migrating from DirecTV to standalone?

[wkearney99]

I've got a DirectTV Tivo-based unit, an upgraded RCA-DVR39. I've got TivoWebPlus already running on it. I'm leaving DirecTV (had enough of their non-Tivo nonsense) and moving to FIOS. Probably out of one frying pan into another, but that's not the question here.

My question is how to migrate recordings and season passes from the DVR39 to a TCD2400A standalone series 2 unit. Is it possible? If not the season passes, which because of channel changes I'm sure would be a real pain in the ass, how about the recordings? I've flipped off the encrypting. I'm just wondering what's the "least hassle" way to move the recordings.

Because once I have them moved to the S2 I'm interested in watching them from a new TivoHD unit (which can't be zippered at this point without a prom mod).

So, what's the best route to take for moving recordings off the DirecTV unit to the S2?

[Lou Jacob]

I've got a DirectTV Tivo-based unit, an upgraded RCA-DVR39. I've got TivoWebPlus already running on it. I'm leaving DirecTV (had enough of their non-Tivo nonsense) and moving to FIOS. Probably out of one frying pan into another, but that's not the question here.

My question is how to migrate recordings and season passes from the DVR39 to a TCD2400A standalone series 2 unit. Is it possible? If not the season passes, which because of channel changes I'm sure would be a real pain in the ass, how about the recordings? I've flipped off the encrypting. I'm just wondering what's the "least hassle" way to move the recordings.

Because once I have them moved to the S2 I'm interested in watching them from a new TivoHD unit (which can't be zippered at this point without a prom mod).

So, what's the best route to take for moving recordings off the DirecTV unit to the S2?

I don't think you are going to be able to do it. It may be possible by using something like mfs_ftp, but you would need to do a lot of research and labor intensive hacking to be able to pull each recording off the SD DirecTiVo and push each on onto the Series2. Not even sure if its possible, but if it is, the information would be at dealdatabase.com; prepare for it to be highly technical and linux-intensive.

As for the season passes... My best recommendation there would be a relatively 'old school' approach: Take some digital pictures of each page of your season passes. Get a beer. Reprogram the passes on your Series2.

Speaking of old school... here is a possibility for moving your recordings from the DirecTiVo unit to the SA TiVo... use the analog output of your DirecTiVo and send that to the RCA inputs of your standalone unit. Then use the record to VCR function on your DirecTiVo and just do manual recordings on the SA TiVo. It will be time consuming, but a quick test will verify that you can do it with no issues. Of course, all the guide information will be wrong at this point, BUT, if you are planning on hacking the SA TiVo (you can do this without a prom mod), then install TiVoWebPlus on it and use that to edit the guide informaton appropriately. This is certainly not a trivial effort but significantly less hassle than trying to do things by extracting and inserting content....

[Lou Jacob]

Another alternative would be to archive the videos from your DirecTV box using a product like the Neuros OSD (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/neuros_osd.cfm). For < $300 you can outfit an OSD with an external USB drive which will give you plenty of room to record off all the programs currently on the TiVo in pretty decent MPEG-4 quality. You will lose the digital audio, of course.

And lastly... another alternative would be to use tyserver, or whatever folks at DDB are using for extraction these days, and pull the files as MPEG-2 files onto your PC. If you wanted to, you could re-encode to DIVX / XVID or even burn to DVD. If you have an XBOX360, you can play back over your network, or once again, use the OSD if you don't care about the digital audio.

But these alternatives won't get the content onto your SA unit...

[wkearney99]

Since I already have the DirecTivo zippered and mfs_ftp installed that's an available option. I've got a PC with plenty of disk space to use as a transition point. So it's really just a matter of putting the content onto the S2. I just don't recall how well the process works as for bringing along the metadata.

I have absolutely no desire to do something like re-record the signals. That's just far too much work.