Saving recorded movies

[just trying]

Possible this inquiry is misplaced on this forum. If so, please refer me to the right forum. Thank you.
I am a long time Dish customer. I have used a DVR ever since they became available. And when it became possible I plugged an external hard drive in to increase its storage capacity. I lost more movies than I can remember when DVRs went bad or were upgraded. I understand that movies transferred from the DVR to the external are encoded, which would make them useless on any other device. There has to be a way to decode the movies and make them usable on a PC. That is the information I seek.

[adam1991]

Many people are still trying. Probably won't work directly.

Most people end up with a Hauppauge Colossus or similar, and stream the recording (realtime playback) to the PC for further, unfettered use.

[just trying]

Their website gives me the impression that it works with the DVR. My interest is in working with the data on an external hard drive AFTER it has been through the DVR.

[STC]

What Adam is cryptically suggesting is you manually play each one and re-record through a device via component (analogue loop hole) such as the Hauppauge Colossus.
Doing so would strip DRM and enable you to be able to play the recordings anywhere with only a slight loss of original PQ. A lot of manual effort involved.

[adam1991]

Their website gives me the impression that it works with the DVR.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

My interest is in working with the data on an external hard drive AFTER it has been through the DVR.

Understood completely. That's what I answered; can't be done directly. The content is encrypted, and not in a format you can use nor decrypt.

So, you do it indirectly. You must play it back, linear/analog, to a capture device such as the Hauppauge Colossus or similar to get it in a format you *can* work with.

[STC]

Their website gives me the impression that it works with the DVR.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

Using the Colossus as the original recording device from an STB, analogue through WMC or similar.

[just trying]

I understand but with maybe 600 movies, I don't even want to think about that. In a similar vein, I assume the output from the DVR to the TV is not encrypted and could be recorded normally at that point but same problem of time, mass of work involved. I want some way to process the data on the external hard drive en mass or with a reasonable amount of time and trouble. Thank you for your efforts.

[adam1991]

The output from the DVR via analog cabling--component, composite, RF--is not encrypted.

Yes, we realize you were looking for a way to process the digital files on the hard drive. Alas, the system you chose initially was the wrong system for your current end goal. No provider-owned or -provided system will let you have access to the files outside the specific device they provided. That's why we use WMC. Cable providers can still mark programs as "copy once", such that they can't be used outside the system, but those programs that aren't marked as such are easily and readily processed as digital files to do exactly what you want.

[Scallica]

The output from the DVR via analog cabling--component, composite, RF--is not encrypted.

Indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole