# External hard drive



## Scott C. Edwards (Mar 2, 2005)

Can any USB 2.0 external hard drive be used to copy from the 942? How about recording directly from the 942 tuners? Can that content then be played back through the 942?


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## DVDDAD (Dec 21, 2002)

USB 2.0 harddrive support for archieval of recorded content was announced at CES earlier just a few days ago for the 942 and upcomming Vip622. Tune into the Charlie Chat (channel 101) tonight at 9:00 p.m. and we may learn more.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

You won't be able to record directly from the 942 tuners, and you won't be able to playback directly. It will be an archive situation only.


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## Ddavis (Jan 15, 2004)

That's Ok with me, but will I be able to archive from my 942 and restore to the 622 when I upgrade to Mpeg4?


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## datwell (Jan 26, 2005)

Ddavis said:


> That's Ok with me, but will I be able to archive from my 942 and restore to the 622 when I upgrade to Mpeg4?


Mark: Yes - this would be important to me too!

--Doug


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## Jason Kragt (Dec 20, 2002)

Ddavis said:


> That's Ok with me, but will I be able to archive from my 942 and restore to the 622 when I upgrade to Mpeg4?


My guess (and it is only a guess) would be "No".

Dish will need to secure this feature from pirates. If you could archive and restore files from one machine to another, that might open too big of a hole for piracy. I would love it too if we cold move archived shows from one machine to another, but I'm not holding my breath.


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## Ddavis (Jan 15, 2004)

Jason Kragt said:


> My guess (and it is only a guess) would be "No".
> 
> Dish will need to secure this feature from pirates. If you could archive and restore files from one machine to another, that might open too big of a hole for piracy. I would love it too if we cold move archived shows from one machine to another, but I'm not holding my breath.


I agree with you about pirates and one machine to another, when the second machine is not another Dish receiver. My hope is that, when I archive from my active 942, replace it with a new 622 and activate it, that Dish will allow me to restore and view previously archive programs. If not, what good is archiving today, if I can't view it tomorrow after the changes, especially, forced Mpeg-2 to Mpeg-4 changes.

Doug


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## Antknee (Oct 13, 2005)

So was it announced when this feature would be implented on the 942?


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

Antknee said:


> So was it announced when this feature would be implented on the 942?


I haven't heard a date yet. My guess is things like this, got backburnered last fall when they had to quickly work on stabilizing the 942 and at the same time quickly work on getting the 622 together for a release in Feb. If I was to take a guess, I'd say once they get the 622 out and it's stable they'll start adding features again. But, that is just a guess on my part.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

My bet is you won't be able to transfer archived recordings to ANY other receiver, but I don't know that for sure.


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## Ddavis (Jan 15, 2004)

That is what I keep hearing and wish to raise a stink about. Archiving by definition implies being able to restore. This restore requirement must be functional in the current environment, not just the previous archival environment. If one cannot restore an archived file, archiving is useless.

I live in an IBM mainframe world. Archiving is a necessary disk management tool. Any archived file must be able to be restored years down the road. Even with major hardware changes occurring in the interim. If this wasn't true, many industries would grumble. (Just think about all of the records the IRS has archived.)

Now if E* is going to offer archival, for it to be viable, it must be restore-able, even if the underlying hardware has changed. This change could be an upgrade like the 942 to the new 622 or it could be due to a replacement of a failed 942.

Please note that I am not advocating being able to restore freely to anything, just freely inside of an authorized E* environment. My hope is that someone with better connections with E* will attempt to make this point and that E* will at least consider something other that restricting restores to the same, exact receiver.

Thanks for listening,
Doug


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## drapp1952 (Aug 5, 2005)

DVDDAD said:


> USB 2.0 harddrive support for archieval of recorded content was announced at CES earlier just a few days ago for the 942 and upcomming Vip622. Tune into the Charlie Chat (channel 101) tonight at 9:00 p.m. and we may learn more.


Agree that content should be authorized for any equipment within E*, but I didn't see any reference to it in a summary of the chat and this talk about "backburner" status sounds disturbingly familiar.

Dan


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## datwell (Jan 26, 2005)

drapp1952 said:


> Agree that content should be authorized for any equipment within E*, but I didn't see any reference to it in a summary of the chat and this talk about "backburner" status sounds disturbingly familiar.
> 
> Dan


Yes, it should be open to all E* equipment! And yes, this sounds DISTURBINGLY familiar!

--Doug


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## Jason Kragt (Dec 20, 2002)

Ddavis said:


> I live in an IBM mainframe world. Archiving is a necessary disk management tool. Any archived file must be able to be restored years down the road. Even with major hardware changes occurring in the interim. If this wasn't true, many industries would grumble. (Just think about all of the records the IRS has archived.)


This reminds me of a computer internship that I had at a company. Our backup process was second to none. Everyone made a big deal about how good it was. We scheduled the backups perfectly. We optimized the process as good as it could be optimized. Tapes were moved off site for disaster recovery. We were ready for anything.

The only problem was, when we had a major problem and had to restore things, we couldn't! Our backup process was great, but that didn't matter since our restore process stunk.


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## Buckett (Aug 22, 2004)

There was no discussion of external hard drive support in the Charlie Chat. I was hoping to hear something, but they were to busy fumbling over the details of the upcoming changes and upgrades. It seems like they would review that info before going on the air.


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## datwell (Jan 26, 2005)

Buckett said:


> There was no discussion of external hard drive support in the Charlie Chat. I was hoping to hear something, but they were to busy fumbling over the details of the upcoming changes and upgrades. It seems like they would review that info before going on the air.


Yup. Especially lately, the whole E* scene seems to be in disarray. And I don't know why this is????

--Doug


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## Antknee (Oct 13, 2005)

Jason Kragt said:


> This reminds me of a computer internship that I had at a company. Our backup process was second to none. Everyone made a big deal about how good it was. We scheduled the backups perfectly. We optimized the process as good as it could be optimized. Tapes were moved off site for disaster recovery. We were ready for anything.
> 
> The only problem was, when we had a major problem and had to restore things, we couldn't! Our backup process was great, but that didn't matter since our restore process stunk.


That is why it is called a backup software.... and not restore software!


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## josephellis (Jan 13, 2006)

Ddavis said:


> That's Ok with me, but will I be able to archive from my 942 and restore to the 622 when I upgrade to Mpeg4?


I would say if you can move recordings to the Pocket Dish you should be able to move them to another reciever.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

josephellis said:


> I would say if you can move recordings to the Pocket Dish you should be able to move them to another reciever.


The PocketDish cannot upload recordings to receivers, only download from.


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## mrplow (Dec 10, 2004)

You can't move programs from PocketDish to PocketDish.


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## Tom-Tx (May 23, 2005)

Does anyone have insider information about when archiving to a external drive will become available? I hope E* understands how important the ability to archive and then restore back to a receiver is to must of us, particularly those considering an upgrade.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Yes, and it does no good if it has to be restored to a receiver that has been RMA'd for exchange. Just want to make sure they understand how it should _not_ work before it's released.


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## spaceopera (Jul 29, 2005)

Though I would love a external hard drive I would just settle for a larger internal one now. 25hr of hd is just not enough. Plus with the fragmentation issues you really have less then 25hrs. So, if E is listening more dive space. Lets face it I am already shelling out money and if the box cost me couple hundred more and I could get double the space I would do it in a heartbeat.


gene


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