Recording TV Shows

[Redruum]

Hello all. hopefully someone can help me with this. Im currently stationed in afghanistan. I want my family member to record WWE and Smackdown (two weekly shows) on their DVD Recorder and send to me weekly so I can watch them. With all of todays technologies and DRM, is it still possible to record tv shows? I was told that as long as you bypass the tuenr by using RCA cables it should work fine, right?

[oldfart13]

I take it you have spotty or non existent Internet service where you are stationed? Otherwise, XBMC with the right repositories is your friend and you don't have to wait weeks to watch the shows. On the other hand, a DVD recorder and burner might be able to do it so long as the channels involved don't prevent the shows from being copied. Since I have no idea what channels these shows are on, your family member would have to do a test recording to find out...

[usually_quiet]

Hello all. hopefully someone can help me with this. Im currently stationed in afghanistan. I want my family member to record WWE and Smackdown (two weekly shows) on their DVD Recorder and send to me weekly so I can watch them. With all of todays technologies and DRM, is it still possible to record tv shows? I was told that as long as you bypass the tuenr by using RCA cables it should work fine, right?

Yes, in many cases, all your family members will need to do is tune their cable box or satellite receiver to the right channel for the show to be recorded, set the DVD recorder's timers for the correct start and stop time, and record via RCA cables as you stated. ...but that doesn't work for everyone. It depends upon what the service provider does with copy-protection flags on channels carrying the programs to be recorded.

Local over-the-air broadcast channels will be marked copy-freely, and recording will be unrestricted. Cable-only/satellite-only channels can be marked "copy-once" at the discretion of the provider. If a channel is marked "copy-once", it may not be easy to record it and send it to you because such programming must be recorded on special discs that allows recordings to be encrypted, or the on DVD recorder's hard drive (if there is one), and it can't be copied from the hard drive. Pay-per-view events may be marked copy never, which means they can't be recorded.

There are devices that can remove copy protection flags, but good ones cost around $100, so your family members should try recording to find out what happens before ordering one on line.