We have a Virgin + box. Great for recording and playing back programmes.
We currently have 60 hrs out of 80 filled with recordings. Needless to say, only 2 hours are mine !
Wifey has all the Swedish Wallenders and wants to keep them. I don't know why....once you've seen a murder mystery you know what's happened........but she knows best.
I have a DVD recorder but I've not been very successful up to now.
Talking to my cousins over the weekend, both very computer orientated through work, it was mentioned that I would be better getting a hard drive storage device....about £60, roughly. I was recommended one which I think began with ' T '...I've forgotten now but I can EMail him.
Any thoughts from you clever lot ? Ease of use, transferring stuff from the + box, retrieving it and playing it later, etc, etc. ?
All advice and help welcome....I'm in numptoid mode about these things !
Ted
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Did they mean Tivo?
I may have this wrong, but it looks like they dont sell to the uk any more and will be / are supplying v+boxes to virgin!
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Ted if you're up for persevering with the DVD recorder, you can transfer most (but not all) programmes from V+ to DVD.
Caveat: the record process will be at 1x speed, i.e. to transfer a 1hr programme to DVD it will take 1hr
I think you can put a bigger hard drive in the V+ box too, but i'd be surprised if it was plug and play.
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We have the same set up Ted - V+ and a dvd recorder and it works just fine. What's the problem with yours?
A hard drive recorder might be better though, as it's easier to find your recordings afterwards at least. We have oodles of discs I never got round to labelling, so who knows what's on there.
Fitting a bigger drive to the V+ is, I suggest, a non-starter for the less techy person. Anything but plug and play apparently.
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I use both V+ and TiVo. It's true that TiVo will be supplying software for a new V+ box, allegedly out later this year (and expected to be a chargeable;e upgrade). TiVo in the US is far more advanced than the UK ever was, and you would enkoy the relative ease of the menus along with other features which are not present on Sky or V+ - e.g. predictive recording.
TiVo in the US has for some time been much more connectable than V+ is - I believe it can go on your home network, and you can plug in USB drives for extra storage. V+ disabled all the extra connectivity on the V+ box.
It is possible to change the drive in a V+ box but is against the T&Cs and would invalidate your agreement, as you don't own the box. Also transferring recordings isn't so easy for the inexperienced, so the easiest upgrade is to a blank drive. And it seems to be a bit hit and miss how well it works afterwards.
So the best option is as above, transfer your keepers to DVD - but it's all bit slow - and get the new V+ box later this year.
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Tivo doesn't ring a bell...it was a longer name. I'll contact cousin Bazza and ask.
Cranky, I did a sample recording of a half hour prog...Corrie or summat, then finalised it as per the book..
Tried it on a different player in the morning. Got some dialogue from the previous prog, you know, the bit you can't avoid before the one you want starts. No picture with that and when it finished....nothing at all yet the screen was on.......it had that sort of ' glow ' to it.
I went into Comet and got them to write down what to do and what to connect in simpletons language and they did. I haven't tried again since.
Ted
Edit.
Good advice, Smokie. I'd certainly go for an upgrade. Our V+ box was destroyed about a year ago by a massive lightening strike locally, Virging replaced it promptly and at no cost.
It was so bad windows were broken in houses nearby, together with tellys and phones going kaput.
Last edited by: silence of the cams on Thu 17 Jun 10 at 22:02
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Ted I thought your virgin box already had a hard drive in it or was I dreaming?
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I suppose it must have Rattington. But I want to take stuff off it and clear some space.
I need to keep the cleared stuff on DVD or another method of storage.
If it was up to me, most of it would just be deleted but there are half a dozen operas and some films which we want to keep.
Ted
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Now I understand it was my fault for skimming through the thread and getting the wrong end of the stick.
If it has a USB stick then using a memory stick and then storing them on the computer is one way. Storing it on DVD is another way but DVD recorder will only be able to record TV/Video signals in an analogue form (regardless if it was arrived digitally or not) so to burn them from your Virgin box onto DVD you need to do the following:
Connect the virgin box to your DVD recorder directly. So you need a wire to go to the output of the virgin box and one to the input of the DVD recorder. Then on the DVD recorder select the soruce and press record. You will need to play the entire programme and then stop the reocrding when its played.
The easiest way is to simply use a USB stick and copy the files to your computer and then perhaps burn them to DVD.
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Just possibly the key here is "different player". Fell foul of this myself once because I used DVD+R discs to record and the old player I then put it on, (which was a five year old Tesco Technica only £20 at the time type jobby) could only handle DVD-R (I think from memory that's the right way round). Anyway, DVD comes in different flavours and you have to get them matched if any of the kit you want to play them back on is at all old or was megacheap or anything, I think.
That's my first pass at it anyway.
