

 

[stone phillips420]

by the way the 625 uses sata

i have 2 625's and am familar with their inards and both my 625's are ide interface, so i think your mistaken that the 625 is sata interface, although I could be wrong but I doubt it lol