Hi All

I've recorded a few things in 3D on my Humax PVR and I'd like to move them on to my Macbook for future playback (via USB) but when I've tried to copy them to my external harddrive I get an error message saying can't move items over 4GB at a time. Can someone fill me in on how I may be able to do this?

Any and all help appreciated.

For files larger than 4GB the usb device needs to formatted EXT3. FAT32 has a max file size of 4GB.

If you recorded then in the normal way in Freesat mode then don't bother as the encryption will stop you doing anything with them except replay on the orginal box that recorded the content.

I've got a smaller recording off OK and it plays fine on my PC; I've even cut a clip from it and it plays on my BlackBerry.

But I'm not sure what I've got laying around that I can reformat to EXT3 (whatever that is!). Research is called for.

Ah! The OP refers to a Macbook, I'm looking to transfer to a PC, as I did before. But the only options on my USB drive under Win7 are NTFS or exFAT.

Firstly are you sure the clip is HD ?. EXT3 is a linux file system format.

You need to create a linux boot disc for your MAC. If you have a PC you can use the free version of Easeus Partition Manager to format a USB drive EXT3 in Windows. EXT2FSD lets you read/write EXT3 in Windows. Not a clue how to work with EXT3 using a Mac.

They're at least 2 hours HD each; I already encountered the 4Gb barrier (which I didn't know about at the time) when trying to save them to a USB stick but I don't know the total file size.

The only way to record HD these days without encryption is using non-freesat mode (after a reboot in non-freesat). BBC1-HD was transmitted without the encryption flag from launch to just before the Royal Wedding so if they are very old BBC1-HD recordings that would explain it. Record a short clip from any of the HD channels (minimum 60 seconds) and see if you can still use the content externally

Well, I have three files (.hmt, .nts & .ts) saved to my USB drive but Win Explorer can't recognise the drive any more, presumably due to it being in a Linux format. EaseUS can read it but not do anything with it, as far as I can see.

I guess all I can do is use EaseUS to reformat the drive to NTFS.

Install EX2FS to read the drive in Windows

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2.../Ext2fsd/0.51/

Easeus is a file system and partitioning programme. Windows needs an external driver to use Linux drive formats.

Hmm, I've given it a drive letter in Ex2 but Windows still doesn't see it.

It's been a while, did you choose to mount the drive you allocated a windows drive letter to ?

Sorry, not sure what you mean. It's a drive I've used before for backup etc.

In EXt2FS try right clicking on the drive letter you allocated, do you have a mount option ?. If not try the menus, too late to try here. Mounting simply means adding an allocated drive letter to windows.

It's a while since I used EXT2FS but the option wasn't hard to find.

Yes, I had used the Mount option. It was visible in EaseUS and Ext2FS but not Win 7 Explorer.

I tried the same procedure on my Win XP laptop and it is visible in Explorer there but it just tells me the disk isn't formatted and won't read it.

Never mind, I'm not sure I could have got a 30Gb file to a recipient in W Africa with a 256Kb connection anyway!