[keicar]

Long shot here, I'm still using an aging 2003 Toshiba RDXV30 to copy from VCR/Camcorder to DVD, but the DVDR drive has given up the ghost and a replacement, even if available would be cost prohibitive.

As I can still record to the hard drive which looks like a standard IDE drive, does anyone know if the video files would be readable/convertable on a windows machine using a USB adapter? If so thinking of using the drive externally.

Thanks! As I said its a long shot, due to the age of the machine, which when working was far the best way to convert VHS to DVD.

[chrisjr]

It all depends on what file system the machine uses and whether or not it encrypts the recordings.

Some PVRs like the Humax I've got encrypt the recordings on the hard drive then decrypt them on the fly if you copy to an external drive via USB. But if you access the drive directly you can't use the recordings due to the encryption.

The type of file system might not be a problem to overcome unless it is some unique to Toshiba system with no drivers available for any known computer operating system. Encryption however might be rather harder to overcome.

If the recordings are not encrypted then they are likely to be in a flavour of MPEG 2 compatible with DVD Video so ought to be playable in something like VLC which seems to cope OK with most things you can chuck at it.

[keicar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisjr

It all depends on what file system the machine uses and whether or not it encrypts the recordings.

Some PVRs like the Humax I've got encrypt the recordings on the hard drive then decrypt them on the fly if you copy to an external drive via USB. But if you access the drive directly you can't use the recordings due to the encryption.

The type of file system might not be a problem to overcome unless it is some unique to Toshiba system with no drivers available for any known computer operating system. Encryption however might be rather harder to overcome.

If the recordings are not encrypted then they are likely to be in a flavour of MPEG 2 compatible with DVD Video so ought to be playable in something like VLC which seems to cope OK with most things you can chuck at it.

Thanks for your reply, as I suspected, I guess the only way is to grab a USB adaptor and interrogate the drive!

As far as the Humax PVR is concerned, only the HD recordings are encrypted, I've taken to recording programs I want to keep (few and far between these days!) in SD and extracting them to a USB stick to save on an external drive.

[chrisjr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keicar

Thanks for your reply, as I suspected, I guess the only way is to grab a USB adaptor and interrogate the drive!

Get a combo IDE/SATA adapter and that will allow you to use any drive you like and won't be so much of a wasted purchase if the Toshiba plays silly b's

Quote:

Originally Posted by keicar

As far as the Humax PVR is concerned, only the HD recordings are encrypted, I've taken to recording programs I want to keep (few and far between these days!) in SD and extracting them to a USB stick to save on an external drive.

The SD recordings are encrypted as well. It is just that when you tell the machine to copy a recording to a USB drive/stick it decrypts them on the fly. But it doesn't do that with HD recordings.

If you took the drive out or managed to connect to it over the network you'd find all the files are encrypted.

http://wiki.hummy.tv/wiki/Encryption

[jjne]

I have a Toshiba RDXS32 which was the successor to your unit.

I replaced the drive with an LG DVD-RAM/RW drive (PC drive, standard IDE). The RAM side doesn't work but the rest is just fine.

These drives were known to fail. I don't know if the earlier unit was the same, but it's fairly likely.

[keicar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjne

I have a Toshiba RDXS32 which was the successor to your unit.

I replaced the drive with an LG DVD-RAM/RW drive (PC drive, standard IDE). The RAM side doesn't work but the rest is just fine.

These drives were known to fail. I don't know if the earlier unit was the same, but it's fairly likely.

.

Thanks for the reply. I stripped the DVDR drive out the other day, without stripping it further it doesn't look like an IDE drive, just one small power cable and rigid ribbon connector to the main PCB.

Have you ever 'read' the hard drive and if so where the video files PC compatible and not encrypted?

[jjne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keicar

.

Thanks for the reply. I stripped the DVDR drive out the other day, without stripping it further it doesn't look like an IDE drive, just one small power cable and rigid ribbon connector to the main PCB.

Have you ever 'read' the hard drive and if so where the video files PC compatible and not encrypted?

The HDD had a non-standard format, and I was not able to extract any data.