Virgin V6 copy recordings to laptop

J

JCM

New Member
Sorry for Posting in this thread but its my experience with my PVR 9200T that led me here and the fact that the first thing I noticed having come to this site was a post from Martin Liddle.
Years ago on the site Hummy.org Martin posted a very detailed hack of the 9200T involving tapping into the hard drive while in situe in the machine using ribbon cables and a small pcb to attach a usb lead that could then be plugged into a laptop to read copy and convert recordings.

Virgin are updating their V6 boxes to their 360 format (similar to sky Q) the problem is that all recorded programes will be lost during the upgrade. I'm no expert but I did manage to sucessfully follow Martins instructions with the 9200 and wonder if something similar can be done with the V6?

My reasoning is this, I tried to remove the hardrive and copy files I belive it is a linux system but still could not see the drive using a linux reader Ext2read which operates in windows without having to partition your own disk and load a unix op on your laptop. reading another thread it was suggested that the drive is somehow locked to the tv box which is why I couldnt read it.
So I wondered if it might be possible to keep the drive connected to the box using a similar method of tapping into the feed from the hardrive.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks Jason
 
JCM said:
reading another thread it was suggested that the drive is somehow locked to the tv box which is why I couldnt read it. So I wondered if it might be possible to keep the drive connected to the box using a similar method of tapping into the feed from the hardrive.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I'm sorry but you have a severe misconception. The PVR-9200 drive tap is purely for convenience, to save removing the HDD from the unit to access it externally. It does nothing which could not be done by removing the drive.

Sky PVRs encrypt the recording data on the HDD, or possibly the whole HDD, and it is likely Virgin do the same. Having salvaged HDDs from scrap Sky boxes, I know this to be the case. The reason is to ensure the rights to the material are not compromised by the likes of people willing to gain unauthorised access to the storage.

This was not much of a consideration for terrestrial broadcast TV, so the data on a PVR-9200 is not encrypted (and neither was the capability to encrypt/decrypt on-the-fly available cheaply in those days). It did become an issue when FreeviewHD came along, and broadcasters pressurised PVR makers to protect the IP, so encryption was implemented for Humax's FreeviewHD PVRs.

The point about encryption is that it doesn't matter what you do - remove the HDD, access the HDD while still attached, or even intercept the transactions between the HDD and the system – the data is securely scrambled and not amenable to decryption unless you know (1) the decryption algorithm, and (2) the decryption key (unique to each unit). These details are baked into the actual hardware for each unit (and this is what is meant by "locked", so not even another supposedly identical unit could access the content from the HDD of another unit). This is the "P" in PVR.

Humax's first HiDef Freeview PVRs (HDR-FOX and HD-FOX) had a security loophole which the clever people around here managed to exploit (if you want to know more see Things Every... section 5) – but this is not particularly critical for Freeview because the broadcast data is not encrypted on transmission, so anyone can easily capture the data without a commercial PVR (eg using a PC fitted with a tuner card or USB dongle). The same loophole persisted to the HDR-2000T, so decrypted data can still be extracted – but the firmware update process became more secure so nobody has worked out how to run alternative software, and subsequent models have closed the loophole... hence why we (this forum) like our HDR-FOXes (and HD-FOXes)!

Sky, BT, and Virgin have more to lose, and stakeholders to placate, so take data security much more seriously. They charge their subscribers for access to material not available to the general public, so it is critical to their business model that nobody can gain unauthorised access, or "rip" the material even as a subscriber.

However, all that said, maybe you don't need to worry about the encryption. In your situation all you actually need to do is preserve the recording files while the HDD gets wiped during a software upgrade – it doesn't matter that you can't actually read the files, all you need to do is copy them out and copy them back assuming they remain compatible after the upgrade. You can do that by removing the HDD and connecting it to a computer if the files are encrypted individually rather then the file system being encrypted as a whole. If you can't access the HDD at all (even from Linux*), there's a reasonable chance it is because of an encrypted file system.

