From 522 to my Computer HArd Drive?

[Poseidon]

Hello all,

I just found this most excellent source of information regarding Direct TV that I have now, and the Dish Network that is going to be installed on Friday. My main reason for the change was Dish Network has locals in my area, Direct TV does NOT, and the HD offer with an 811 reciever. For my second receiver I chose the 522 PVR, this will be on my second (and third) tv's. My question is will I be able to:

1) Somehow watch shows that I recorded upstairs in my bedroom on my TV downstairs? (Maybe by running a set of RCA's or S-video cable and RCA's to the downstairs TV.)

2) Get programs that I have recorded on the 522 to my computer, where I could copy them onto a CD/DVD to watch on a regular DVD player? (Maybe at a different residence or to Archive?)

I have used the search option and although I did find other useful information I did not find a discussion on moving programming from the 522 to a computer.

Thanks for all the help,
Mike

 

[Hall]

2) Get programs that I have recorded on the 522 to my computer, where I could copy them onto a CD/DVD to watch on a regular DVD player? (Maybe at a different residence or to Archive?)

I'll be very interested in answers to this also. I've found nothing in my own searches either. The 522 is rather new so maybe that's why....

I do know you can "record" or transfer recorded shows from the 522 to a VCR. The owner's manual even tells how to do this. I imagine a capture card with RCA inputs, audio and video, could take the place of a VCR.

 

[Trav]

2) Get programs that I have recorded on the 522 to my computer, where I could copy them onto a CD/DVD to watch on a regular DVD player? (Maybe at a different residence or to Archive?)

I can only address this issue and probably only in a limited way, but hopefully it will be of some help:

I'm using the 522 with one output to my living room TV and the other output to my PC via the ATI All-In-Wonder TV capture card. The capture card has coax input as well as s-video and RCA. The 522 only has S-Video for Tuner 1 so that goes to my main TV in the living room. They ran a Coax cable from Tuner 2 on the 522 to my PC and it's decent quality (and in stereo too).

So I really have two choices when I want to save the video to my PC:

1) I can set an "Auto Tune" timer setting so that the tuner turns on and to the right channel when a program starts. Then I also set a timer on my PC's PVR to record the live TV at the same time. I'm not sure if there is an IR Blaster that would work in this situation to change channels on the receiver (and thus eliminating the duplicate timers), but this really works well anyway.

2) I can set a "DVR" timer on the receiver and just record the program to the receiver's hard drive. Then, at the time I want, I can play back the DVR and capture it to the PC in the same way. The quality of video/audio is not affected by the double recording (the receiver's DVR records exactly how you see it).

Some people have suggested a third option, which is to remove the hard drive (and void the warranty) from the receiver and transfer the files directly to your PC. I haven't tried this and probably won't since the first two methods are working very well for me. But you could give it a try if you so desire.

And of course, you can use a different capture card to do this - I have the AIW 9800 Pro for gaming and TV.

Travis

 

[Smith P.]

<skip>
Some people have suggested a third option, which is to remove the hard drive (and void the warranty) from the receiver and transfer the files directly to your PC. I haven't tried this and probably won't since the first two methods are working very well for me. But you could give it a try if you so desire.

And of course, you can use a different capture card to do this - I have the AIW 9800 Pro for gaming and TV.

Travis

Would you mind provide a link to description of the technics ?

 

[Trav]

Would you mind provide a link to description of the technics ?

I can't remember the thread(s) that this was discussed, but it was here in these forums (maybe a search can yield some results). Otherwise, I'm sure those who mentioned it to me will mention it again.

 

[David_Levin]

1) Somehow watch shows that I recorded upstairs in my bedroom on my TV downstairs? (Maybe by running a set of RCA's or S-video cable and RCA's to the downstairs TV.)

I assume you have the 522 in the bedroom (though you don't exactly say). Like the 522 with the alternate tuner, generally this is done with coax (RF) not S-video or Composite. I think there's issues with running those cables long distances. My suggestion would be to split the coax out of the 522 to run to the extra set. Carry the remote around to use on the extra set (or purchase a spare).

2) Get programs that I have recorded on the 522 to my computer, where I could copy them onto a CD/DVD to watch on a regular DVD player? (Maybe at a different residence or to Archive?)

The place to learn about this is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dishrip/

But, it's highly unlikely to work. The 721 started encrypting the data on the hard drive. This put a halt to the ripping (it can be done with the Dishplayer and 50x).

I would guess that Dish extended this to all Linux boxes.

Also, the 522 is (generally) a leased box. As such, I'm not sure you should be cracking the case.

Probably have to stick with the capture card. Personally, after getting sick of messing with PC capture cards and video editing, I picked up a stand-alone DVD recorder.

 

[Kagato]

What would have to happen is basically what happened with DirecTivo. Background, the encryption happens in hardware. In order for the channel to be encrypted the firmware tells the chipset to enable it. DirecTivo hackers were able to patch the firmware to no longer enable the encryption. Problem solved. It's much more tricky on the 721, 522 and 921. As far as I know you cannot log into the box like you can with Tivo. The machine will reload software if you make that kind of change.

The biggest problem is the lack of an underground community for Dish in general. Added to that why bother when Tivo is easy to customize. Then again DirecTV is rummored to be quite unhappy about people messing with firmware. Expect the HD DirecTivo to cut off a lot of the video extraction.

The the bright side, HD DirecTivo and the 921 share a lot of common hardware. If it is hacked it will likely yield information about the 921.