# Can I transfer DVR content from HR21 to Genie



## itsMillerTime4u (Aug 30, 2006)

I have a HR21-200 and I'm looking to replace it with a Genie (HR44 I believe). Is there a way to transfer the DVR content from one DVR to the other? Perhaps I could copy it off to an external drive and then plug this drive into the Genie?


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Nope, there is no way. However, you might be able to keep the HR21 active for a few weeks until you watch down those recordings


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## jagrim (Aug 26, 2006)

Recordings are tied to the specific DVR. You might want to keep the HR21 active until you have watched all the recordings, then deactivate it.


Sent from my iPad using DBSTalk


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

What if you just had a couple that you really wanted to hang onto and had already watched them ?
Could you use the Genie to play the recording from the HR21 and as soon as it came to the screen press the Record button and record it to the Genie while it was playing from the HR21 ?


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

jimmie57 said:


> What if you just had a couple that you really wanted to hang onto and had already watched them ?
> Could you use the Genie to play the recording from the HR21 and as soon as it came to the screen press the Record button and record it to the Genie while it was playing from the HR21 ?


No


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## texasmoose (May 25, 2007)

Of course, u could've done it with Dish. This is puzzling to me that D* has yet to implement something comparable.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

There are things Dish does better, things DirecTV does better. Other things are more comparable or subjective as to who is better at something.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

texasmoose said:


> Of course, u could've done it with Dish. This is puzzling to me that D* has yet to implement something comparable.


DTV missed two major thong: records linked to an account but a DVR and EHD what works for all DVRs in one account


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

jimmie57 said:


> What if you just had a couple that you really wanted to hang onto and had already watched them ?
> Could you use the Genie to play the recording from the HR21 and as soon as it came to the screen press the Record button and record it to the Genie while it was playing from the HR21 ?


DirecTV DVRs only record form its satellite tuners, and not from the "network" tuner


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

peds48 said:


> DirecTV DVRs only record form its satellite tuners, and not from the "network" tuner


DIRECTV (all caps) DVRs only record from their associated tuners (be they satellite or OTA).


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

harsh said:


> DIRECTV (all caps) DVRs only record from their associated tuners (be they satellite or OTA).


Assuming you have an HR20 or an AM21. Of course I was being more "general"


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Drucifer said:


> No


^
This


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

Stuart Sweet said:


> ^
> This


Did you decide that Drucifer gave the Best Answer ?
I did not mark it, don't even know how.
In fact, I do prefer the additional reasons given in a couple of the longer answers since I am always one that want to know "WHY".
My daddy told me I would not make a good soldier because I always wanted to know "WHY" and not just do as I was told.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

peds48 said:


> Assuming you have an HR20 or an AM21. Of course I was being more "general"


You were being _less_ general as you omitted the possibility of recording from OTA (where available).


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

jimmie57 said:


> In fact, I do prefer the additional reasons given in a couple of the longer answers since I am always one that want to know "WHY".


The "WHY" is almost certainly a business decision on DIRECTV's part and its probably best not to try to explain (or defend) a business decision.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

harsh said:


> The "WHY" is almost certainly a business decision on DIRECTV's part and its probably best not to try to explain (or defend) a business decision.


I don't think Jimmy was referring to that "why" but rather to the technical "why"


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

harsh said:


> The "WHY" is almost certainly a business decision on DIRECTV's part and its probably best not to try to explain (or defend) a business decision.


I would lean more to a software programmers decision. Since you have it recorded there is no business reason not to let you put it on another DVR that you have. I suspect the programmers reasoning to be that if you already have it and you are connected with Whole Home DVR then there is no reason to take up additional space on another hard drive.
I have seen many decisions similar to this that were strictly made by the programmers.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

OK, if you want the "why" --

Each recording is literally threaded through with references to the device which originated it. This is on purpose, so that programs can specifically not be moved from device to device. DIRECTV's encryption technology is the centerpiece of its entire technology. If they were not able to guarantee to content providers that their content could not be decoded and redistributed in pure digital form, they would have no ability to sign carriage contracts. Similarly, if they were not able to guarantee that only a DIRECTV receiver with a valid access card could watch DIRECTV programming, they would be unable to collect fees.

