HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so
that may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

Thanks all
Adrian

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so that
may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

We previously had a very good analogue Panasonic HDD and DVD recorder, but
got a separate Hitachi brand Freeview+ HDD digibox about 18 months ago.

Usual practice is to record on the digibox and if we want to keep it we
archive it to the HDD on the Panasonic machine. In real time, as you say,
but archiving is a straightforward function to do.

Once on the Panasonic's HDD, we split the archived tracks and rename them.
We then burn them to DVD.

The main downside of having to transfer between the digibox and the
Panasonic is that we lose the digital signal addons, so we can't view
subtitles or the program info once it's on the DVD.

'hd' ready simply means that it can accept a High Definition signal - either
via a HD disc player, or a HD digital/satellite receiver.

I can't make any recommendations about p2p, as I am risk averse when it
comes to malware on my PC, so wouldn't touch it with a bargepole!

OG wrote:
"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so that
may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

We previously had a very good analogue Panasonic HDD and DVD recorder, but
got a separate Hitachi brand Freeview+ HDD digibox about 18 months ago.

Usual practice is to record on the digibox and if we want to keep it we
archive it to the HDD on the Panasonic machine. In real time, as you say,
but archiving is a straightforward function to do.

Once on the Panasonic's HDD, we split the archived tracks and rename them.
We then burn them to DVD.

The main downside of having to transfer between the digibox and the
Panasonic is that we lose the digital signal addons, so we can't view
subtitles or the program info once it's on the DVD.

'hd' ready simply means that it can accept a High Definition signal - either
via a HD disc player, or a HD digital/satellite receiver.

I can't make any recommendations about p2p, as I am risk averse when it
comes to malware on my PC, so wouldn't touch it with a bargepole!


Thanks for the comments!
I guess it reall hinges on whether we're going to want to 'archive'
stuff from the Sky+ box - in which case a DVD recorder seems necessary -
otherwise a cheapy DVD player will do the job...
Adrian

Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player
(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the
Sky+ box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD
player/recorder.... so that may be another (possibly less complicated)
plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going
to break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

We have Sky+ and a Philips HDD/DVD recorder (DVDR 7260H) linked by Scart.
The Sky box has a "copy" facility but it's not very good. If we want to keep
anything, it's:

(a) record programme on sky box
(b) set sky box to play
(c) set Philips box to record (recording will go onto its hard drive)
(d) go away and have a cuppa
(e) an hour later (or however long the programme is) go back and stop both
machines
(f) burn to DVD from hard drive - takes about 5 minutes for an hour long
programme.

All very easy, straightforward and painless )

Dave wrote:
Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player
(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the
Sky+ box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD
player/recorder.... so that may be another (possibly less complicated)
plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going
to break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

We have Sky+ and a Philips HDD/DVD recorder (DVDR 7260H) linked by Scart.
The Sky box has a "copy" facility but it's not very good. If we want to keep
anything, it's:

(a) record programme on sky box
(b) set sky box to play
(c) set Philips box to record (recording will go onto its hard drive)
(d) go away and have a cuppa
(e) an hour later (or however long the programme is) go back and stop both
machines
(f) burn to DVD from hard drive - takes about 5 minutes for an hour long
programme.

All very easy, straightforward and painless )


HI Dave
Sounds easy !
Just have to decide how much we want in 'invest' in this project g -
go the p2p way and just by a cheap DVD player or go for the hard disk
recorder / dvd box.... and be able to archive frm the Sky+ box

Might even do it in 2 stages - cheap one first & see how we go.....

Thanks

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian Brentnall
saying something like:

Just have to decide how much we want in 'invest' in this project g -
go the p2p way

Depends how good you want the p2p material to be. Sometimes it's ok,
most of the time it's not particularly good, but fine for catching up
with series, etc.

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player

Done that, but you may not get the quality you want.


(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so that
may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.

