Transfer from 625 to another DVR

petalutha said:

I suspect the only way to transfer the movies/shows is to play them on the dish DVR and hit record on the other DVR. Is that about right?

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That is exactly right. (At least for now.)

petalutha said:

I wish to save some of the movies/shows on my dish DVR 625. I am about to purchase a DVD recorder that happens to have its own hard drive..

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You can transfer video from your 625 DVR to your DVD recorder by playing the program while the DVD recorder records it from the s-video or composite outputs of your 625. You won't be able to record to another dish DVR because the recording source is analog and none of these DVR have video capture.

petalutha said:

Is there a way to transfer the files between the DVRs? I thought if I transferred from one hard drive to the other, that would let me have editing capabilities when I burn a DVD.

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I can't speak for the 500 series (and 625) but generally the encoded bit stream is recorded to the hard drive and not raw mpeg2 like you would find on a DVD. Since this information is encrypted it wouldn't be of any use to another DVR .

petalutha said:

I suspect the only way to transfer the movies/shows is to play them on the dish DVR and hit record on the other DVR. Is that about right?

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The dish DVRs can not record from external sources, except for these new handheld dish pod players. See their web site for info. But you can transfer to your DVD recorder just as you stated.

petalutha said:

Man, I wish Dish would just come out with a DVR with DVD recording capabilities!
Thanks for any info.

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Actually you can connect your DVD recorder or VCR and leave the unit on and ready. Go into your guide or timer menu and select VCR as source. These unit have IR blasers that can send "record" and "stop" commands for your VCR or DVD recorder. In this way you can make recordings when you're not at home. You'll need to configure your DVR so it knows the remote code for your model of recorder.

But you're right it's not likely that they will have a DVR with record to removal media all in one unit. It violates copy rights.