And talking of recordings and TV, try the website LocateTV. Stick in the name of someone like, ooh, Dick Powell or something, and bingo, it tells you all the films and programmes on that he is in for the next two weeks, on any of the channels you've got, and if you want it will even email you a weekly schedule. Sort of Tivo like.
We get prompted for all sorts of things tucked away on weird channels at 3am which we'd never see otherwise, and some have been really good little surprises. One was the film "Charade" (as I have a search for Walter Matthau set up) which we'd never seen, and we enjoyed it a lot.
And finally, Rattle, you can't USB from a V+ box mate, ain't gonna happen. It has the ability to record to DVD though in the way you said, by connecting the scart out to the scart on the DVD recorder, and then it has a menu for "Copy to dvd/VCR" to actually do the job.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 17 Jun 10 at 22:30
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All good stuff, girls.!
It's a fairly new DVD recorder and the man at Comet ( they're very obliging ) said to use DVD-R....wot I is doing.
I'll try again with a short prog tomorrow and see what happens. If it works, then I assume you could play/record a longer one, say 2 hrs, at night and just switch the telly off.
Finalise it in the morning.
I'll report back on what my cuzzin says.
Thing is, I only really want to do things which, on the face of it, are simple.
It always goes bosoms up for me in the end !
Was listening to Dick Powell and Ruby singing from ythe film while I was doing the washing up
this evening.
Now, that's one thing I can do.........YouTube to CD or DVD....after advice on here !
I'll probably end up getting Rats to come round and cross his palm with silver.
Ted
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The V+ will output to the VCR SCART socket when archiving programmes to DVD. Sometimes the VCR SCART has been enabled all the time and sometimes only when archiving. They play around with this stuff sometimes with software upgrades.
So connect a SCART from the VCR output on the V+ to the input on the DVD recorder. You will need to select SCART as an input on the DVD recorder. Then on the V+:
- Go to the V+ services and navigate to the copy to DVD section
- Select the programmes to archive (keeping to the space a DVD will hold)
- Press I think the yellow button (don't have V+ to check now) - it is now ready to copy
- Set the DVD record to record
- Press the V+ yellow button again
It will now send the recorded programme to the VCR SCART socket. When it's doing this you can still record up to 2 new programmes and watch a different (3rd) channel. All because the V+ box has three digital tuners for cable and the ability to decode two channels at the same time for sending to HDMI/main SCART and a different signal to the VCR SCART. Try that with Sky+.
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(There is a USB port on the V+ but it is disabled. They also disable all other outputs if you are outputting via HDMI, so if you are using the HDMI output your SCART to DVD may not work. Simply connect the TV by coax or something else while you copy.
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If you ever forsake the V+ box, the Humax FreeSat box has a USB socket front and rear and you can file copy the recordings to disk or stick.
The *.TS files (transport stream) play happily on a Windows 7 box without additional software, and you can copy the file(s) back onto the Humax box if you want to watch on the tele again.
It takes a few minutes to copy an hour program.
Last edited by: AnotherJohnH on Fri 18 Jun 10 at 04:55
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Alert alert, danger Will Robinson.
Smokie, you speak truth for Samsung box but with forked tongue for Scientific Atlanta. DVD via scart he work fine with HDMI on SA box. I have and it do.
Message ends.
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they disable the USB port on the V box, because there are copywrite issues when trying to record HD (the rules are quite simple you are not allowed to copy HD out of the box - at the moment)
So the lazy way to do it is to chop off the output ports. I am sure some clever dick will rewrite the ucode to get round that.
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Well I never knew that (never tried it)
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The SA V+ box also had a (disabled) eSATA socket. And via the network connection to send programmes to different V+ boxes around the house. All disabled.
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Thanks for all the information, Guys.
So, I sum it up as....the USB method won't work with the V+ box.
I've printed out Rob's step by step moves and I'm armed with a box of blanks.
I'll try later, after the footy, and report back over the weekend.
Don't stop with the advice, though.
Thanks
Ted
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The great thing about the V+ is you can set it to archive off the programmes and continue to use the box to watch and record other things. So you can set it up during the day. For doing similar on Sky+ (HD) you'd want to do it when you're not using the box because you can only see what it's sending to the DVD recorder.
If you get stuck, drop a mod an email or ask Rattle for my email address. This should just work.
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Just finalising it at the moment....posted my progress on the films thread.
We'll see if it worked in a min or two. the shortest thing I had was a Dr Who at 57 mins.
Now, if it's worked, can I add another one later, as long as the disc is set for the right length/time ?
Ted
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You can't add another recording if you've finalised it. The clue is in the name...:)
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Ah, right...I thought that was something to do with playing it on other machines. So whether you finalise it or not doesn't matter as far as recording goes ?
