[mythtv-users] DISH Receivers and external HDDs

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Apr 12, 2008, at 1:29 PM, Brian Wood wrote:

> On Apr 12, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Brad DerManouelian wrote:
>> On Apr 12, 2008, at 11:57 AM, Brian Wood wrote:
>>
>>> I thought I'd heard everything.
>>>
>>> I noticed that my new DISH HD DVR, which I obtained in anticipation
>>> of
>>> getting my new Hauppauge capture device, has a feature to allow you
>>> to
>>> store and retrieve files from an external hard drive.
>>>
>>> Hmmm. A good feature? Certainly looked interesting.
>>>
>>> Turns out they want a $39.95 charge to activate this feature.
>>>
>>> You can guess what I told them to do with their "feature" :-)
>>>
>>> beww
>>
>> Maybe it's for an mpeg license? As far as I know, mpeg requires
>> consumers to pay a license fee if you give them control over the  
>> video
>> that uses it... or something like that.
>
>
> I never heard of needing a license just for a storage device. A record
> of playback device maybe, but not a drive.
>
> I think it is pure greed.
>
> I have discovered that if you pay them for the "feature" it will
> format the drive as ext3. It stores the program as a ".tsp" file,
> which appears to be the raw transport stream, which is of course
> encrypted.
>
> If it would put the programs onto an ext3 disk in a usable format I'd
> pay them for it, but not just to get a useless encrypted file.
>
> beww

You need software to view the mpeg files which requires a license fee.  
They probably require this software to enable the feature. It's like  
paying Apple for Quicktime Pro which includes mpeg2 support which they  
aren't legally allowed to give you for free.