[MacDV] Transferring Dish DVR to PB?

[Erica Sadun]

At 3:07 PM -0500 9/26/04, Brian Olesky wrote:
>
>>>  Anybody know a good way to transfer recorded programming from a 
>>>Dish Network
>>>  DVR into my PowerBook?
>>
>>  Brian, I've been using a Canopus ADVC-100 A/D converter to capture
>>  video directly from a satellite receiver into iMovie. It has both
>>  S-video and RCA inputs. I bought it after several people on this
>>  list recommended it. Here's its web page:
>>
>>  http://www.canopus.us/US/products/advc-100/pm_advc-100.asp
>>
>>  Canopus offers a line of products with slightly different feature sets.
>>
>>>  Dish Network tech support says it can't be done, of course.
>>
>>  Just curious, what was their reasoning, if any? :-)
>>
>Patty, the Canopus looks great, but all I want to do is grab a few hours of
>old shows to take with me, watch and trash, and $300 is a bit pricey to do
>that.

$242 shipped, Newegg.

My Director's Cut bit the dust last week. My new Canopus
is chugging along nicely.

It's perfect for watching TV on the Mac (HackTV carbon),
for sending out video to my TV (simple video out X), and
all the iMovie/Final cut stuff I need.

>As far as Dish's tech support saying it couldn't be done, I suspect their
>call center people aren't techies, just people with a cheat sheet of
>frequently asked questions having to do with DVR problems.

Strictly speaking, it can be done, but using the Canopus
isn't doing it. YOu'd have to remove the disk and grab the
files and convert them into usable MPEG. What you *are* doing
is recompressing the already-compressed-signal.

For almost the same money as the canopus, you can now buy
a low-end couple-of-years-out-of-date DVD recorder box and
go direct from TiVo/Replay/etc to DVD.

-- Erica, who likes to take kid shows off her TiVo to DVD
for long car rides.