DIRECTV has always taken a very conservative line on this matter, unlike DISH which contends that it is strictly legal to do things like migrate recordings from device to device. DIRECTV's stance on this has led to far fewer legal battles attempted, and far less money paid to settle lawsuits and fulfill judgments.

Third party providers like TiVo and Sling do not record the pure digital signal (except where specifically allowed) and in TiVo's case even though they allow offloading it is of a transcoded signal that is significantly worse than the original. Sling does not create digital copies while it is streaming.

On the matter of DIRECTV-sanctioned placeshifting, such as is used by GenieGo, it takes place by replacing the original content protection with similarly strong content protection designed for mobile devices. DIRECTV is fairly late to the placeshifting game precisely because they acquired either concrete or de facto permission from content providers to do this.

From a technological point of view it would be possible for DIRECTV to safely decode and recode a recording so as to move it from one DVR to another, but it seems evident that they have determined two things:

(1) That the demand for such a service is not proportional to the cost of developing it;
(2) That such a service may require extensive contract changes which, again, require effort (i.e. cost) disproportional to the demand.

Finally I have reason to believe that such a service will become increasingly irrelevant as DIRECTV continues to develop its on-demand library and further integrates it with your DIRECTV service; losing a program that is recorded locally will be of no concern if you can stream that program from DIRECTV's servers.

I hope that answers your question to your satisfaction and I hope that you'll continue to ask questions if it doesn't. I'll continue to answer to the extent that I feel comfortable; my long-term relationship with DIRECTV is based on trust and there are some answers I don't feel comfortable giving.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Thank you Stuart, that was very helpful. I will say that I personally would even be willing to pay the one time $40 fee or something similar that Dish used to charge, and even if it were limited to Genie to Genie.

What I would really like even more is a way to backup series links and recording history to a USB key. That would be very useful for replacement, since FIA isn't available for everything.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

Thanks to all for the good answers.

If I had WHDVR I could have tried it for myself and saw that it would not work. Maybe one day. For now I can watch the very little bit that I record on my second DVR in that room and I am OK wit that.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Stuart Sweet said:


> DIRECTV's stance on this has led to far fewer legal battles attempted, and far less money paid to settle lawsuits and fulfill judgments.


Evidence?


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Harsh, I think you'll find a plethora of evidence, and I know you have the skills to find it.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

dpeters11 said:


> What I would really like even more is a way to backup series links and recording history to a USB key. That would be very useful for replacement, since FIA isn't available for everything.


I'd like that too, and I think you'll be pleased by some of the solutions which I expect to see publicly in the next 12 months.


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## Ignatz (Nov 30, 2006)

Not exactly what is being discussed in this thread, but it "is" possible to copy the entire contents of a DIRECTV HDDVR to another disk by cloning the entire disk. The cloned disk can then be substituted for the original, or connected as an external drive, and all the recordings will be viewable. But the disk is not viewable on another box, even of the same model number.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

Ignatz said:


> Not exactly what is being discussed in this thread, but it "is" possible to copy the entire contents of a DIRECTV HDDVR to another disk by cloning the entire disk. The cloned disk can then be substituted for the original, or connected as an external drive, and all the recordings will be viewable. But the disk is not viewable on another box, even of the same model number.


There is a long thread on this whole subject here:
http://www.dbstalk.com/topic/158213-removing-replacing-copying-hard-drive-of-hr2-receiver-photo-tutorial/page-29?hl=%2Bclone#entry3229074


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

he is try to reinvent the wheel


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Ignatz said:


> Not exactly what is being discussed in this thread, but it "is" possible to copy the entire contents of a DIRECTV HDDVR to another disk by cloning the entire disk. The cloned disk can then be substituted for the original, or connected as an external drive, and all the recordings will be viewable. But the disk is not viewable on another box, even of the same model number.


So what is the relevance here.... No one is disputing that fact....


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Stuart Sweet said:


> OK, if you want the "why" --
> 
> Each recording is literally threaded through with references to the device which originated it. This is on purpose, so that programs can specifically not be moved from device to device. DIRECTV's encryption technology is the centerpiece of its entire technology. If they were not able to guarantee to content providers that their content could not be decoded and redistributed in pure digital form, they would have no ability to sign carriage contracts. Similarly, if they were not able to guarantee that only a DIRECTV receiver with a valid access card could watch DIRECTV programming, they would be unable to collect fees.
> 
> ...