I have a camcorder that has video in so I connect that to the sky+, record
in DV onto the PC via firewire..
edit the stuff using moviemaker.. convert to DVD.

Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

It means it has HDMI and has a minimum vertical resolution of 720 pixels.
Therefore it may be able to display HD pictures from a Sky HD box.
To do the job properly you want a TV with 1920x1080 pixels and HDMI and a
surround sound system.

Thanks all
Adrian

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home"
saying something like:

It means it has HDMI and has a minimum vertical resolution of 720 pixels.
Therefore it may be able to display HD pictures from a Sky HD box.
To do the job properly you want a TV with 1920x1080 pixels

32" and under, not necessarily.

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home"
saying something like:

It means it has HDMI and has a minimum vertical resolution of 720 pixels.
Therefore it may be able to display HD pictures from a Sky HD box.
To do the job properly you want a TV with 1920x1080 pixels

32" and under, not necessarily.

If it has the HD logo then it has those as a minimum.
They are breaking the terms of use for the logo if not.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home"
saying something like:

To do the job properly you want a TV with 1920x1080 pixels

32" and under, not necessarily.

If it has the HD logo then it has those as a minimum.
They are breaking the terms of use for the logo if not.

I mean, you don't need the full 1080 for 32" and under. 720 is perfectly
adequate.

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home"
saying something like:

To do the job properly you want a TV with 1920x1080 pixels

32" and under, not necessarily.

If it has the HD logo then it has those as a minimum.
They are breaking the terms of use for the logo if not.

I mean, you don't need the full 1080 for 32" and under. 720 is perfectly
adequate.

The hell it is.
Your eyesight might be failing but I can see the difference between 1080 and
720 on my 32" from 3m and that's before you use it for a monitor.

In message , Adrian Brentnall
writes
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the
Sky+ box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder....
so that may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?


I don't have Sky+ or any other PVR, though I do record some stuff onto a
PC with a USB Freeview tuner - otherwise it's stuff downloaded via
Bitorrent (these two end up on a 'server' down in the cellar) or watched
via iPlayer. Bitorrent is not a bad suggestion - it is often easier to
just download it.

I don't anymore bother burning such stuff to DVD. A word of caution
though re burning P2P downloaded stuff always found it a bit hit and
miss IME. AS well as a bit tine consuming.

Most stuff is Xvid format. To burn this into standard DVD format, it
needs re-encoding, which also means it takes up the normal amount of
space on the DVD. It's not complicated, but I found a number of times
that something would go wrong with the process and you'd sit down to
watch it and it wouldn't play.

If I was to do it again I'd want a DVD player that would play Xvid
natively, so you could burn the downloaded files straight onto the DVD -
you'd get a lot more programs on it as well. (a 45 minute show is
generally encoded to about 350 MB in size)


Most stuff gets watched now via a 'media PC' in the sitting room. Posh
name for some bits of PC (based on an AMD Athlon 3500 CPU or something
like that) hidden away in the sitting room - not even in a proper case
yet. Mobo + 2.5 inch hard drive + small power supply from an old IBM
desktop runs very quietly.

Hooked up to the TV it means we watch a lot of stuff via iplayer now we
can lounge on the sofa


--
Chris French

chris French wrote:
In message , Adrian Brentnall
writes
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD
player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the
Sky+ box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD
player/recorder.... so that may be another (possibly less complicated)
plan?


I don't have Sky+ or any other PVR, though I do record some stuff onto a
PC with a USB Freeview tuner - otherwise it's stuff downloaded via
Bitorrent (these two end up on a 'server' down in the cellar) or watched
via iPlayer. Bitorrent is not a bad suggestion - it is often easier to
just download it.

I don't anymore bother burning such stuff to DVD. A word of caution
though re burning P2P downloaded stuff always found it a bit hit and
miss IME. AS well as a bit tine consuming.

