[sk8fstr]

Ok...so I know I'm a NOOB, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to move EXISTING content on a Motorolla DCT3412 (from Comcast) to my laptop (running Vista). I tried doing it on our other DVR (a 3416) and I saw ports for USB, Firewire, SD Card slot, etc, but at the end of the day I'm guessing you would still need a laptop to display what is actually on the DVR HD and then move it accordingly. I tried hooking up via USB, and it didn't recognize any Mass Storage device as even being there. I'm sure this is just the way

Comcast controls the box. Any ideas??

 

[bfdtv]

With the Motorola DVRs, you can typically use a PC to record content from local channels via Firewire, as it is played. Instructions for that can be found this thread . With rare exception, this only works for the local (including locals in HD) and public interest channels on Comcast.


If you want a recording from a SD or HD cable channel stored on the Motorola DVR, chances are good that you'll have to do it the old fashioned way -- connect the composite or s-video outputs from the DVR to your computer's TV capture card, press play on the DVR, and then press record from your computer's capture software.


The TivoHD (and discontinued TiVo Series3) is the only DVR that lets you actually connect to and download SD and HD recorded files -- in MPG format -- directly to your computer.




Even the TiVo is subject to the same CCI=0x02 bits as the Motorola DVR, so it does not permit the direct download of copy protected cable recordings. That said, what is copy protected on the Motorola DVR isn't necessarily copy protected on the TiVo. The Motorola DVR applies copy protection to all live and recorded cable content that carries any one of three different flags; the TiVo ignores two of those three flags.


Once you've got the HD recording on your computer, obtained via Firewire on the Motorola DVR, or by direct web download from the TiVo, you can then automatically remove the commercials using a program like VideoRedo TVSuite , show below.




The red areas represent cut commercials. To do this in VideoRedo, select "Start Ad-Detective Scan" to mark all commercials and then "Cut selection" to remove them. Click "Save As.." to save the file as a MPG without commercials. Alternatively, click "Create DVD" to create a DVD with the commercial free program, as shown below:




When you create a DVD in this way, high-definition video is downconverted to 720x480 (widescreen) resolution, but you preserve the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. If you have a Blu-ray writer, you could burn the full high-definition recordings to disk, although that would require a different program.