Thinking of purchasing, will this do what I want?

J

jk80

New Member
Bit fed up paying for Virgin so I'm thinking of going the Freeview route and getting one of these for £60. Sorry to just throw a load of questions but here we go:

What I'd like is to be able to record TV to my NAS and then watching that on a WDTV Live, so I guess my first question is whether this sort of thing is even possible?

Would I be right in saying I'd need to download custom firmware?

Is recording straight to the NAS via ethernet possible, or would I need to record programmes to a USB first and copy them over?

Are SD programmes that are recorded to say a USB drive encrypted using the default firmware? If not I'd probably accept that if it's just a case of unplugging the USB stick and copying its contents to my NAS, I'm not sure.

Thanks for any help!
 
No, you can only record to an especially prepared USB drive (no custom software required).

Having got a recording on your drive, it will be encrypted and the only way to deal with it (using an HD-FOX) is to play it back using the same HD-FOX, or to use the custom software to implement what we call HDR Mode - and thus give it decrypting abilities. Having decrypted the recording you can then transfer it to your NAS.

The HDR-FOX is much more flexible.
 
OK thanks. So I'd need a USB stick to upgrade the firmware (custom or otherwise) but a USB HDD to actually store programmes.

How difficult is it to set up the custom firmware and the HDR Mode?

How does the decryption work, does the device never encrypt the recordings in the first place, or is there a process where it has to decrypt the recordings, and does this take any time?
 
jk80 said:
OK thanks. So I'd need a USB stick to upgrade the firmware (custom or otherwise) but a USB HDD to actually store programmes.
Click to expand...
If you are going to have a hard drive connected as the norm, you only need the stick for the actual firmware update process. The rest is downloaded from Internet resources to whatever drive you have connected.

jk80 said:
How difficult is it to set up the custom firmware and the HDR Mode?
Click to expand...
Not at all difficult, just more of a faff on the HD-FOX than it would be on the HDR. Refer to the relevant section of the Forum (via NEW READERS START HERE).

jk80 said:
How does the decryption work, does the device never encrypt the recordings in the first place, or is there a process where it has to decrypt the recordings, and does this take any time?
Click to expand...
The recordings are encrypted whether you like it or not. You do not need to decrypt the recordings to play them on the same machine that recorded them, but to do anything else with them you will need them decrypted. The HDR-FOX can be fooled into decrypting, but there are no such loopholes with the HD-FOX - hence HDR Mode.
 
Black Hole said:
The recordings are encrypted whether you like it or not. You do not need to decrypt the recordings to play them on the same machine that recorded them, but to do anything else with them you will need them decrypted. The HDR-FOX can be fooled into decrypting, but there are no such loopholes with the HD-FOX - hence HDR Mode.
Click to expand...

Great thanks, and does the decryption take very long? Do I have to point the HD-FOX to a recording and say 'decrypt this'?
 
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