The problem is that DIRECTV will never be able to offer all tv shows on major networks long term for six months to a year on demand. So their on demand library will never be a better solution IMHO. It's a great help but it's not the end all.

Plus for upgrades it's ridiculous to have to tell a customer well you have to go and write down all the shows you recorded even if it's 100 TV shows and movies combined and then going to find them all on demand and re record them all rather than just saying okay plug in a hard drive hit back up and then plug it into this when it hit download. And have it not only download all your recordings but all your settings as well.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

inkahauts said:


> The problem is that DIRECTV will never be able to offer all tv shows on major networks long term for six months to a year on demand. So their on demand library will never be a better solution IMHO. It's a great help but it's not the end all.
> 
> Plus for upgrades it's ridiculous to have to tell a customer well you have to go and write down all the shows you recorded even if it's 100 TV shows and movies combined and then going to find them all on demand and re record them all rather than just saying okay plug in a hard drive hit back up and then plug it into this when it hit download. And have it not only download all your recordings but all your settings as well.


I'm going to go through that today when my 3 TB drive and BlacX dock arrive for the HR44-700. About 10 days ago, I realized I wanted to add the eSATA, so I stopped recording on the HR44 and we have been watching what had been recorded. I moved all my recordings over to an Hr24 with a 2 TB eSATA on it (by that I mean scheduled recordings, as there is no way to "move" the actual recordings).

I have a two page list of all the series that I am going to record on the new drive, which I will have to manually input when the new drive is set up. It would be nice if this bit of data could be stored "somewhere" and retrieved. It's not the end of the world and only takes perhaps half an hour or so, but it seems silly to have to do it, considering it is nothing more than a list of scheduled recordings.

Of course, this doesn't address the issue of recording accessibility by account instead of by device, but I found a way around that by planning well ahead for the drive change. I would much prefer the capability to view recordings on any DVR from any eSATA drive on the account. Not holding my breath, though.


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

I would be nice if recordings were transferable between different dvr's, then upgrades,replacement or downgrades would be more desirable to do, then to think about losing recordings.


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

But I bet there's a lot of people that have DVR's that don't know you can add externals to your DVR. because Directv don't promote it like they used to.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

you are :bang , the request is on a table for many years and DTV is not willing to take it - see Stewart (I would say almost DTV) position on that


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

acostapimps said:


> I would be nice if recordings were transferable between different dvr's, then upgrades,replacement or downgrades would be more desirable to do, then to think about losing recordings.


Maybe DirecTV's future Cloud-like whatever it is going to be will be able to do that, providing that the source DVR HDD is not toast.


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## Sixto (Nov 18, 2005)

I have wondered how/why TiVo has been able to get away with it. Roamio to Roamio HD recording transfers average 185-205Mbps between DVRs. Unless they don't have the same restrictions since they just access the content, and don't provide it directly. I assume that the Cablelabs spec allows what they do.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Sixto said:


> I have wondered how/why TiVo has been able to get away with it. Roamio to Roamio HD recording transfers average 185-205Mbps between DVRs. Unless they don't have the same restrictions since they just access the content, and don't provide it directly. I assume that the Cablelabs spec allows what they do.


how they connected ? 1 Gb Ethernet cable ? or eSATA-eSATA cable ?


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## Sixto (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> how they connected ? 1 Gb Ethernet cable ? or eSATA-eSATA cable ?


Gigabit Ethernet.

Depends on the cable provider and the CCI flag. For FiOS, can freely copy all recordings other the HBO.

Highest I've experienced is 205Mbps Roamio to Roamio. MoCA was less.

I've always wondered why it's so easily allowed.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

perhaps they using technical loophole - transferring events encoded by themselves ? ie not copying original bitstream ?


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## Sixto (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> perhaps they using technical loophole - transferring events encoded by themselves ? ie not copying original bitstream ?


Have always had the impression that it's a full duplicate copy, same as the original. Very handy when wanting a backup, or when upgrading.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Stuart Sweet said:


> Harsh, I think you'll find a plethora of evidence, and I know you have the skills to find it.