Most stuff is Xvid format. To burn this into standard DVD format, it
needs re-encoding, which also means it takes up the normal amount of
space on the DVD. It's not complicated, but I found a number of times
that something would go wrong with the process and you'd sit down to
watch it and it wouldn't play.

If I was to do it again I'd want a DVD player that would play Xvid
natively, so you could burn the downloaded files straight onto the DVD -
you'd get a lot more programs on it as well. (a 45 minute show is
generally encoded to about 350 MB in size)


Most stuff gets watched now via a 'media PC' in the sitting room. Posh
name for some bits of PC (based on an AMD Athlon 3500 CPU or something
like that) hidden away in the sitting room - not even in a proper case
yet. Mobo + 2.5 inch hard drive + small power supply from an old IBM
desktop runs very quietly.

Hooked up to the TV it means we watch a lot of stuff via iplayer now we
can lounge on the sofa


HI Chris

The mediaPC idea had occured to me - but it's getting a bit more 'techy'
than I'd wanted -
burning to DVD in Xvid sounds good - need to look out for a DVD player
that can play them....

Thanks

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian Brentnall
saying something like:

burning to DVD in Xvid sounds good - need to look out for a DVD player
that can play them....

Almost any one, nowadays. As a basic source player for home cinema I
picked up a cheap Lidl Silvercrest player two years ago that did most
commonly available formats.

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian Brentnall
saying something like:

burning to DVD in Xvid sounds good - need to look out for a DVD player
that can play them....

Almost any one, nowadays. As a basic source player for home cinema I
picked up a cheap Lidl Silvercrest player two years ago that did most
commonly available formats.

I may be reading it back to front (quite possible) but the new DVD
player I've just bought reckons it can handle the following....

DVD VCD HDCD CD DIVX3.0 / 4.0 / 5.0, WMA and MP3

My downloaded source material seems to think that it's

HDTV.XviD-BiA.avi

So far, I've found software on the web that will convert these avi files
to DVD format. Seems like a slow-ish process - as it's not yet sompleted
one file I can't tell if it's successful or not g

Just wondered if I'm going the 'long way round'....? - whether a
conversion to DIVX would be simpler / faster ?

The new box has an SD-card slot and a USB port - so I guess I should
be able to put one of my converted files onto a USB stick and see if it
can play it ?? (Slight oversight on the techy front means that neither
of our PCs can _write_ to a DVD - so waiting for a DVD-writer to arrive
in the post !

Any advice welcome...

The things we do for love, eh ? g

Adrian

On Mar 30, 10:50*pm, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

I may be reading it back to front (quite possible) but the new DVD
player I've just bought reckons it can handle the following....

DVD VCD HDCD CD DIVX3.0 / 4.0 / 5.0, WMA and MP3

My downloaded source material seems to think that it's

HDTV.XviD-BiA.avi

So far, I've found software on the web that will convert these avi files
to DVD format. Seems like a slow-ish process - as it's not yet sompleted
one file I can't tell if it's successful or not g

Just wondered if I'm going the 'long way round'....? - whether a
conversion to DIVX would be simpler / faster ?

Well, if the player plays DIVX and the thing you've downloaded is XviD
(a generic version of DIVX), you should be able to burn the downloaded
file as is to DVD (ie. not convert to DVD format) and the box should
play it.

That having been said, we have a cheap Aldi DivX player and it's very
hit-and miss about what it'll play --- I've never quite sussed whether
it's the player being sniffy or the dubious encoding of some
downloaded files.

In message , Adrian Brentnall
writes
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian Brentnall
saying something like:

burning to DVD in Xvid sounds good - need to look out for a DVD
player that can play them....
Almost any one, nowadays. As a basic source player for home cinema I
picked up a cheap Lidl Silvercrest player two years ago that did most
commonly available formats.

I may be reading it back to front (quite possible) but the new DVD
player I've just bought reckons it can handle the following....

