There is no problem copying the files to a computer it is being able to view them as Video's that cannot be done. Yet.

I had not used PVRExplorer Pro for some time
but needed to off load 9200 recordings today.

Noticed a few things ...

1) It would only detect the 9200 drive with XP,
and only if the PVR drive was on a main SATA jack

2) Older recordings rip fine but newer recording often hang,
you can simply cancel the rip when they do.
I think some newer recordings work as well,
one channel that was recently in free preview seemed to work.

I used the latest version from Source Forge,
does look like its been updated for sometime.

I suspect a recent firmware update or change
in the stream may have caused the issues with some new programs?

Anyone else have any comments, is there a newer update of the program ?

Just an FYI - I got my 9241 as part of the MPEG4 swap today, and I still have some stuff on my 9200 that I hadn't watched yet. Anyways, to make a long story short (after figuring out I couldn't plug the 9200 via USB to the 9241 to transfer the recordings), I fired up PVRExplorer 2.0.3.0 (Windows 7 x64 Enterprise Edition), dropped the 9200 drive in my eSATA/USB chassis and plugged it in via USB to my notebook. The notebook didn't see it. Next I tried with eSATA - the notebook still didn't see it. Next I put the drive back in the 9200 chassis and powered it up - the drive started spinning (it was not spinning up in the eSATA/USB chassis). I used a SATA to eSATA cable and plugged it into my notebook and my notebook still did not see it. Finally I rebooted my notebook and sure enough - it saw the 9200 drive plugged in via eSATA. Once i launched PVRExplorer I was able to view the contents of the drive (but the recording names were all messed up).

I had about 45 recordings on there. I was able to rip all of them (both SD and HD, with working audio in the rips) EXCEPT for any of the MythBusters episodes on there, and a Comedy Central recording of Robin Williams - the rip process for those 8 recordings all hung and would not start. I'm guessing that perhaps there was some sort of security flag on those recordings or there was something about them that PVRExplorer can not handle.

So to those who thought that perhaps a firmware update had killed PVRExplorer - no it has not.

To summarize....


Open the case of the 9200
Power on the 9200
Wait until you hear the 9200's drive spin up
Unplug the SATA cable from the 9200's system board
Plug the 9200's SATA cable into your computer
Reboot Windows
Start PVRExplorer and rip away


dcc

I've had PVRExplorerPro stall years ago. It's crashing now, fixed by Win98 Compatibility Mode. I've circumvented the stall; bell disabled my reciever, when I was going to clear shows today anyway, rude.

The files are not encrypted, or firmware-disabled, merely nonstandard. You have the instructions above (power on, unplug SATA, SATA->Computer), which I'm hoping you felt were too easy. You'll need a *NIX, like Linux. I mean that generally, but also to do this. I've used a SATA->USB converter for years on the 9200, and a SATA->eSATA port drilled into the receiver.

dishpvrfs-fuse-0.3.1-Beta.tar.gz is available at PVRExplorer yahoo group -- join, download, decompress, and share the file for everyone else. Install GCC and fuse and automake. In a terminal, cd to the directory, and type "make". It'll print warnings (eg. "tstreams" IIRC); you can comment-out the lines, or just ignore it. Once compiled, you probably need to "su root", but type "dishpvrfs-fuse /dev/sdd4 /a/folder/to/mount/", where sdd4 is the "raw" non-ext3 partition (check in gpartd etc). It's described online as "dave file system", "echostar file system" (EFS), "davesystemdisk", or just raw. The other partitions may have mounted automatically, so ignore them.

Once mounted, copy the AV_REQ_HD folder to somewhere better (cp -r /mount/AV_REQ_HD /to/somewhere/better). May take a while. You now have your video. Reboot to unmount the drive, since the FUSE package is buggy. Then spill milk into your receiver, as I did accidentally, and laugh nervously too.


You'll see bm files, wtt files, and tsp files. tsp are DVB transport stream (TS), your audio&video. bm files have your episode descriptions inside, which you don't need. I don't know wtt, maybe protection & position playback information, or metadata about DVB-style transfer errors (aka. "Clouds")

Many large .tsp files I copied were empty. You can verify this with a hexeditor (Bliss, XVI32, Hexedit, etc). Empty files will start with "Echostar Technology Corp....DaveSystemDisk", and the rest is nearly al 0's. This could be a filesystem reading error, but that's highly unlikely. The corresponding bm/wtt files will also be empty. Consider renaming the ".tsp" files containing actual data to ".ts"

They need to be demuxed&remuxed into a standard file. You can verify the non-empty files work in mplayer (smplayer for Windows is nice), so we know mencoder will demux the video. I ran "mencoder fileinput.ts -oac copy -ovc copy -o output.avi". This reworks it into an avi "container". This is NOT optimal, since it's MPEG2 video in an AVI, a file format with no father. However, this losslessly translates the tsp file into something playable in MediaPlayerClassic & Sorenson, audible in VLC, visible in Virtualdub, and watchable&editable in TMPGEnc. If you're stopping here, change "-ovc copy" to "-ovc lavc" with quality settings to reencode properly.

