Getting Stuff From DVR to Laptop

Rasputin

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Here's the deal.
 
We're getting new DVR boxes from DirecTV. Why, I don't know, and don't really care enough to find out.
 
Thing is, there is some stuff recorded on the box we have that I don't want to lose.
 
It seems like it should be relatively easy to get the stuff from there to here, but simply connecting the two via a cable was not it.
 
Is there some relatively easy way to do this?
 
We're talking a relatively new but far from top end Windows 8 laptop and about a three year old DirecTV box.
 

locknload

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Went through the same thing.  Do you have a non-dvr box in the house and have whole home dvr?  When we got the upgrade they let us keep the old DVR at no extra cost to replace a non-dvr reciever.  We threw it in the bedroom and now have two DVR's that we can access from anywhere in the house.  The new Genie records 5 shows at a time and the old one can record two so we essentially get 7 shows at a time total + all the extra storage.  Upstairs one holds all the kids stuff plus the wifes awful shows I get full control of the Genie.  Makes me love directtv
 

Rasputin

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locknload said:
Went through the same thing.  Do you have a non-dvr box in the house and have whole home dvr?  When we got the upgrade they let us keep the old DVR at no extra cost to replace a non-dvr reciever.  We threw it in the bedroom and now have two DVR's that we can access from anywhere in the house.  The new Genie records 5 shows at a time and the old one can record two so we essentially get 7 shows at a time total + all the extra storage.  Upstairs one holds all the kids stuff plus the wifes awful shows I get full control of the Genie.  Makes me love directtv
 
Nope, we have two DVR boxes. If I only replace one, will that work?
 

SumnerH

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If you want to become directTV free, you'll have to get a high-def video capture device and record your shows as you're playing them back (e.g. the Haupauge HD PVR or avermedia or something like that).
 

locknload

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Rasputin said:
 
Nope, we have two DVR boxes. If I only replace one, will that work?
 
Would have to ask DirectTV as I understand though it should as you can connect them all up to the whole-home-dvr network.
 

Rasputin

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SumnerH said:
If you want to become directTV free, you'll have to get a high-def video capture device and record your shows as you're playing them back (e.g. the Haupauge HD PVR or avermedia or something like that).
 
Well that blows, thanks.
 

SumnerH

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Rasputin said:
 
Well that blows, thanks.
 
It also would allow you to use that DVR going forward, meaning that in the future you have stuff recorded in normal formats on a drive you can back up rather than locked into the proprietary dish/cable DVR.  It tends to be a little finicky in the setup, but long-term it can pay dividends--I make a point of DVRing tons of stuff, even things I'm not sure I'll ever watch, just in case I decide later to go back and watch it.  Because it snags things as they air and never loses the rights to a show once it's recorded, my selection's actually better than Netflix/Hulu Plus/Amazon Prime in some ways.  
 
And something like XBMC does a much better job than most proprietary satellite/cable DVRs at organizing the library, finding synopsis/guide info online, etc.
 

 
 

djhb20

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Unless I'm mistaken, anything you get off the box via a capture card will be low def, unless you have a really old box that doesn't implement measures to prevent that sort of thing.

You can capture an analog out from those boxes, but the HD signal usually can't be captured.

So that makes that evens shittier option.
 

SumnerH

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djhb20 said:
Unless I'm mistaken, anything you get off the box via a capture card will be low def, unless you have a really old box that doesn't implement measures to prevent that sort of thing.

The dvr doesn't know what's at the other end of the cables when it plays things back at high def.
You can capture an analog out from those boxes, but the HD signal usually can't be captured.

So that makes that evens shittier option.
The Hauppauge and others can capture both hdmi and component out. There's some degradation from reencoding, but it's slight and the final product is still high def. I usually limit to 780p for most shows, but for big movies I snag them at full 1080p.