Make DVDs from the HDD on your digital satellite reciever?

[FantasyGhost]

Hey everyone,

I've got a pretty weird question. But i figured here are a lot of guys/girls probably using satellite recievers and maybe already have the knowledge to do this stuff.

I've bought a new Digital Satellite Reciever KSC-570H with a HDD installed of 80GB, so i can store some MPEG2 movies on there. Nowadays most movies are with surround sound and it's possible even with a satellite. But my home cinema system (SONY DAV-S300) doesn't allow surround sound, it only got a stereo in. The DVDs play surround sound without a problem but anything connected to the home cinema system is stereo, which brings me to my question.

Is there a way that i can download these movies of the reciever HDD to my PC so i can put them on a DVD? There's a connection provided on the reciever to connect to the PC for upgrades (RS-232 cable).

It's the same as recording a video of a movie you're watching on TV. So i hope i'm not asking for anything illegal. I know how to burn DVDs (PLEXTOR PX-708A), so that's no problem i just would like to know how i could get the MPEGs stored on my HDD to my PC.

Thx for any help.

[Gurm]

I can pretty much guarantee you that there will NOT be a way to transfer movies off the satellite with RS-232. At 115Kbps, it would take years.

[FantasyGhost]

Ok thx for the reply.

Now that know it's almost impossible to transfer through the RS-232 cable, i've opened the reciever to look what HD is inside. It's a Western Digital: WD800BB with 7200RPM and it got a EIDE connection from where i can download the files. If i'm right? Do i have to change anything on it to Slave or something, or just connect the IDE to the PC and i can view what's on it?

[corwin102]

You could try getting an IDE to USB adapter to simplify this. Soimething like:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=USB2IDE-N&cat=CBL

[bugster]

Ok thx for the reply.

Now that know it's almost impossible to transfer through the RS-232 cable, i've opened the reciever to look what HD is inside. It's a Western Digital: WD800BB with 7200RPM and it got a EIDE connection from where i can download the files. If i'm right? Do i have to change anything on it to Slave or something, or just connect the IDE to the PC and i can view what's on it?

Chances are it uses some proprietary disk format or the files are encrypted in some. I very much doubt that simply hooking the disk up to a PC will be any good. But what do I know, why not try it and find out

[Gurm]

I would think that the drives in these boxes are:

1. In a weird format.

2. Encrypted.

3. Both 1 & 2.

Seriously, if it were that easy, people would be doing it all the time, but they aren't.

On the other hand, a lot of these devices have USB/Firewire/Ethernet ports, and a lot of them ARE hackable using those interfaces... a quick google search found lots of information on hacking TiVO boxes, etc.

[FantasyGhost]

Thx for the tips guys.

Then next step is buying a USB 2.0 to IDE cable and see what's on this HD i guess. And see if any of what Gurm said is there. I need that cable for my PS2 HD anyway. I'll buy one tomorrow.

[FantasyGhost]

I've opened my reciever and put the HDD IDE onto my PC through a USB 2.0 IDE cable. The code is encrypted so i can't see with the windows browser what files are on there. The TiVo is something you connect through network i've read so i can't use that if i'm correct. If some skilled developer could make make a tool that could read the encrypted code i would be really happy Then again i doubt that's gonna happen.