Repost from Dish Forum: Watching Video saved onto external HD from Hopper

[mendylee333]

Repost to Satellite Guys for their help as well from Dish Forum:

We bought an external Hard Drive to quadruple the size of our Hopper DVR. The external Hard Drive works perfectly with the Hopper and can even play right off the hard drive without having to transfer back to the hopper.

Now that we got Elon here in town, we don't need to pay the outrageous $145 a month that Dish is charging us for what is essentially "completely non 4k" stuff and Showtime with 2 SD channels including the 2 best channels in low def (who the hell has a low def TV anymore??).

Unfortunately there are concerts and music programs that we can probably never find again that are on the External Hard Drive.

Is there any way on earth to play the stuff saved onto our external Hard Drive from the Hopper DVR that we can play back on anything else that doesn't cost as much as it would to just keep the old hopper (which I hear is a $299 fee for not sending it back?)

We immediately removed the Hopper from the internet so they couldn't send the kill switch to it. They sent us the box and keep sending UPS to our house to claim it.
We need to know asap if there's anyway to get literally 1000 hours of irreplaceable stuff either off the external hard drive before we send it back or far more preferably ... "to be able to play what the Hopper saved to the external Hard Drive" from something other than the hopper itself?
Thanks everyone!

 

[navychop]

No. Not legally nor easily. Tied to the account. So even if you signed up again in the future, you will have a new account number and will not be able to see the contents of that EHD. This helps make customers “sticky.”

The “kill signal” is not the only way they shut down. If the STB doesn’t have contact with Dish for some uncertain amount of time, it shuts down.

 

[mendylee333]

Thanks for the reply Navychop. Sounds like i'm out of luck unless I want to put some serious effort into it and it may just not be worth it

 

[Jim5506]

I use a Hauppauge PVR 1212 connected to the component video output of my H3 and connected to the optical audio output (Toslink) to transfer programs in real time to my PC from the H3.
Hauppauge also has an HDMI attachable converter on a PC board that can do the same.

It takes time, but you can start playing the show and the recording and specify how long you want the PC to record the output from the H3 so that can free you up to other persuits during downtime.

 

[navychop]

Hasn’t the account already been closed? They’ve shipped him a box

 

[Jim5506]

If the Hopper will play the attached videos from the EHD they can still be copied.

Copying them directly from the EHD is impossible if they can't be played in the H3.