Where can I find more information on attaching a hard drive to my Vip 522 HD DVR?

[sofakng]

Are there any wiki articles/FAQs or anything on attaching a hard drive to the Vip 522 HD DVR?

More specificially I have a couple of questions that have probably been answered a thousand times:

1) Can I copy shows off the DVR to my PC?
2) Can I copy shows from my PC to the DVR? (eg. rip DVDs and store them on the hard drive)

 

[garys]

First off, the 522 receiver is not a Vip receiver and the external hard drive software will never be made available to that unit. If you mean the 622, the external hard drive will work.
Answers to your questions:
1. No, Dish dvr files are encrypted and cannot be played through a computer. You may be able to burn a dvd, but that will not play through a computer or a dvd player because of the encryption.
2. Yes, but no. You can transfer files to the external hard drive but when you hook it up to the receiver, the hard drive is reformated and all the info is lost.

Forget Wiki, search the posts in this forum for your answers.

 

[TheKrell]

First off, the 522 receiver is not a Vip receiver

True...

and the external hard drive software will never be made available to that unit.

Do you know that for a fact, or are you just guessing? Here are a couple of relevant facts.

1. NBR came to 50x receivers years after it was working on newer receivers.
2. The 522/625s can upload programs to a PocketDish, encrypting them on the fly, right now.

I don't find it much of a stretch to suppose that gen 5 Archos players won't some day be allowed onto the 522/625, nor that EHDs won't eventually be made available on the 522/625.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

True... Do you know that for a fact, or are you just guessing? Here are a couple of relevant facts.

1. NBR came to 50x receivers years after it was working on newer receivers.
2. The 522/625s can upload programs to a PocketDish, encrypting them on the fly, right now.

I don't find it much of a stretch to suppose that gen 5 Archos players won't some day be allowed onto the 522/625, nor that EHDs won't eventually be made available on the 522/625.

Here's the only relevant fact. Non-Vip receivers do not have USB 2.0. Therefore they will never have External Hard Drive capability, as the old USB standard is too slow to support it in it's current form.

 

[garys]

Do you know that for a fact, or are you just guessing?

Fact, only receivers currently able to use an external hard drive are the 622, 611 and 722. The 211 and 222 receivers are still waiting for this feature. These five models are the only receivers in the Vip line of receivers. The 625 and 522 do have a usb port but is not 2.0 so it cannot handle an external hard drive. Pocket Dish and Archos can be run off 1.0, and are listed as external USB devises under Multimedia and not considered as external hard drives.

Note: I don't get the NBR reference in relationship to this topic.

 

[8bitbytes]

Not sure Dish would add EHD to a receiver that will be going away.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

Note: I don't get the NBR reference in relationship to this topic.

I think he was trying to make the point that since 50x model receivers didn't have Name Based Recording for many years, and that dish added it later, that this makes it possible to add USB EHDs later as well. What he didn't take into account when making his comparison is that 522/625 receiver do not have EHD capability due to a hardware limitation, where as adding Name Based Recording to the 50x line was a simple software update.

 

[DishSubLA]

True... Do you know that for a fact, or are you just guessing? Here are a couple of relevant facts.

1. NBR came to 50x receivers years after it was working on newer receivers.
2. The 522/625s can upload programs to a PocketDish, encrypting them on the fly, right now.

I don't find it much of a stretch to suppose that gen 5 Archos players won't some day be allowed onto the 522/625, nor that EHDs won't eventually be made available on the 522/625.

Furthermore, a caller on a recent Tech Forum asked about the SD DVR's ever getting the external HDD feature, and good o'l Mark Jackson said that they are NOT (as in NEVER) going to have the external HDD feature on any of the SD DVR's. Mark went on to cite a few reasons for this, but among them were that the motivation for the feature was because HD takes up a lot more room on the internal HDD with 55 hours being the most for the 722, so the need for an external HDD is acute with the ViP boxes and HD programming, the software upgrade would be too complex, the processors of the SD DVR's really couldn't handle such an upgrade and perform well, and good ol' Dan chimed in at the end adding that the SD DVR's have USB 1.0 and that old version will not support high speed transfer. They see no benefit of a real-time transfer to external HDD for the SD DVR's, especially since many of the SD DVR's have a 150 hour capacity on the internal HDD.

So, yeah, the others on this board know what they are talking about when they say, Dish is not going to spend their resources on making the SD DVR's capable of external HDD. You might consider an upgrade to a ViP STB.

 

[garys]

I knew about the NBR, but it took so long for it to show up I couldn't remember who I heard it from as to them getting it. I had heard about the external hard drive and the reasons for the models who would not get it, was not sure what source it was from, but I believe the info for it on the Dish Network site had it. Just searched again and found it:

Tech Portal : (choose receiver model) : How To : External Hard Drive

 

[Hall]

Not sure Dish would add EHD to a receiver that will be going away.

Which in turn suggests, why add any features to their SD receivers ?

 

[Menthol]

The 522 uses a linux file system.
You can retrieve the .TS (Transport Stream) files from the hard drive using a usb to hdd enclosure and transfering them to a pc using either a linux operating system, OR appropriate drivers installed to access linux partitions on a Windows PC. You can then play them with Media Player Classic or VLC. Regular recordings are not encrypted. Only Video On Demand PPV is encrypted. Remember though do not open leased equipment and opening your own equipment will void any warranties. Do not try to modify anything on the HDD otherwise the Receiver will end up formatting the drive and you will lose all your recordings. This post is provided for informational purposes only. By doing this you may be violating copyright laws or violating your dish network contract.