DSTV PVR - downloading to PC

RichardP said:
Not to get in to details... but I think your assumption about Canada is incorrect. The main ones in use are Dish and Bev. both those use Nagravision :D What network in Canada is using irdeto?
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It wasn't an assumption, I was informed that this was the case by some of the Canadian TiVo hackers (we were discussing the potential of getting the DirecTiVo to work on other systems). The issue wasn't with Dish but it may have been Bell ExpressVu/Star Choice/Shaw/Rogers/etc and no they weren't using Irdeto.

I would agree that the situation is SA is closer to that of the Australians given that a couple of their networks also use Irdeto but they do tend to be one or two iterations behind.

As you say, there is little sense in getting into the semantics. Until DSTV actually put something in place it's all pure speculation. Given the fact that DSTV has done little in the way of development over the past year I don't think there is anything to be worried about just yet but it's always good to know where things are headed.
 
RichardP said:
Of Course DSTV wants you think that its 1 - card 1 decoder.. its in their books to brainwash the public to fit their ideas.... its called Marketing..
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I'm not wanting to reopen the smartcard debate but "War" did make some interesting points (especially with regards to OpenTV) in his post about the whole smartcard marriage issue:
War said:
A big warning here to anyone using or considering using a PC-based DVB system.

In the November issue of Dish, MultiChoice announced they will be implementing smartcard marriage. This means your smartcard will be married to a specific decoder and can't be used in a different decoder without being authorised by MultiChoice.

The problem is this marriage is based on the serial number the decoder presents to the smartcard, and DVB cards don't appear to present any sort of serial number. Without this marriage, the smartcard will refuse to authorise any decryption sometime from Q1 2007.

MultiChoice also won't give any information on whether this marriage will be handled entirely via ECM/EMM, or whether the OpenTV middleware used in their decoders will mediate this. If it's OpenTV-triggered, then even if you can get a DVB card/CAM to present a serial number the marriage will still fail.

There are a lot of unknowns at this point, and I haven't been able to get any clarity from MultiChoice, Irdeto, or the DVB card manufacturers. I'm pretty sure, however, that all PC-based DVB systems will be dead from early next year. It's possible that someone may come up with an Irdeto II CAM that can emulate a decoder serial number (like Dragon does with Sky's NDS), but I don't think this is likely (and it's probably against MultiChoice T&C's)
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RichardP said:
DSTV will *NEVER* in a reign of cats allow users to download content to their PCs, using USB or anything else. They cant control what you do once its on your PC ... and RIAA/SterKinekor/MPAA/NuMetro etc are paranoid about the internet and torrents.
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You are able to connect to a computer... but the content won't be HD. You will end up recording SD content. This is a security feature in the HD PVRs...
 
You guys realise this thread is over a year old
 
any progress on this? Anyone found a way yet to capture recorded programs from the hard drive?
 
Just building on the above, why is the power output at least not enabled on the USB of the PVR? Is there a way to solder/enable JUST the power output?
 
remybfg10k said:
Just building on the above, why is the power output at least not enabled on the USB of the PVR? Is there a way to solder/enable JUST the power output?
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What's the specific reason for asking this?

Edit: It more likely that the USB routines are not implemented/disabled in the firmware, rather than power supply to the USB port just being disabled/disconnected.
 
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i believe the data is still encrypted on the PVR and the HD PVR? your smatcard is the public key, but you would need access to the private key on the PVR to decode it, which I assume is well protected and probably hardware coded.
 
kayvee said:
What's the specific reason for asking this?

Edit: It more likely that the USB routines are not implemented/disabled in the firmware, rather than power supply to the USB port just being disabled/disconnected.
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kayvee, bought some notebook cooling devices from esquire, and its powered by USB, so i wanted to put one under the PVR and plug it into the usb, but i tested a usb light and it didnt switch on, so now i need to find an alternate way to power the cooler.

Unless there is a way to "enable" the power

Why did Multichoice not think ahead with cr@p like this!
 
remybfg10k said:
kayvee, bought some notebook cooling devices from esquire, and its powered by USB, so i wanted to put one under the PVR and plug it into the usb, but i tested a usb light and it didnt switch on, so now i need to find an alternate way to power the cooler.

Unless there is a way to "enable" the power

Why did Multichoice not think ahead with cr@p like this!
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Well if you are not scared of diving inside your PVR with a soldering iron and also no doubt invalidating the warranty, sure there's a way! Depends on how the hardware was designed, maybe they intentionally have a switched power source for the USB. One could cut the track feeding to the +5V pin of the USB connector and hard wire that to a 5V source on the board but I am not sure you want to go that far.

Why don't you just get one of those USB power supply plug-in thingies that you use for charging iPods and the like, and plug your cooler into that?
 
kayvee said:
Well if you are not scared of diving inside your PVR with a soldering iron and also no doubt invalidating the warranty, sure there's a way! Depends on how the hardware was designed, maybe they intentionally have a switched power source for the USB. One could cut the track feeding to the +5V pin of the USB connector and hard wire that to a 5V source on the board but I am not sure you want to go that far.

Why don't you just get one of those USB power supply plug-in thingies that you use for charging iPods and the like, and plug your cooler into that?
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Didn't think of that :o

Much better idea i think, thanks kayvee
 
I see the last conversation on this topic was a year ago.... is there anymore advance on being able to download to your pc or a disk yet? My brother in law can save movies he has recorded onto the pvr onto good old fashioned video tapes, but it would be a lot simper if one could download to pc and / or to a disk???
 
You cannot download. If you want it on disk best you can do is it record it in real time eg. dvd recorder.
 
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