DTR80 HDD to HTPC?

DerekBaker

14-11-2008

Would like to remove the hard drive from my DTR80 (T825 non-HDMI) and connect it to my HTPC.

Does the drive use standard power and interface connectors?

What format are the files in? What will I need to convert them to play with Vista Media Center?

Thank you.

farpoint

15-11-2008

It's a standard hard drive so the power and data connections are ok.

However, the hard drive is partitioned and formatted as a linux ext2 partitions which will not be readable from a windows computer without some special software.

Some people has posted a method on how to extract the files in this forum - it's its far from simple and I wouldn't recommend it.

since you've got a windows vista pc, I'd say just buy a dual tuner DTV card for it and you'll find life much simpler.

DerekBaker

15-11-2008

Originally Posted by farpoint:
“It's a standard hard drive so the power and data connections are ok.”

Cool.

Quote:
“However, the hard drive is partitioned and formatted as a linux ext2 partitions which will not be readable from a windows computer without some special software.”

Used Ubuntu before, so shouldn't be a problem.

Quote:
“Some people has posted a method on how to extract the files in this forum - it's its far from simple and I wouldn't recommend it.

since you've got a windows vista pc, I'd say just buy a dual tuner DTV card for it and you'll find life much simpler.”

You mean like the BlackGold BGT3540 already in the HTPC?

dez_borders

16-11-2008

Originally Posted by DerekBaker:
“Would like to remove the hard drive from my DTR80 (T825 non-HDMI) and connect it to my HTPC.

Does the drive use standard power and interface connectors?

What format are the files in? What will I need to convert them to play with Vista Media Center?”

Buy an external IDE hard drive enclosure from www.ukdvdr.com for about £10.
You will also require a (free) Linux file system driver for your PC, such as Win2FS.
Note that you cannot record new programmes on the DTR whilst connected to the PC.

Remove the USB-IDE interface board from the drive enclosure and attach its IDE cable to the DTR hard drive (while the drive is still inside the recorder). You can then attach it to your laptop/pc via USB and copy the required files to the PC's hard drive.

Use ProjectX to edit out the ad-breaks from the Freeview digital stream and convert the stream into MPEG2.
Once you have the MPEG2 file(s), you can create a DVD Dusing your favourite burning software.

I kind of agree with others in the forum who said it's a long slow process, and unless the program you are converting is not commercially available on DVD, it's probably not worth the effort.

DerekBaker

16-11-2008

Thanks for the details

Originally Posted by dez_borders:
“I kind of agree with others in the forum who said it's a long slow process, and unless the program you are converting is not commercially available on DVD, it's probably not worth the effort.”

I guess that depends on your time/money balance.

DerekBaker

16-11-2008

Used ProjectX to demux a set of TRP files. However the output is divided into separate sound and videos files.

How can I get a single file? If not with ProjectX, what Windows Freeware will do it?

Thanks.

EDIT: Never mind, combined them with ImagoMPEG-Muxer.