[Comp625]

Recently, I ditched the Cable STB for my own HTPC (which is AWESOME, by the way). I'm still learning the in's and out's of the HTPC world, but thus far, Windows Media Center is lightyears ahead of the Cable Company's devices.


The new HTPC has a 2TB hard drive in it, which is good for about 220 hours of recording Cable TV material. I regret not spending the extra $50-$70 for a 3TB drive that would have given us 350 hours of recording.

Is it possible to move the *.wtv recordings to a 3rd hard drive? I have Cablevision, who copy-protects most (if not all of the channels).


Few thoughts:

• I could theoretically just change the "Recording Drive" within the Settings Menu of WMC, if I wanted to access the 2nd Hard Drive's contents. Right?
• I've been reading about a program called MCEBuddy that deletes commercials, (based on Comskip or ShowAnalyzer) and gives you the ability to convert to other formats (which allows me to move the recordings to a different drive). Apparently, it does not work with copy-protected content, though.
• Is there a different workaround that I don't know about yet (due to my status as a n00b at HTPC's)?

Just to clarify, my 1st Hard Drive is a small 60gb SSD. 2nd Hard Drive is a 2TB Western Digital Caviar "Green" (which is SUPER SILENT for those who are curious). Part of me is glad to not have purchased the 3TB Caviar Green because I've stumbled on a ton of Reliability issues with the 3TB versions, but part of me wishes that I tried since I wouldn't mind having the extra space for recordings.

 

[jrfendrick]



Quote:
Is it possible to move the *.wtv recordings to a 3rd hard drive? I have Cablevision, who copy-protects most (if not all of the channels).

You should be able to move the copy-protected .wtv files to another hard drive, and play them back on the same computer on which they were recorded.

Quote:
I could theoretically just change the "Recording Drive" within the Settings Menu of WMC, if I wanted to access the 2nd Hard Drive's contents. Right?

You can instead add a second folder to be watched for TV recordings.

Quote:
I've been reading about a program called MCEBuddy that deletes commercials, (based on Comskip or ShowAnalyzer) and gives you the ability to convert to other formats (which allows me to move the recordings to a different drive). Apparently, it does not work with copy-protected content, though.

That is correct.

Quote:
Is there a different workaround that I don't know about yet (due to my status as a n00b at HTPC's)?

I think the second folder / drive will solve your problems. Add your new drive to your system, use your current 2 TB drive as your "scratch" drive - for the recordings you don't plan on saving, then copy the recordings you do want to save to the new 3 TB drive. IIRC, WMC will not automatically delete a show from any other watched folders besides your designated recording drive's RecordedTV folder.

 

[walford]

A .wtv file is actually a .mpg(mpeg2) file or a Mpeg4 file(I forget the suffrix at the moment) with a header recored which has the suffix of .wtv. Try changing your .wtv files to .mpg files most likely they will work just fine.

 

[Nevcairiel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by walford  /t/1420823/moving-wmc-recordings-wtv-to-3rd-hard-drive#post_22231356


A .wtv file is actually a .mpg(mpeg2) file or a Mpeg4 file(I forget the suffrix at the moment) with a header recored which has the suffix of .wtv. Try changing your .wtv files to .mpg files most likely they will work just fine.

This is not true, WTV is a full container format, its not a renamed mpeg file.

 

[walford]

Regretfully I stated that after the header record a .wtvfile is most likely a .mpg file when I meant to say it is a .dvr-ms file. You can also use the technique in the following link to convert the file name to a .dvr-ms format. It worked the last time I tried using the converter. See:

http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/wtv


and

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc963726.aspx


The last link above confirms that the encoding is MPEG2 but the format of the records is not the same.