Video Tech help...

[Cajuncowboy]

I have DTV and a HD DVR. I would like to have the shows I recorded transferred either to a BluRay disk or to another hard drive that I can use later to watch the programs. What is the best way to do this. I want to be able to watch them back on my HD TV. My reason for doing this is to free up some hard drive space on the DVR.

 

[tupperware]

Can't do it, not in HD anyway. The best you'll be able to do is hook your PC up to the DVR box (Via a TV card) and record it live or record it as it's playing back the recorded show. You'll only be able to do this with Composite / S-Video.

If your only goal is to have more storage space, I believe that you can simply plug in a Hard Drive that is bigger than the DirecTV receivers Hard Drive via the eSATA port and it will use that HD instead for storage.

http://news.directv.com/2011/08/11/increase-recording-capacity-on-your-dvr-or-hd-dvr/

 

[Cajuncowboy]

Can't do it, not in HD anyway. The best you'll be able to do is hook your PC up to the DVR box (Via a TV card) and record it live or record it as it's playing back the recorded show. You'll only be able to do this with Composite / S-Video.

If your only goal is to have more storage space, I believe that you can simply plug in a Hard Drive that is bigger than the DirecTV receivers Hard Drive via the eSATA port and it will use that HD instead for storage.

http://news.directv.com/2011/08/11/increase-recording-capacity-on-your-dvr-or-hd-dvr/

IF I do the extra hard drive as you said, will it record in High Def and play back that way?

 

[tupperware]

IF I do the extra hard drive as you said, will it record in High Def and play back that way?

Yep, no limitations at all. It will function just as the internal one does. You will not get combined storage, however. (Meaning, you won't get the Internal storage capacity PLUS the external storage capacity).

 

[Cajuncowboy]

Yep, no limitations at all. It will function just as the internal one does. You will not get combined storage, however. (Meaning, you won't get the Internal storage capacity PLUS the external storage capacity).

So if I want to play something from the DVR, I couldn't do that or record to it? Can't I choose which one I want to record to?

 

[tupperware]

So if I want to play something from the DVR, I couldn't do that or record to it? Can't I choose which one I want to record to?

If you have any content existing on the DVR now, when you plugin a new HD it will use that one instead. You won't be able to access the content from the internal one.

I believe the only thing you'd need to do would be to turn off the external hard drive before turning on the receiver and it'd load all of your content from it's internal drive for viewing.

But as far as accessing content from both drives at once, that wouldn't work.

When your receiver reboots, it will automatically see the newly-connected hard drive. The hard drive inside your receiver will be disabled.

Of course, by disabled it doesn't mean permanently disabled, just disabled while the external drive is connected.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

If you have any content existing on the DVR now, when you plugin a new HD it will use that one instead. You won't be able to access the content from the internal one.

I believe the only thing you'd need to do would be to turn off the external hard drive before turning on the receiver and it'd load all of your content from it's internal drive for viewing.

But as far as accessing content from both drives at once, that wouldn't work.

Of course, by disabled it doesn't mean permanently disabled, just disabled while the external drive is connected.

So if I want to watch something or record something to the internal DTV hard drive, I just unplug the external one then turn on the receiver. When I want to record to or watch something on the external, just plug it in then turn on the receiver. Right?

Also, will I be able to then transfer anything on the internal one to the external later?

 

[trickblue]

IF I do the extra hard drive as you said, will it record in High Def and play back that way?

The drive has to be eSATA and you will lose all the shows you have recorded previously...

It doesn't "piggyback" to your built in drive, but rather becomes your new drive...

 

[tupperware]

So if I want to watch something or record something to the internal DTV hard drive, I just unplug the external one then turn on the receiver. When I want to record to or watch something on the external, just plug it in then turn on the receiver. Right?

Also, will I be able to then transfer anything on the internal one to the external later?

I don't believe that there is a facility provided to transfer the content from the internal to an external, unfortunately. Also, you may be able to simply power down the external drive rather than unplug it entirely.