AIW setting for Dish STB capture
 

ive only ever used my AIW system for VHS capture and pretty much adhere to LS's MMC settings
im thinking of doing some SD capture from my Dish DVR with it
perhaps even in 15k bit rate
my questions for the MMC setup are:
should i use VBR or CBR with 15k
what P / B frames setting?
are any of the filters useful for non-VHS capture?

also is there any benefit to using my TBC or should i leave it disconnected?

If you're a quality freak, it is possible to transfer files from some of the Dish DVRs' hard drives using a special program instead of capturing.

what program is that? is that something new?
ive tried in the past via the USB, but Dish made it practically impossible to do that
my DVR is a 612VIP

It's not new, but it's somewhat underground. It can only transfer from the internal hard drive because the externals have file-level encryption.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/PVRExplorer/

I have the equivalent model with Bell ExpressVu. Doing the actual file extraction is easy, but you have to first hot-swap the SATA cable on the drive while the DVR is running. Still, if you load up the hard drive each time before transferring everything off, I would say it's less work than capturing in realtime to PC.

I added a SATA coupler to mine so that I don't have to open it up when I want to hot-swap. All the details are on the group in the Photos section.
Attachment 3681

i have no problem opening the DVR and doing that
which program do i use for the 612? they are a bunch listed in the files section.
i can use either XP or 7 - i have no mac or linux machines.

Works fine on XP and 7. The one that I modified to my liking is PVRExplorerPro - C.D. builds / PvrExplorerPro_Win_2030-CD_build-v3-ExtractCopyTest.rar.

I'm not entirely certain that my version works on Dish systems, as their catalog format is slightly different.

If not, the next one to try would be PvrExplorerPro_Win_2030.zip I guess (which will only work for MPEG-2 programming). But if mine doesn't work I can just change it to work if you send the catalog.cat file that it creates.

Read "Extract Recordings from 622" and carefully follow the instructions (they are the same for the 612).

ok - thank you i downloaded both those files and im going to try it now.
i wish i knew of this sooner - ive been dreading doing this forever
i have tons of my greyhounds races recorded on my DVR and doing them is real-time via capture was going to be very time consuming.

cant get either of those to work - both stop responding as soon as they start up
am i missing something they need?
trying them on a XP SP2 box

edit - OK i can get the program to work when the DVR hard drive is disconnected.
i'll try some different things with the boot up
i cant follow it word for word as my 612's fan never shuts off

Didn't think you would be trying it this soon.

The freeze is because of a mess-up trying to read the catalog file (ideally someone would have implemented some error-checking, but alas I don't know how to do it in C with structs). Did my version create a catalog.cat file in the directory where PVRExplorer is located? I can't remember whether I had it copy that over or not. If not, run the 722 version. It will also freeze, but it should create the file.

Make sure you never Initialize the drive in Windows, since that wipes your recordings! I think the instructions said that but not sure.

ok the 722 version did just as you said froze then created a catalog file

windows recognized the drive as soon as i plugged it in and says it is ready to use, but did not wipe the recordings

Hmm. Try the Metro version. If that one doesn't work, I'm not sure what needs fixing as that one seems to correctly identify your catalog's structure.

that one works, but im getting the -1X-1 and the files are not moving
the stuff i want should be in mpeg-2
all of it is from the 118.7 anik F3 satellite in SD

well i little online research shows the stuff i want is all in Mpeg-4 unfortunately so im back to square 1 :(

Metro has a setting to either copy files or convert the headers if they are MPEG-2. If the conversion option was turned on when you tried to copy your MPEG-4s, that would explain it.

Otherwise I don't know what to suggest yet. The source code I edited is on another computer that I don't have access to at the moment.

You could ask on the group if there are any 612 users around who can suggest which version to run.

I could be wrong but doesn't dish compress the signal then push it back to the customer? Unless that stuff doesn't matter to you then carry on :D

that worked!!
i now have files on my pc with a .ts extension
but they wont open with anything on my computer
what codec do i need?
do these need to be re-encoded?

mediainfo:

General
Complete name : C:\Documents and Settings\PC\Desktop\Dish DVR\Derby Lane(6).ts
Format : MPEG-TS
Format profile : No PAT/PMT
File size : 184 MiB
Duration : 15mn 33s
Overall bit rate : 1 650 Kbps

Video
ID : 7970 (0x1F22)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=24
Duration : 15mn 32s
Bit rate : 1 407 Kbps
Width : 544 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.374
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : Component
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.180
Stream size : 156 MiB (85%)
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.601
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

The commercial program VideoReDo TV Suite is good because you can cut ads while only re-encoding a few GOPs.

As far as free, I think you can remux them to regular playable .ts files using ffmpeg with -vcodec copy -acodec copy.

i tried VideoReDo TV Suite and it wont open the file either

Well that's bizarre. It's used by most of the people on the group.

it is VideoReDo TV Suite V4
it just honks at me and says "unable to open file"

is there a windows gui version of ffmpeg? - the one i i just downloaded from the site is command line and i have no clue how to use it.

i really hope i can get this to work as there is 237 video files i got off the DVR and this will save a ton of time not having to capture them real-time.

There are plenty of GUIs out there for ffmpeg, but I've never used one so I don't know which will allow you to specify a straight data copy with no compression. You could try TEncoder.

i got the file to open using a program called Mediacoder that i use to convert movies for my daughters V-tech tablet of all things - it required a full re-encode, didnt let me do any edits and looks only so-so - but at least is is something. im sure if Mediacoder can do it other programs can too. powerdirector, dvdfab & mpeg video wizard are all fails. i really hate companies like Dish that make devices that are such a PITA