Ditching the cable tv, anyone else do it?
- Thread starter Agent2
- Start date
James
Staff member
Short answer? You can't transfer or remove shows/data from satellite receivers, the data is encrypted so that you can only play them on the receiver that it was downloaded on.
Sirius channels never had commercials when I had it, but XM did. So I'm guessing that when they merged the Sirius channels stayed commercial free and the XM ones didn't.The stations I have been listening to seem to be commercial free but as soon as they start with them I will be dumping it too. Too expensive but I thought I would give it a try for a year in the new car.
Follow up - giving up cable/satellite is like quitting smoking, little rough at first, now I wonder why I had it in the first place. Never was a big sports tv fan, but I still have the Dodgers, Angels and Ducks on regular tv. All channels are HD or HD quality, much better picture quality than Directv. Also get channels I didn't know existed, including TUFFTV - the mens channel, nothing but racing, fighting, car movies etc.
As for everything else, there are so many movies and tv shows on the internet, it's unreal. Much larger selection than I used to have. I could watch tv nonstop for the next 10 years without repeating anything. I give it a
As for everything else, there are so many movies and tv shows on the internet, it's unreal. Much larger selection than I used to have. I could watch tv nonstop for the next 10 years without repeating anything. I give it a
I'm not sure that it works on a 722, but I downloaded a bunch of stuff from my older 522 DVR. It was simple to open the case and pull out the HD. Then put the drive in an external USB enclosure. Install the software on my laptop and plug in the USB drive. After that it was select the shows and put them on the laptop's drive. Pretty easy actually. There is one hitch. The sound on "premium" channels like HBO is encrypted. You can get the video, but no sound. For regular TV and some cable channels it is in the clear.
Then I put the drive back in the DVR and put the cover back on.
I just looked it up. The software is called pvrexplorer, but it doesn't list the 722.
Then I put the drive back in the DVR and put the cover back on.
I just looked it up. The software is called pvrexplorer, but it doesn't list the 722.
Like you said it is possible to get content off your dish dvr box but it is and will be a huge effort and time sink....
I'm pretty in tune to this stuff, I have to be...
List up your requirements and I'll see if I can help point you to a solution/s...
ok, the first thing I would like to know about: Queuing up shows. Can I start to watch things then select pause to have it download content in case my jittery (and possibly slow) connection is acting up? i.e. have it work like youtube.
The second thing: could I download stuff and watch it offline?
I would imagine the answer is 'it depends'...
I finally ditched the cable...........bought a strip club though, so I'm not sure yet if it will be a net savings for me....
All the major services will allow a certain amount of the stream to buffer up, but not the whole thing. Partly due to may of the devices have limited amount of memory but even in a PC scenario it won't buffer the whole thing. How fast is your connection? You really need to be about 1Mbit to stream OK, 1.5Mbit is much better.
As far as I know most services this is not the case, Netflix and hulu plus do not allow this. Amazon does but it might only be on a "PC".
My speed varies a lot. Usually 3MB, sometimes 2, sometimes 4, never below 1.5.
Besides the actual speed of the connection I am worried about the server itself - youtube periodicly (sp?) stops serving content occasionally. In addition sometimes the internet gets interrupted completely for 2 minutes at a time a few times a day, I know what is wrong but have not fixed it (phone rings, wifi on the same frequency as the phone, modem resets).
Having a few minutes of video queued up takes care of all of that.
In addition, if I wanted to use a lower speed connection then in theory that should be possible, to a point.I am sure there is enough 'stuff' on the internet where things could be downloaded from. Typically people post at least 30 minutes of video each day and I should be watching that video, but I really have other things to do during the day. In theory I could download them during the day and watch them without a connection.
