As an example, I have used Dish dvrs that needed replaced or upgraded over the years. The techs that came to switch them out said that the programming on the dvr one or two tb hard drives were encrypted. The only way to save the recordings was to move the programs to an external hard drive. There are 2 usb ports on my current Dish box which also contains the dvr. The external drives could be read from a new Dish box.
None of the programs either on the box or the external could be converted to another file type to be read on any device not connected to the Dish box. The techs said Dish uses the encryption to prevent copyright infringement. Everything left on the outgoing Dish dvr was lost when it was replaced. The hard drive inside the old could not be switched to the replacement box. Dish support said that each box had a unique encryption that could not be read by another Dish box. Dish had to activate the encryption remotely on the externals. As of a couple years ago, 2tb drive capacity was the upper limit. I believe Dish support said that larger drives could be used but the Dish software only let 2tb could be recorded. It might have changed since then. They did suggest that I could switch out 2tb drives and switch back when content was needed. It could be that Comcast uses a similar system. Perhaps Comcast boxes have usb ports to attach external drives. -Tom From: tvornottv@googlegroups.com <tvornottv@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Yawitz Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2020 6:40 AM To: TVorNotTV <tvornottv@googlegroups.com> Subject: [TV orNotTV] Re: Technician's Corner What kind of DVR do you have? There are common solutions for TiVos that I know about, but if it's a Comcast box (e.g. X1), I don't know what you'd do (other than what Adam describes). Of course, if you can't get the box to run at all (if that's what the error code suggests), I don't believe there is a practical way to get the shows off the raw hard drive. - Mitch On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 2:35:50 AM UTC-7, Dave Sikula wrote: I have a technical issue that I'm hoping someone can help me with. Long story short: we weren't receiving some stations on our Comcast/Xfinity system, so the guy came out to fix it (as much as he could; apparently, there's some issue with the box on the pole across the street). When he re-hooked up my DVR, though, it wasn't working, and there are a number of things (such as my TCM intro) that I don't want to lose. (I'm getting an "E1:26" error message, which apparently means the box is about to fail, even though it was fine until he unhooked it). Is there any way to download the video on the DVR to an external hard drive--or even another DVR--or am I just screwed? I've consulted my computer guy and a friend who runs the video department at Stanford, but I'd rather do it myself if possible. Thanks in advance. --Dave Sikula -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com <mailto:tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com> . To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/0c7c20a6-29da-46c6-a93d-e13901f371c2o%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/0c7c20a6-29da-46c6-a93d-e13901f371c2o%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/001a01d667fb%2410a99610%2431fcc230%24%40dejazzd.com.
