[petes457]

Hi all. Simple question - hoping for a positive answer although I'm not expecting one. I'm planning on upgrading my 3 year old HTPC/WMC/Ceton with a new CPU, mobo, and new SSD for the OS/applications to prepare for a new 3D LED TV purchase in the near future (and in time for football season). My cable provider is TWC and they copy protect everything but local channels. I have several TV/cable recordings in my Recorded TV I would like to keep after the new build, e.g., past UNC v. Duke basketball games, sports documentaries on HBO, etc.


Is it at all possible I could save these recordings? I assume no one has cracked the DRM. Could maintaining the product/activation key on the new Windows 7 install work? I've posted this on another web site without any help. Was just hoping to ask one last group before I say goodbye to the recordings.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Sammy2]

I think a MoBo change is a no-go.


How about just adding in a new video card to get 3-D?


What are the spec's of your existing 3 y.o. HTPC?

 

[petes457]

Thanks for your response. Yes, you're right. I could just keep the current system and add a 3D card. It's been a good HTPC - I'm quite attached to it. The mobo is an ASUS P5N7A-VM - which was one of the first mobos out with integrated Nvidia 9300 graphics on-board with HDMI out, so I never needed a separate video card for my HD display. 4GB RAM, Intel Core2 Duo. However, it just seems time for a generational change with the new TV coming in. (Plus I haven't made a build in a while and I have the itch.) I was planning on buying an i3 (Ivy bridge should be on the market in 2 weeks), H77 mobo, 128GB SSD - and put all the current innerds(ASUS, Core2 Duo) in a nice tower case I have laying around and make a media server running WHS2011 out of it. If it comes down to it, I'll let the recordings go (although I love watching my Heels beat up on Duke, haha) - It's not like they are very personal and sentimental recordings or anything - just would like to keep them if I could.

 

[Zon2020]

This sounds pretty complicated, but I suppose you could use a Hauppauge Colossus or HDPVR to capture HD copies of those recordings. Assuming your motherboard has VGA and optical audio output, you could probably get a VGA to component converter, and use the analog route to make HD copies (depending how important they are to you.)


I make no guarantees this will work, BTW.

Can you use analog video output with "copy once" content or does it have to be HDCP protected?


And could you perhaps use the HDMI connection to a Colossus? I don't know if "copy once" would block that or not.


Would be interesting to try. And if it worked, you could always use it in the future to save "copy once" recordings that you want to archive.

 

[petes457]

Thanks for your response. The mobo does have a VGA and Optical S/PDIF audio out port. However, I don't have a device that could capture the output if it did work. But from my understanding of DRM, a recording that has the copy once flag would not play over a non-HDCP connection such as VGA. And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't play over a digital connection such as HDMI. But I have to admit I get confused with all this stuff.

 

[whiteboy714]

If the drm is tied to the mobo . You may be able to keep the files and watch the on the server you build. I have done a clean install of windows since I got my ceton so I don't know if they still work after that. But the fact that you were planning to use WHS may be a problem.


Or you could just buy a new gpu/ssd for the HTPC and build an i3 server. So you get to keep the recordings and scratch the upgrade itch.

 

[petes457]

Thanks whiteboy for the suggestion. Yes, I have considered just building an i3 server and keeping my current architecture as my HTPC to save the recordings. But I can't bring myself to do that. I come from a background where old computers (or their parts) don't get thrown away, they just become repurposed as servers. (Not very respectful to servers I must admit.) I want all spiffy parts for the computer that is running media throughout my home and the old parts/server do simple things such as backups and serve media files to my HTPC.