The resulting files are inefficient (why Bell is switching to MPEG4-compatible receivers anyway), messy, and have commercials. May I suggest virtualdub (Windows), or TMPGEnc (Windows) to edit out commercials and reencode? There's openshot and avidemux, but they crash for me. May I also suggest MKV x264 AAC >192kbps? I find it reduces filesizes 50% without quality deterioration. I'd suggest x264/Vorbis, but I couldn't find a compatible encoding editor. I suggest a good deinterlacer (yadif, or doubling framerate), a good denoiser filter for Bell's ugly MPEG2 noise blocks, and consider contrast/saturation settings.

If you're stopping here, congratulations! You've taken a file you couldn't get, translated it without losing data, and improved it with lossy filters & transcoding into something compatible and efficient. Since you wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't a rare video, consider sharing it online.


Methods that won't work:
-PvrExplorerPro is opensource, and has been modified. I have "2.0.3.2","p369hack", "cd_build-v3". They won't fix the problem, but they're on the yahoo groups PVRExplorer and dishrip, which sucks having them locked away. PVRExplorerPro works on old files, but not the glitched tsp files, even when copied to a local HD.
-ts2ps.exe spits gibberish. Maybe it needs to be piped to a file, but it's cygwin-compiled, and I'm not a DOS.
-DGIndex.exe won't work.
-The previous-inaccessible tsp files are unreadable in VLC, Media Player Classic, and several Linux players.
-Disk Investigator claims to read raw drives, doesn't.
-DISHPVRFS. It is too old. Linux depreciated much of the code it uses. There is a patch I didn't try, but a layman's old kernel module is messy.
-RecoverMyFiles. It thought it found a file and two folders. It didn't.
-Recuva. Just uses NTFS&FAT, doesn't work on corrupted or unknown filesystems. Needs a bootloader. Doesn't even try.
-Tonny Petersen's MythTV github was a red herring. He calls himself "tsp".
-ts2mkv is a python script. Probably won't work, but I didn't see its libraries.
-VideoReDo fails to open tsp files here.
-TMPGEnc fails to open tsp files, but tries.
-ext2fs. It works normally, and reads Bell's settings partitions. It won't read the large "raw" EFS partition with video. It may help by assigning mount letters.
-gparted. Linux can't mount what it can't understand, just like ext2fs.
-TSConverter. It almost works, but installs broken.
-DVBPortal HDTV Pump. Didn't work for me.
-AVIDemux glitches the audio, but gets the video. DS Mux fails. MeGUI fails silently. MeWiG crashes with the audio. Handbrake&Virtualdub fail on tsp and the mpeg2-in-avi. If you want them with lossless input, use a lossless video codec in mencoder like huffyuv.


If you are helped by this info and want to help me, hack a 9241 Receiver to transfer shows without a capture card, since I'm getting too old to try. If you're a company, read the above, and give up copy protection already. My thanks to the people who worked on dishpvrfs & the fuse implementation, PVRExplorerPro, and of course MPlayer, Linux, whoever registered this free "pioneeruser" account since the registration solvemedia key is broken, etc.

One change, turns out I'm outdated in videoediting; FFMPEG obsoleted mencoder, and fixes problems. I found this because mencoder's DVB AVIs (and buggy "-id MPEG" container) couldn't keep audio sync.

Using ffmpeg (AVANTI is a nice Windows frontend), set it to copy audio and copy video, making an mpg file from the broken ts file. It won't take long to recopy. The resulting file can be edited perfectly in TMPGEnc or Virtualdub, and will play in VLC & mplayer, but crash Media Player Classic. Editing and reencoding will make a file that works anywhere. All but one of my videos had the black bars cropped without distorting the aspect ratio.

I've finished repairing & transcoding all my broken PVR rips. One lossy reencode during editing, and the files are ~60% smaller, and look&sound better after noise filtering and deinterlacing. I have many non-broken PVR mpg to work on, but that's straightforward.

I am not as computer savy as many of you seem to be. I am moving and cannot take Bell satelite with me as I am moving into a condo. I have many movies recorded on my Bell PVR and would like to know in simple to understand instructions how to get them off the PVR and onto a format I can take with me that is inexpensive. I have a computer with a dvd recorder. Is there anyway I can get the shows off the pvr? If you could please explain how, step by step, as if you are teaching someone who knows nothing. I am sorry if this seems silly but I don't want to mess anything up.....

Just take the PVR with you. Watch them when you want just by hooking up the PVR to your TV.

To actually take them off and save on DVD etc, best plan is to get a DVD Recorder, then it becomes as simple as pressing Play on the PVR and Record on the DVD Recorder.

I would like to take the pvr with me, however I am moving to a condo unit and cannot have satellite. I would like to get some of the movies I have on the pvr off so I can keep them after we move......how can I do this?

I answered all those questions above. Do you have any new ones.?

I would like to take the pvr with me, however I am moving to a condo unit and cannot have satellite. I would like to get some of the movies I have on the pvr off so I can keep them after we move......how can I do this?

As Pinza suggested a DVD recorder or if you want HD the HD PVR records the component out to a video file on a PC...
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

I didn't know the Bell PVR's would play back recordings without a Sat connection, good to know, thanks Pinza, that's the easiest way.

Yes, all the Bell PVR's will playback recordings without a SAT connection, so there are no issues there.

Can anything be ripped off the Bell 9400? If not why not? Is the encryption that hard to crack?