Is it possible to trim a recording?

nwflyboy

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Nov 25, 2011
61
7
Seattle, WA, USA
New Dish customer here. After a few weeks of recording oodles of programs (most in fat HD), that giant hard drive is not looking quite so endless. I'll get more disciplined soon, but I had a question about the recordings I've been collecting...

Every program has anywhere from a minute to several minutes of cruft before and after the actual program I wanted: the last minute or two of the program that preceded the one I wanted, and a few minutes after it's over, commercials, etc. I understand the need for this slop/overlap (lack of precision timing), but once I have the recording, I'd like to go in and edit it, trimming everything off that comes before and after the actual program.

On my old hard drive DVR, I could easily edit programs like this (splitting them at a designated point). I have not found a way to do this on the 722 DVR/receiver.

Granted, this will not empty my hard drive, but I figure every little bit of junk I can get rid of is good, and it also makes watching the recorded programs "neater".

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks!
 
You can go into options and reduce future overlap, but there is no way to edit items already on the DVR.

What you need is an external hard drive (EHD). No charge, on the ViP722. You plug it in to the USB port, wait a few seconds, and it's up and running with no expense other than the purchase of the EHD. First time you plug it in, you will be asked if it is OK to format the drive. After that, you can move programs from the internal DVR HDD to the EHD and vice versa. You could also watch directly from the EHD. You can have any number of EHDs, but only one can be connected at a time. You can have up to 2TB on any single EHD.
 
Too bad. I also would like to trim some of my recording. I don't need any fancy editing just want to chop off x minutes from the beginning and y minutes from the end.
 
Thanks for the quick and useful info.

I happen to have a $125 Visa gift card burning a hole in my pocket (rebate from signing up through The Dish Store :up )...what are the preferred EHD options? (I assume folks here have their favorites/recommendations).

Thanks again.
 
Between myself, my dad and my sister, we all have Western Digital's. A 640gb and two 1 TB's. They have been working great for a couple of years or however long since Dish enabled the external hard drive feature.
 
I think Western Digital is the most used EHD on this site. I have a 2TB for my 211k and 1TB for my 922. Both work great and add plenty of extra space.
 
Thanks for the quick and useful info.

I happen to have a $125 Visa gift card burning a hole in my pocket (rebate from signing up through The Dish Store :up )...what are the preferred EHD options? (I assume folks here have their favorites/recommendations).

Thanks again.

Look here. Read the first post and it's PDF (size limit is now 2TB). There are other threads on the matter, where people discuss their preferences. WD seems to be favored. I have various ones, including a RAID array.
 
I have Seagate Freeagent both at 7200 rpm and 5900 RPM that have been working well on the 722k and the 922. and I have WD 1 and 2TB that I have tested for a couple of months without failure. I also run powered USB hub and have tested my Seagates 1 and 2 TB and the WD drives. I hope to test multiple drives on the HUB soon. The WD drives are in $20 USB external cases with a quick release. I may also try that Seagate dual drive Goflex dock, after the first of the year. Seagate and Hitachi have both started selling a 4TB 7200 rpm hard drive at $379, but we only certify 2TB at this time.
 
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I should add, that the activation fee in that PDF I recommended you read, is no more. No activation fee for the ViP622/722 series EHD feature any more.
 
Prices of drives for use with a stand got under $40/TB until the recent Thailand floods, which raised them. A case adds $10 to $20 each, the stand can be had for $20-$30 and mount any number of raw drives, one at a time. Seagates used to have a sleep problem unless disabled. WD, Hitachi, and some others power down if unused but are ready to go quickly.

-Ken
 
Are we going to see multiple EHD support on the 722K?

I have Seagate Freeagent both at 7200 rpm and 5900 RPM that have been working well on the 722k and the 922. and I have WD 1 and 2TB that I have tested for a couple of months without failure. I also run powered USB hub and have tested my Seagates 1 and 2 TB and the WD drives. I hope to test multiple drives on the HUB soon. The WD drives are in $20 USB external cases with a quick release. I may also try that Seagate dual drive Goflex dock, after the first of the year. Seagate and Hitachi have both started selling a 4TB 7200 rpm hard drive at $379, but we only certify 2TB at this time.
 
One thing that I don't think was mentioned was the hard drive has to have an external power source. The Dish receiver doesn't have enough power to run a HD through USB.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
Thanks for the pointers. I'm now looking at buying an EHD - or more likely a drive docking station plus raw drive - probably this coming week. Some questions on what to look for in that/those...

Doing a quick search on Newegg for these, they're certainly inexpensive, and there are plenty to choose from. I assume I need one with an AC power supply (per above). How about a fan? Most don't seem to have fans but a few do - is that worthwhile? Anything else specific I should look for in a docking station for this use? I assume it needs a USB II connector (many units are now USB III).

For the drive itself, I think I'm reading that any drive up to 2 TB should work fine - beyond that, it might work but Dish doesn't promise it will. 7200 RMP needed, or is 5400 adequate? And I assume the drive connector just needs to match the dock's (i.e. SATA I/II), which should be pretty easy. Any other things to look for here?

Thanks for the recommendations/tips!
 
I saw the dock (USB+ESATA+Firewire?) for $10 after rebate. I'm would still be waiting on my rebate from a more costly/same? one if I had not paid $2 to expedite it. The drives are a lot more expensive now--it was below $40/TB.

USB 3 works as USB 2, so no worry from what I read.

5400 RPM (rev/min) seem to work and usually give a little less heat. 7200 RPM would give better access speed, the transfer rate could improve too.

The interface connectors for 2.5 and 3.5 drives are the same. Wait on going above 2TB. I find a 2TB Fantom is rather slower and with Dish they have inadequate buffer for the directory, so that each time you go back to the list, it slowly reloads--it's a lot of files/programs.

-Ken
 
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