* I recommend live-booting real Linux rather than relying on special drivers for Windows. Try to boot in "Legacy" mode – GPT boot can get tricky because drives are identified by UUID, and it is entirely possible for a system not to "see" a connected drive simply because of its UUID. To properly examine connected drives (which won't necessarily be automatically mounted into the file system, and definitely won't if the drive can't be read), use a Linux tool such as GParted.

Personally, I think it's pretty poor if a software upgrade wipes user data unless there are good technical reasons. Is it just a software upgrade, or are they actually swapping your box?

The alternative is an HDMI grabber. Such units have become available relatively inexpensively in recent years, particularly for gamers to share their gaming prowess :rolleyes: . Effectively, this is like recording a video output with a video recorder (ie real-time only!), but at digital quality (not original quality because there is a decoding process to generate the HDMI stream, and a re-encoding process to create a video file from it). Be aware however there is an HDMI security protocol called HDCP (see Glossary) which might cause the V6 to refuse to output HiDef HDMI when connected to a grabber, unless the grabber itself is able to spoof the HDCP secure handshake (or maybe pass it through from the display device).

And the bottom line: it's only telly. How much trouble is it worth?

JCM said:
Sorry for Posting in this thread
Click to expand...
You mean this section of the forum. As your inquiry has nothing to do with the PVR-9200 this thread will be moved somewhere more appropriate.
 
Last edited:
JCM said:
Sorry for Posting in this thread but its my experience with my PVR 9200T that led me here and the fact that the first thing I noticed having come to this site was a post from Martin Liddle.
Years ago on the site Hummy.org Martin posted a very detailed hack of the 9200T involving tapping into the hard drive while in situe in the machine using ribbon cables and a small pcb to attach a usb lead that could then be plugged into a laptop to read copy and convert recordings.
Click to expand...
Sorry your memory is incorrect; I am aware of the mod you are describing but that was nothing to do with me.
Virgin are updating their V6 boxes to their 360 format (similar to sky Q) the problem is that all recorded programes will be lost during the upgrade. I'm no expert but I did manage to sucessfully follow Martins instructions with the 9200 and wonder if something similar can be done with the V6?

My reasoning is this, I tried to remove the hardrive and copy files I belive it is a linux system but still could not see the drive using a linux reader Ext2read which operates in windows without having to partition your own disk and load a unix op on your laptop. reading another thread it was suggested that the drive is somehow locked to the tv box which is why I couldnt read it.
Click to expand...
Ext2Read will only work with Ext2/Ext3 and Ext4 file systems. However there are lots of other file systems available on Linux. I would try booting the laptop with a live CD version of a Linux distribution which should support most of the common file systems. I would expect the content is encrypted and I wouldn't be surprised that it may not be readable by the new Virgin software (why else would they delete all users recordings). As Black Hole has suggested the file system itself might be encrypted and it would be difficult to do anything about that.
I suspect there is very little experience with these boxes on this forum. You might have more luck at DigitalSpy https://forums.digitalspy.com/categories/cable-virgin-media-tv-and-phone or AVForums https://www.avforums.com/forums/cable-tv-virgin-media-tv.239/
 
Being at the behest of some other organisation.... ugh!

As far as I can tell, this 360 thing adds Voice Search and Control, Profiles and Recommendations (sounds like spyware and/or enforced offering of stuff you probably don't want) and something called Startover, whatever that may be (sounds like it junks all your recordings again).
 
Thank you both for your replies. In answer to your your question Black Hole yes the V6 to 360 upgrade is a software upgrade which virgin charge for its not free but they send you a new remote for it, the customer then instigates the upgrade themselves and the instructions that come with the remote states that all recordings will be lost as a result of the upgrade.

Martin, sorry I miss appropriated the 9200 mod to you I thought that we had conversations about it at the time, my apologies.
 
To be honest there is only really three programmes that I didn’t want to loose so it seems like it’s going to be too much effort to try and save them. Thanks for the links and advise that I will follow up.
 
JCM said:
To be honest there is only really three programmes that I didn’t want to loose so it seems like it’s going to be too much effort to try and save them. Thanks for the links and advise that I will follow up.
Click to expand...
You might end up deciding the upgrade wasn't worth losing them (or the price).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top