Copying data from sky plus box to computer hard drive?

Question

Hi, does anyone know if it is possible and if so how to effectively download the data (as in recorded programmes) from a sky plus box to a computer hard drive? I have noticed they have an RS-232 port that should go into a serial port on my laptop and wondered if this would do it and how to make the laptop recognise the sky plus hard drive... thanks

Answer 1

that's an interesting question i would like to know that answer. although the programs taped on sky are decoded by the sky box aren't they? so you might need a decoder for the programs to show on the laptop

or i might be talking a load of poo! lol

Answer 2

Well, it's possible, but a bit of a pain. Firstly you will need some software on your pc. Check this link

http://www.neildoh.org/Software/Extract/extract.htm

The bad news is this:

You have to remove the hard disk from the Sky+ box and then I think the recommended way is to plug the Disk into your PC using a USB-IDE adaptor (this way there is no risk of Windows corrupting the disk which could happen if you just plug it onto a standard IDE cable)

I suspect the USB port on the front could be configured, but from what I've seen, not at present.

Hope that helps :) [e-mail]

Answer 3

The RS-232 port is not for tranferring from the box to a PC. It is for upgrading the box's firmware. To download material from the box to a PC, you need a video capture card in your PC. Connect the Sky box via scart to the video capture card (scart-composite adaptor may be needed). Use a program to capture the video as it plays.