Is there a way to view things transferred to an external HD from Hopper 3

[mendylee333]

We bought an external Hard Drive to quadruple the size of our Hopper DVR. The external Hard Drive works perfectly with the Hopper and can even play right off the hard drive without having to transfer back to the hopper.

Now that we got Elon here in town, we don't need to pay the outrageous $145 a month that Dish is charging us for what is essentially "completely non 4k" stuff and Showtime with 2 SD channels including the 2 best channels in low def (who the hell has a low def TV anymore??).

Unfortunately there are concerts and music programs that we can probably never find again that are on the External Hard Drive.

Is there any way on earth to play the stuff saved onto our external Hard Drive from the Hopper DVR that we can play back on anything else that doesn't cost as much as it would to just keep the old hopper (which I hear is a $299 fee for not sending it back?)

We immediately removed the Hopper from the internet so they couldn't send the kill switch to it. They sent us the box and keep sending UPS to our house to claim it.
We need to know asap if there's anyway to get literally 1000 hours of irreplaceable stuff either off the external hard drive before we send it back or far more preferably ... to be able to play it on something other than the hopper itself?
Thanks everyone!

 

[navychop]

I answered this in the SatGuys Support Thread.

 

[Sean67]

I think the query ws answered already in the SatGuys Support Thread.My friend has also this issue so he got solution from that answer.

 

[arlo]

Immediately is a tough answer. I'm not a complete guru here on DN/Direc recorded content. But once the signal enters the receiver and you are authorized to view your subscribed content, it is decoded before being displayed and audio is heard.
Any recorded content on internal/external storage devices remains encrypted. To decrypt it requires the original receiver it was recorded on unless you are also able to use your hopper, etc.
In essence all you have on the storage device is 1's and 0's. Those bits of info.must be processed in the receiver to identify and perform decryption.
The only method to provide a viewable copy is to capture your audio/video output with a proper external device bridged in between the receiver and tv. That raw content then can be stored on another storage device connected to a computer with a large hard drive(s).
HDCP content that is sent to the tv can be captured through a proper "stripper".
But. You will have to play everything in real time and record it. There will be no fast way to copy anything. Real time.
It won't be cheap. If you try the cheap way you will be disapointed.
Although it may be beyond the discussion as to how you actually would do it. It can be done. It just takes a lot of time.
A Lot!
YouTube would be the best way to discover how you will be spending your time saving your stored stuff to something you can watch on any device. If you search for "HDCP stripper capture" and it links you to someplace in Detroit or Vegas....it's probably not going to be much info.
....then again I could be wrong.

FTA receivers can record freely. Of course they are FTA only. But an external HDD or even network connected devices can play what is recorded very easily.

 

[Jim5506]

Things may have changed since my last copying with the Hauppauge PVR 1212 but the last time I was able to view and record HBO content (that tells you how long ago it was) component/Toslink. Since component does not use HDCP there was no difficulty. As long as the Hopper will output video to the component connections I could record it.

 

[navychop]

And you must find that Hauppauge to buy

 

[Jim5506]

And you must find that Hauppauge to buy

6 on eBay.