A brilliant defence.

I've not been able to find any evidence of lawsuits against DISH for their EHD feature. Because the feature doesn't increase the number of copies of a particular program, I doubt there would be any squawking.

Any squawking about the feature seems to come from DIRECTV users who don't have access to it and I haven't seen any formal litigation against DIRECTV as a result of the absence of the feature.

Obviously, reasoning that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't mean that there isn't any, but I haven't found any so I asked you to support your claim with any of this "plethora of evidence".


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

harsh said:


> I've not been able to find any evidence of lawsuits against DISH for their EHD feature. Because the feature doesn't increase the number of copies of a particular program, I doubt there would be any squawking.


I'm pretty certain he wasn't talking specifically about the use of external hard drives. He was saying as a whole DirecTV has been very strict with their copy protections, and as a result have had very few lawsuits from the channels/content owners. Can you find any instances where a channel or content owner has sued DirecTV for allowing customers to copy/view/etc. their content in a way they felt DirecTV did not have the rights to allow?

Now on the other hand Dish, Charter, and a few others have all had some pretty big lawsuits over stuff like commercial skipping, streaming channels outside the home, making copies of recordings etc.

Pretty much comes down to DirecTV usually doesn't do anything unless they are certain their contracts allow it. Some of the other companies tend to lean more towards doing whatever they want unless their contract strictly forbids it, and let the courts figure out if they should have or not.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Stuart Sweet said:


> DIRECTV has always taken a very conservative line on this matter, unlike DISH which contends that it is strictly legal to do things like migrate recordings from device to device. DIRECTV's stance on this has led to far fewer legal battles attempted, and far less money paid to settle lawsuits and fulfill judgments.





Beerstalker said:


> I'm pretty certain he wasn't talking specifically about the use of external hard drives. He was saying as a whole DirecTV has been very strict with their copy protections, and as a result have had very few lawsuits from the channels/content owners.


It appeared that he was talking specifically about "migrating" content from device to device (what DISH's EHD technology does) and that was what was saving DIRECTV from one kind of litigation that DISH was experiencing.

The flaw in the argument is that the DISH EHD content is indeed encrypted but the way they share the keys is different. I'm guessing that DIRECTV uses a similar form of key sharing for WHDS so that the playing device can decode content encrypted by and for another DVR on the same account.

DISH's EHD technology doesn't create copies of the content and that's why I believe it should be immune from litigation.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

harsh said:


> A brilliant defence.


No need to be a db about it....Beerstalker is 100% correct here. there are posts all over this place about Dish being sued over this and that, I cant remember the last time I read about a DIrectv suit of a similar nature.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

harsh said:


> It appeared that he was talking specifically about "migrating" content from device to device (what DISH's EHD technology does) and that was what was saving DIRECTV from one kind of litigation that DISH was experiencing.
> 
> The flaw in the argument is that the DISH EHD content is indeed encrypted but the way they share the keys is different. I'm guessing that DIRECTV uses a similar form of key sharing for WHDS so that the playing device can decode content encrypted by and for another DVR on the same account.
> 
> DISH's EHD technology doesn't create copies of the content and that's why I believe it should be immune from litigation.


I disagree, I think he was talking more broadly.

DirecTV does not share the keys when using whole home DVR service. The recording is decoded on the DVR that it is stored on, and then sent out to the other DVR/receiver to be shown, or at least that is the way I have been led to believe it works. This is why they DVRs can only stream to one other device at a time.

I would agree that in this particular instance, Dish seems to be doing fine. Encrypting the recordings so they can only be used by receivers on the same account seems to be good enough for the channels/content owners and they haven't been sued over this, that original decision was a little bit risky though. DirecTV made a more cautios decision in the beginning and decided to encrypt so they can only be used on a specific device just to be on the safe side.

Now that DirecTV has seen that the content owners don't mind it they may indeed consider this on future devices, but for now it seems they have decided that it is not worth going back and redoing all their current systems in order to make it work. Maybe when they come out with new hardware for 4K it will run on completely different software and they can include that feature in those systems.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

> "redoing *all their current systems* in order to make it work."


 :rolling:

Lets make real argument !


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