Trying to help a family member here.
One of my aunts is a huge Anglophile. (Is that the word?) It was her lifelong dream to take a vacation in England and a few years ago she finally did it. She loved it so much she saved all of her pennies and scheduled another vacation for this year.
As some of you are aware, the Queen died, and her funeral coincided with my aunt's arrival in London. Her taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was £100. OUCH. That's like 220 kilograms!
She is not coming home until the middle of next week. Before she left, she set her DVR to record a lot of things that she would not be home for, including the broadcast of the Queen's funeral.
Of course, Dish sent her an e-mail that they were coming to replace her outdated Dish equipment with new units, THE DAY AFTER SHE GETS BACK. So, she is stressing that she won't be able to watch anything she had recorded.
This is where Pete comes in. Some quick Googling says you can connect a hard drive, or an external drive, or a PC, to a Dish DVR to record things. Some quick Googling also says you cannot do these things. Some quick Googling says that you can do these things but they will be married to the device and cannot be transferred.
So, hat in hand, I ask the Hive if there is a way we can save her recordings so she can watch them on a different device.
First I'd say that she can reschedule the appointment or conveniently not be home when they show up. If she wants HD copies that'll be difficult. Depending on the output of the box you could record using S video or composite and the first generation recording won't be that bad.
Don't answer the door when they come?
Likely depends on the model, if any cable-company DVR is capable of acting as a general-purpose piracy device that saves video without a DRM scheme it would have to be an older model. I wouldn't be surprised if they're basically stuck on there and ripping the video output or even camripping the video might be the only option. If you're lucky someone might've cracked the DRM scheme on the box.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Excuse me sir but he said Dish. Let's not be insulting the cable companies by lowering them to satellite levels. We've been using DRM since at least 2005 IIRC.
There are two units in the house, one in her room, and one in the dining room, the one in the dining room handles the dining room and upstairs bedroom, the one in her room handles her room and the living room. I did suggest that if possible they only upgrade the one in the dining room, as that is the one her sister uses, and the aunt currently in England does not really need the functionality of the updated boxes (local channels, I guess)
The piracy aspect does make me realize that there's probably a rip of anything she wants available on P2P sharing, if that is even still a thing.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Does she just want to watch them or does she want to save them in a recording. If just watching then berk it it's her house they can't break in and replace them.
Stampie said:
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Does she just want to watch them or does she want to save them in a recording. If just watching then berk it it's her house they can't break in and replace them.
That is the difficulty. As of Wednesday, the hardware no longer supports local channels. (I fail to see the connection, here) Her sister (also my aunt, really, but for clarity it is easier to say "her sister") wants the local channels because she cares about that sort of thing.
Aunt temporarily in England says she may just stay up all night after she gets home at midnight:30 from flying from London to Charlotte to Cleveland and binge watch everything before they replace the equipment in the morning. Pete says BS, that is absolutely not going to happen in reality.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Disconnect the boxes and hide them. If the recordings are on the box they can be viewed without a connection to Dish. Let the tech put in new boxes.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
The piracy aspect does make me realize that there's probably a rip of anything she wants available on P2P sharing, if that is even still a thing.
No no, definitely not a thing anymore!
(DM me if you need help)
I think you should be able to find most of the Queen stuff on Youtube from BBC, Sky, The Royal Family channel etc. Obviously navigating all of that may be a challenge for her depending on how internet savvy she is.
