Backing up Sky+ / Sky+HD Content

[ikonia]

I've seen this asked in various forums with varying responses.

Lets see what hexus comes up with.

I want to backup the content on my Sky+ box, I've just been offered a mega deal from Sky on rejoining HD and have some classic TV on there, - Schumacher's Last race, the last Italian GP etc etc. If I take up the option, I have to move reasonable quickly due to the offer, and the fact that I'm having building work done so have a chance to hide all the cables better.

The box has a USB port on the front, but I've read and heard various arguments on the encryption / ability to play back the files without sky.

I've read numerous options, so lets see what hexus says.

[tinners]

You can back it up to DVD using SCART or SVideo into a DVD Recorder / HTPC.
You cant backup paid content e.g. Box Office as it's Marcrovision protected. Unless you have a special cable (I believe )

[ikonia]

Thats an interesting thought, thank you. I've no interest in paid content just some of the classic moments I've recorded.

[Spud1]

Depends what you mean by backing up

What you can do, is take an image of your sky+/HD drive and keep that backed up incase your Sky+/HD drive ever fails - then you can simply copy the image back over to a new drive, pop it back in your box and watch your content. The best way to do this is using a program called MFSTools, which is essentially a bootable linux CD with some great tools for this sort of stuff (it's what I used to upgrade/backup my Tivo for example). There are probably some tools written specifically for sky+ out there too.

The other thing - which I think your wanting to do - is to try and extract the recordings (to say a PC) so you can watch them anytime, on something other than your box..possibly even when your not subscribed to sky+/HD. This is one thing i'm not really going to start to help you with, as it would definitely break your sky terms+conditions, and i'm fairly sure its illegal in the same way as downloading films etc off the internet The reason being that you have to break sky's encryption to do this..so while getting the encrypted files themselves is perfectly legal (although against your sky contract), actually getting them into a state where you can view them is illegal.

So if thats what you want to do , then backing them up as tinners suggests is the best, legal way

[ikonia]

nope thats not what I want to do.

I want to move and store the files off the sky box while it is replaced with a sky+hd box. Then move the files back onto the sky+HD box.

I have no intention of breaking the encryption. I can't image the drive as the sky+hd box has a bigger hard disk and the partition table is different so if its possible I'd have to take the files of, store them, then re-import them into the new sky box.

[tanman]

Hi

i do it a long winded way

I play the sky + programe record to a dvd player with hard drive then extract from dvd player using firewire.

Mostly jobbie willams stuff for the missus

seems to work ok, all are happy and keeps the h/d drive on the sky+ to a good level

hope this helps

Tan

[Funkstar]

I have no intention of breaking the encryption. I can't image the drive as the sky+hd box has a bigger hard disk and the partition table is different so if its possible I'd have to take the files of, store them, then re-import them into the new sky box.

unless the sky+/HD boxes are doing something really funky, there should be no problem imaging the smaller drive and then restoring it to a larger one. Acronis TrueImage can do this without blinking. So can DriveImage and Ghost. All the Linux live CDs should be able to do it too.

[ikonia]

the partition tables are totally different and different sizes so imaging the disks will result in partition sizes being different eg: the HD Anytime partition is much bigger than the Sky+ Anytime partition.

From various unreliable sources there is also the question over some sort of private/config data being held on HD boxes that is not on a Sky+ box, but as I said that is from unreliable sources.