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Computer dvr

13 years ago

I know you cannot download any Hbo movie onto ur computer. Copyright stuff. But if u have a cable co dvr/ tuner u can save movies on ur dvr forever? So if I want to put a copy of a movie on my computer I cannot legally do that? Cable co says thats so I don't get crazy and try and burn a DVD of movie. I do not have a cable co dvr though. So maybe u can't save Hbo movies on the dvr?

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Comments (5)

DA_Mccoy
13 years ago
Let's see if I get this right. You want guidance in how to infringe on a copypright. Hmmm! Sorry no help from me.

DA
mike_kaiser_gw
13 years ago
I'm not an expert but I believe it's perfectly legal to record a broadcast show for your personal, non-commercial use. You can record, say, The Wizard of Oz, and watch it to your heart's content and invite your friends over to watch until the cows come home. One runs afoul of the law when you charge your friends to watch it or make copies and distribute them (free or not).

Back in the magnetic media days, a copy required one to play the original and each play resulted in a slight degradation in the quality of the "master" and the nature of the medium resulted in a copy that was slightly lower in quality than the master. The problem with digital recordings is that it makes it too easy an unscrupulous person to make an infinite number of 100% accurate copies.

That's not to say there aren't ways to around the protection schemes. Certainly people rip (I think that's the right word) DVDs to hard drives for their home entertainment systems. Someone has probably figured out how to get data off of the drives of cable/teleco/satellite DVR's but doing so probably violates the service agreement making one liable for the cost of the DVR and a suspension of service.
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This is something I do all the time. I save programs from my DVR, which is in the bedroom to play back on my kitchen television, which does not have the DVR service. You simply connect a VCR, or a DVD recorder, to the DVR. Im thinking you already have a VCR, or get a DVD recorder, which can be purchaced at any Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, or Circuit City. In other words they are easy enough to come by, if you do not have one. Connect it to your DVR, according to the instructions that come with the machine. Now just record your shows on the DVR, as usual, and play them back through the DVD recorder, or VCR at will. If you are using a DVD recorder these recordings can be played back with any DVD player. Good Luck.
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The easiest, and really only method, is to use a stand-alone DVD player/recorder, to record from the analog outputs. That is, as long as there is no analog copy protection enabled on the video outputs as may be required by the copyright holder. You don't mention your service provider, or what the DVR is you have, however, chances are you should be OK using the analog outputs. It'll take a while since it's all done in real-time. And, no, you can not just do a digital copy from the hard drive - the DVRs record the entire "transport stream" from the head-end and they are not just clear unencrypted MPEG video files.
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If you are skillful with your PC, there are several cards out there that will turn your PC into a viable DVR. Your biggest problem may be having a large enough hard drive. One manufacturer that comes to mind is ATI. They have one video card that performs hardware compression of the video before putting it on the hard drive.
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These things were killed off by TIVO and cable company subscription models; too many people think that $10/month is a better deal than $200 every five years. I looked at replacing our old Philips some years ago, and couldn't find anything. I'd be curious if you find any current products, short of the usual second-hand market web sites. The other potential solution I saw was a dedicated computer with a video card able to take video-in, and associated software. Again, I haven't looked at this in years, and would be curious for any current solutions.
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stoveguyy
Original Author
13 years ago
Comcast does offer a service to watch live programs on your iPad now. But I am not sure if you can watch content from your dvr on your iPad? I want to integrate my iPad/notebook to access my cable box/dvr and watch any program on any device in my house. I have no interest in burning DVDs. I actually own none.
kudzu9
13 years ago
cavell-
I'll preface this by saying I am not an expert on this. However, I think it is unlikely that you can integrate your devices to pull content from the DVR, particularly wirelessly. You can in some instances transfer programs from the dvr to a device, but I doubt you can just easily access the DVR, browse, and watch whatever is on there.

In my case I have one DVR, and two slave tuners in other rooms that can't record, but can access the content on the DVR and play it on the tvs they are hooked up to. I suspect that the cable companies would not want to engineer their DVRs to allow easy access that they can't control and get revenue from.

If you just want to transfer an occasional recorded program, the link below may be of help, but it seems like too much trouble to me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Connect computer to Comcast DVR

This post was edited by kudzu9 on Sat, Jan 26, 13 at 21:45
acraftylady
13 years ago
I know if you pay for HBO as part of your cable package you can go to hbo.com and register and watch stuff. There is also an hbo go app. I use it on my kindle to watch some hbo stuff but again you have to be paying for hbo with your provider to have access to the online stuff so maybe that would work for you on your computer. Mary

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