Copy Sky programmes from digibox.

[telboy]

I have tried to burn programmes to a Sony dvd machine from my Sky+HD harddrive without success, (they are not write protected films by the way).

I removed the sky harddrive (no warranty issues) & connected it to my laptop (Win7) in an attempt to burn the recorded programmes. I can see the files but how do I play them? I understand XMV is a video file? & XMI is compressed extended midi music?
I am being told I need an associated programme to open the files - where do I find it?
Many thanks you experts! 8)

[telboy]

[telboy]

This, it appears, is a tough one. I read that many people have tried to crack Sky's code protection - it's very costly!
This is a thread entry I found today:

'It's down to the fact that the "files" stored contain the raw bitstream coming from the satellite, and must be decoded by the decoder in the Sky+ box. There are other security measures installed which tie the hard drive to the box, and which ensure that you are subscribed to the channel which the recording came from. Sky Digital has been going for eight years now, and nobody has cracked the current encryption, and Sky are not even using the highest level encryption possible.'
&
A Nick_UK says the SKY boxes use dedicated decoders for both the mpeg2 decoding and the NDS Videoguard decryption which is why an older box performs to the same standard as a new model.
A HD broadcast will be using mpeg4 (not mpeg2) so the HD box has far more powerful and expensive hardware (which is backwards compatible with mpeg2 for the SD channels) it will decode the encrypted datastream and then feed it to the mpeg4 decoder which will turn the data into a useable format for feeding to the video/audio stage and out through the selected connection.

Don't think I'll bother Guys!!
(and did you know that a Sky+HD harddrive uses 140Gb for the system requirements? As the drive is 320Gb, it doesn't leave much for all those programmes you want to store does it?)

Another reason I've kicked Murdoch into touch >:( >:( >:(

[BarriedaleNick]

(and did you know that a Sky+HD harddrive uses 140Gb for the system requirements? As the drive is 320Gb, it doesn't leave much for all those programmes you want to store does it?)

Actually it doesnt use that space for system or OS it keeps a large portion for Anytime progs - which are downloaded and stored without user input - or the space is reserved for future use. 
I personally wouldnt bother trying to crack your HD when virtually everything is available as a torrent these days. I use uknova, thebox, demonoid and I find 99% of what I am after.

[Bruce]

most of the files are encrypted, so you can't use them. if the program is FTA, then you can copy them. have you tried using copy+ software?

http://www.skycopyplus.co.uk/extract.php

[telboy]

Sorry for delay Bruce,
Downloaded 'extract', haven't tried it yet. All the Sky files are on my 'puter. Will report back.
Suffering from other network probs. at the mo. :(

[Garden Manager]

I have copied programmes recorded on my sky plus box to the hard drive of an analogue PVR with no trouble at all. I have the PVR and Sky plus connected up so that i can 'veiw'  sky plus output through the pvr. I set the PVR to the 'Sky' channel, select the programme from my sky plus planner, tell it to 'copy', then set the PVR to record (manual or timed eg 30 mins, 1 hr etc). The PVR used to have a DVD recorder so making DVDs of the programmes was easy. Since the DVD recorder stopped working i have had to use a usb capture device to copy from PVR to PC. This makes the process longer and more problematical but the first stage at least is easy when you know how.

I have also used this method to copy old non write protected VCR tapes.

I appreciate that this method uses an analogue PVR and most/all machines these days are digital. I dont have a digital PVR yet so dont know if you can copy from Sky+ to them. Also different makes and models will have different ways of doing things like this.