DVD VCD HDCD CD DIVX3.0 / 4.0 / 5.0, WMA and MP3

My downloaded source material seems to think that it's

HDTV.XviD-BiA.avi

Like all this video/audio codec stuff, it all seems complicated, and I
don't really understand it all. but AIUI Xvid is basically an open
source alternative to DivX which is proprietary. But both use the same
sort of MPEG4 compression.

So far, I've found software on the web that will convert these avi
files to DVD format. Seems like a slow-ish process - as it's not yet
sompleted one file I can't tell if it's successful or not g


Like I said, I ended up deciding it was waste of time.

Just wondered if I'm going the 'long way round'....? - whether a
conversion to DIVX would be simpler / faster ?


Probably unnecessary.

The new box has an SD-card slot and a USB port - so I guess I should
be able to put one of my converted files onto a USB stick and see if it
can play it ??

You will probably find that your DVD player will play the downloaded
file directly just as it is. There are apparently some features in Xvid
that can sometimes cause play back problems on DivX players, but we
sometimes playback files here from a USB stick and have never had any
noticeable problems on our Phillips DVD player.

Stick on a stick and see.

--
Chris French

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:53:47 +0100, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so
that may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

Thanks all
Adrian

If you've got some sort of video capture device for your PC, you can select
a bunch of recorded programmes from your SKY+ box, mark them for COPY,
press play (and start your video capture software) and then go to bed.
They'll play one after the other without any intervention from you and then
you can split them, remove ads, etc. and burn them to DVD later.

SteveW

Steve Walker wrote:
On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:53:47 +0100, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g

Some of the 'things' are available via the various p2p sites -
so the bright idea went something like this....

D/load the material via p2p, burn to DVD on the PC then play in a DVD player

(sorry if this is all very simplistic - I'm not up to speed with dvd
technology!)

I understand that it's also possible to 'back-up' material from the Sky+
box onto dvd (in real-time), if you have a DVD player/recorder.... so
that may be another (possibly less complicated) plan?

So - before I go too far down this route - what's anybody else doing,
and are there any recommendations for a dvd recorder that's not going to
break the bank - but will do this stuff.
Our TV claims to be 'hd ready' - whatever that might mean!

Thanks all
Adrian

If you've got some sort of video capture device for your PC, you can select
a bunch of recorded programmes from your SKY+ box, mark them for COPY,
press play (and start your video capture software) and then go to bed.
They'll play one after the other without any intervention from you and then
you can split them, remove ads, etc. and burn them to DVD later.

SteveW

HI Steve
Don't have any vidcap gear on this PC - but I can see that would be a
way to go....
Thanks

On 28/03/2010 17:53, Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g
.....

You could always fit a bigger disk in the Sky+ box. It supports up to
1TB and you can quickly copy your existing recordings from the old disk
using Copy+ - see http://www.skycopyplus.co.uk/.

To play downloaded videos I use the Cyclone Micro Media Player - see
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167205 - it's tiny and plays video
(standard or HD) directly from a USB stick or SD card. The quality is
excellent. It's amazing value for £25 and it saves all that re-encoding
from XVID to DVD.

--
Reentrant

Reentrant wrote:
On 28/03/2010 17:53, Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
Only vaguely DIY - but I thought somebody here was likely to know...

Currently we have a Sky+ box, which is rapidly getting filled up with
'things that are too important to delete' g
.....

You could always fit a bigger disk in the Sky+ box. It supports up to
1TB and you can quickly copy your existing recordings from the old disk
using Copy+ - see http://www.skycopyplus.co.uk/.

Yes - I saw the write-ups on copy+ - it's a possibility


To play downloaded videos I use the Cyclone Micro Media Player - see
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167205 - it's tiny and plays video
(standard or HD) directly from a USB stick or SD card. The quality is
excellent. It's amazing value for £25 and it saves all that re-encoding
from XVID to DVD.


That is an amazing price.....
I guess the other way round is finding an XVID-compatible DVD player -
and just doing it that way ?

Thanks