I have a Technisat HDFS receiver with external recording via USB. I've been using a 32GB memory stick, formatted by the receiver and reported as tsd_v2 format, although the menu calls it 'PVR format'. This isn't readable by Windows and I suspect it's proprietary, but I was hoping to copy it for archive purposes. Any ideas or experience?

I also tried formatting a 64GB drive, which it didn't like (it came out as 32) but what happens if you put in a larger external hard drive? I feel as though I'm overlooking something...

I have read the manual, BTW, but it doesn't provide that level of detail.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

What happens if you format the stick on your computer?

It is quite possible that the stick is formatted with a Unix/Linux format e.g. ext3

You could try booting your PC with a Linux CD to find out or looking for a Windows program/driver for ext3.

http://www.ext2fsd.com/

Your other alternative is to install this http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/ it will enable you to open any Linux file and copy it to your Windows drive.
What it won't do is allow you to modify the Linux file directly, but, in many ways that's a good thing because you can't mess any of the original recordings up.

EXT2FSD installs with read only access by default. You have to specifically enable write access.

I reckon the FS may well be proprierty and specific to the box. Normally these devices create standard transport stream files (.ts) direct from the broadcast data stream. The files aren't Linux at all, only the file system used to save them is Linux. SD transmissions produce mpeg2 compressed content up to 720 x 576 pixels - 576i. HD is H264/AVC (mpeg 4) 1920 x 1080 - 1080i.

i also have a technisat HDFS and i have had a 250 GB HDD attached to it with no problems at all, i do believe i formatted it to FAT32 before i connected it and then the freesat box did the rest,

Good question! I have XP, which doesn't really like memory sticks larger than 32GB (which is fair enough when you consider what was available in 2003). It offers an FAT version called exFAT that is supposed to cope but doesn't seem to work for me. I found a utility that could format it OK, but testing the stick with 40GB of photos ended up with most of them generating header errors. I then tried a partition utility called Mini Tool which is both free and effective, as partitioning the stick (but not formatting it) allowed the Technisat box to format it to full capacity.

You could try giving Easus Partition Manager a spin ..it's free and has helped me in the past
http://www.partition-tool.com/

Thanks to all for the links and tips. I have got the 64GB stick to work in the Technisat (see my reply to Wombat) but haven't tried using Linux to explore the other one yet. Will report back when I have...

I'm constantly surprised at the quality and usefulness of some free utilities. Windows is pretty useless at partitioning and formatting, stuff that Linux can do standing on its head, but what's new..?