Moving Recordings to a PC

[shake]

I have some recordings on a SKY+HD box that I will shortly lose when my Sky TV ends in March. These are mainly shows from ATK on PBS America.

I have seen posts where it is possible to copy recordings by playing them on the Sky box and recording them to a VCR etc. I have tried to do this with my old Humax 9200 by

1. A scart lead from the Sky Box to the VCR scart on the Humax and a scart lead from the TV scart on the Humax to the TV with no luck.

2. I have also tried a coax lead from the Sky box to the Arieal input of the Humax with another coax lead from the humax to the TV. Still no luck.

Could somebody let me know where I am going wrong?

I would prefer not to take the HDD out of the Sky box as I would most probably need a caddy. I do have a TV card in the PC with a coax input.

Thanks

[MartinP]

1. A scart lead from the Sky Box to the VCR scart on the Humax and a scart lead from the TV scart on the Humax to the TV with no luck.

No luck required, Set the VCR to record from its Scart input - NOT from a UHF channel number.

A PC card with analogue tuner will work with coax but audio will be mono and picture less sharp.

[Isitme]

Is the Humax a VCR? The ones I have seen have an output for VCR but no input. I don't think you can record to the Humax except through its aerial input. When you plug the aerial lead into the back of the Sky box, plug it into the RF2 socket and you should be able to record on the Humax, which I think will accept an analogue input. You may have to retune the Humax to pick up the signal. Likewise your PC card would have to be an analogue or hybrid type. It will not work if it is a digital only card.

[dms05]

The Humax 9200T is a digital terrestrial (ie Freeview) PVR. I owned one in the past and seem to remember you could input digital signals via the antenna coax that the tuner might decode if it was in the correct format and allow to be recorded. However the output from the Sky box UHF socket is likely to be analogue so it probably won't work. You would need to connect the two boxes together with coax and tune the Humax to receive the Sky input but whether you would see a picture is doubtful!! However you could try as the worst that will happen is it doesn't work!

[dewdude]

I owned one in the past and seem to remember you could input digital signals via the antenna coax that the tuner might decode if it was in the correct format and allow to be recorded.

Since Freeview is DVB-T; the Sky would have to output DVB-T over it's RF. Since I've read where they abandoned component on boxes and enforce HDCP on some channels; it's probably unlikely they would allow a standard DVB-T output over RF as someone could then simply use a digital PC tuner to capture the signal, which is what they're trying to avoid in the first place. The Humax from my research doesn't accept analogue input from recording. They do apparently make DBV-T modulators; but they're not cheap.

1. A scart lead from the Sky Box to the VCR scart on the Humax and a scart lead from the TV scart on the Humax to the TV with no luck.

We don't have SCART over here; but I do know the SCART connector was capable of carrying RGB and/or composite. The thing I do not know is if your VCR has the stuff to accept RGB over SCART (I don't know the standards). Maybe the Sky box needs to be set to non RGB out? Maybe it's already on PAL and I have no clue what I'm talking about?

The other thing I'd wonder is if they're employing some kind of analogue copy protection that would cause it to not be able to sync. I know there's a PAL version of Macrovision, maybe the box has to output that. I know *apparently* they ruled our pay-per-view and on-demand services over here had to start putting Macrovision pulses to prevent "analogue backup"; I cant copy them to a VCR...but I've got three USB SD video capture devices that have no problem with it.

A PC card with analogue tuner will work with coax but audio will be mono and picture less sharp.

If I were using a PC card; I'd use composite analog input if it has one. But even then, I'd be willing to bet directly recording a broadcast source won't look nearly as bad as recording it to VHS. I don't know how bad PAL VHS looks, but here it was nothing to write home about. As far as the audio being mono over coaxial; ATK is one of those shows I wouldn't put much importance on being in stereo.

[Scubbie]

RF to Scart Modulators can be purchased, but the signal will not be as good as Scart to Scart, which the Sky STBs all support.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universal-Sc...ds=rf+to+scart

By using RF the sound will be in mono. Scart would support stereo sound, but not surround sound. Normally any issues with the Scart not forwarding on the picture from a STB to through a VCR/DVD Recorder/PVR to a TV will be down to something simple (cable not plugged in correctly, using wrong ports on the VCD/DVD Recorder/PVR, dodgy Scart lead, wrong setting (S-VHS, RGB, Composite), incorrect input selected - check options).

The ideal would be to support HDMI to HDMI, but HDCP gets in the way. I am sure that there will be systems to get around this though. Sadly the manufacturers are reluctant to produce such devices though.