Can I move my current external hd video to a new external hd?

[skier66]

I picked up a 1.5TB external hard drive and want to replace my current 500G external drive that is about 50% full. Is there anyway I can move the video from my 500G hard drive to my new 1.5TB drive without loosing anything?

Thanks for any help.

[Keyboards]

No, you can't move the videos.  The drives are locked to the DVR,encrypted, and formatted in a non-PC accessable method.

However, you can swap between the old 500GB and the new 1.5TB.  There is a function to EJECT a drive (the safe way to remove the drive).  DVR =>SETTINGS=>EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE=>EJECT.  The removed drive can later be reattached and all your programs will still be there and be accessable.

[nascar]

Would be a nice feature to be able to move the eSATA within my home so if a DVR died I would not lose what is on my external.  Or just convenience to move the drive from box to box in my home.

[Justin46]

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@nascar wrote:

Would be a nice feature to be able to move the eSATA within my home so if a DVR died I would not lose what is on my external.  Or just convenience to move the drive from box to box in my home.

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Agreed. When I had that meeting  with some Verizon STB development folks this past August that I blogged about, I specifically mentioned this topic and they took notes and agreed with the need. To me it sounded like they felt some kind of "account" registration would be the way to go, so you could attach the drive to any DVR that was registered to your account. And of course that would include a replacement DVR.

Lets hope they at least do something for when a DVR needs to be replaced because all of the new recordings are going to be on the external drive, losing all of them will make some folks really mad.

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV, 25/25 Internet, and Digital Voice user
QIP7232, QIP7100-P2, IMG 1.9
Keller, TX 76248

[skier66]

Thanks for the reply.

I knew about the eject option and adding new drive just wish I could move my current external hard drive video's to my new external hard drive.

It would nice if I could move my current external hard drive video's to my DVR then add new external hard drive. Guess thats asking for to much.

[Malcolm_Stanley]

Content portability is more of a programming rights issue than a technical issue. For anyone to provide features like this, many many parties must agree, and to date there has been a lot of caution in this area. If  you look, I think you will find that no one currently provides a feature set of this type for those reasons.

[nascar]

Take a look at Dish.  They allow it.

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Malcolm_Stanley wrote:

Content portability is more of a programming rights issue than a technical issue. For anyone to provide features like this, many many parties must agree, and to date there has been a lot of caution in this area. If  you look, I think you will find that no one currently provides a feature set of this type for those reasons.

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[prisaz]

Take a look a TiVO and what you can do between DVRs, not to mention drives.

[retiredme]

I suspect that in time all recorded content will be married to the user's account rather than a piece of hardware. Such a practise would not only be more convenient for the user, but also less problematic when the matched piece of equipment breaks and needs replacement. I support copyright laws and understand the concerns, but then there is paranoia. Afterall, it seems like "Flexview" is a sort of offshoot of the same concept.

[prisaz]

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@retiredme wrote:

I suspect that in time all recorded content will be married to the user's account rather than a piece of hardware. Such a practise would not only be more convenient for the user, but also less problematic when the matched piece of equipment breaks and needs replacement. I support copyright laws and understand the concerns, but then there is paranoia. Afterall, it seems like "Flexview" is a sort of offshoot of the same concept.

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I like the idea of content being married to the account, but that would have to be a huge database of who has what on their DVR. Which would be much more than just Flexview purchases that expire or are owned by the account. I imagine Flexview is setup almost like Apple I Tunes.