Anyway...abject failure. Even though the prog I wanted to record had come up on the recording menu, the screen had indicated that it was recordng and it was counting down the time left....all I've got is a good sound recording of some adverts and some pundits talking about tonights footy match........no pictures at all.
Had enough of it now....set it to record something overnight but I dont hold out much hope !
Ted
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Sounds like the SCART lead is not seated... when I am near Withington next week I can help. Sounds like there is a cabling problem. You supply the tea (white no sugar).
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Tea's always on here....welcome. I'll check the scarts tomorrow anyway.
Too many damn cables at the back of all this lot when you include the VCR as well.
Drives me up the wall.
I think I need to record 10 minutes of something onto the V+ to use as a quick 'trial' record.
Just cheered meself up with a couple of episodes of Spongebob Squarepants on YouTube !
Ted
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There's 2 scart sockets on the back of the V+, you're plugged into the bottom one, should be the top one.
Go on, ask me how i know you get sound and no picture out the bottom socket... ;-) it's supposed to be an input.
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You know, the scart plug and lead is a nasty evil wicked thing inflicted on the rest of Europe by the French, in some form of sadistic revenge. The things only design mantra was to come loose and cause problems.
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Thanks craig....I'll have a look later when I've washed me 'ands after a little light carb rebuilding.
Spot on, Zeddo.....horribubble things. I've got HDMI cables and was hoping to get away from scarts except for the VCR to Telly one. But, there's only 1 HDMI port on each of the other appliances. So 4 plugs into 3 ports won't go.
Tried to get a hub but was only offered a switchbox.
Just put 2 mins of a prog on V+ to act as a test prog when playing about with it.
Bach later....Offenbach sooner.
Ted
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RE finalising:
don't if you want to record anything else on the disk.
do when the disk is as full as you want it to be, OR if you want it to play on another player.
A recorder will play it's own recordings which aren't finalised... otherwise you couldn't add more.
regarding scart - death by Péritelitis
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OK, It's been a long time, but I haven't really had time to try any more recording until last weekend.
A clever-dick pal came round to borrow my other recorder to get so Videos onto DVD,
He made sure the scarts were in the right positions and told me there was only one way to take stuff from the V+ to the DVD.
And it works !
You have to be playing the V+ programme you want to burn. So, Set up the programme as though you were going to watch it.......then pause it at the start.
Load a blank disc in the recorder...it will show it's loading, over the paused picture.
Press record on the DVD remote then 'play' on the V+. Switch off the telly and go to bed.
In the morning, the telly will be showing the last scene of your recording. Finalise it to use in other machines. and do another if you want to. I've taken about 20 hrs off the V+ drive !.....So far.
One odd thing that has occurred a few times......When I switch the TV on in the morning, I get the frozen ' last scene ' but only for about 3 seconds. Then the TV switches itself off.
I have to re-boot it by taking the mains plug out of the back for 30 secs or so.........sometimes half a dozen times. Any ideas on that ?
Ted
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Why not buy a Panasonic TV and use a straightforward external HDD for recording TV programmes (only setback is that it's only one programme at a time)...:-)
My TX-P42G20B has this timer recording feature and I linked a 1T Seagate Expansion HDD to it at a cost of £69.99, although they come a bit cheaper now.
Picture and sound quality from the HDD is indistinguishable from normal transmissions, including HD.
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>> Why not buy a Panasonic TV and use a straightforward external HDD for recording TV
>> programmes (only setback is that it's only one programme at a time)...:-)
Because he would have to buy a new tele, and it saves him nothing as he would have to do it one programe at a time exactly as he does now, AND add an extra set of burning it from the HDD drive to a DVD.
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>>Because he would have to buy a new tele>>
It was tongue in cheek...:-)
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Your clever-dick friend is wrong though Ted. There is a record to DVD function which can be done whilst watching other things. But it uses the other SCART socket. If this works for you fine but you're missing out on how it is meant to work. You can queue up a few programmes to record all of them at the same time too.
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Dear Agony Aunt
When I want to record a TV programme, which is rarely to be honest, I put a blank tape in the video recorder and set the timer. Next day - or whenever - I rewind the tape and watch the programme. Then next time I just wind the tape back again and record over it. I have found you can do this over and over again.
But all my friends are sniggering at me - what can I do?
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>> But all my friends are sniggering at me - what can I do?
Upgrade when the video recorder's analogue tuner no longer works because of the digital switchover ;-)
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I've got to the stage, Rob, where my brain is hurting me.
I'm quite happy to burn stuff after lights out. and check it in the morning.
Did another 150 minute opera during the night, it self finalised and this time it didn't ' lock ' the tv up.
That'll do me nicely, there's not that much we want to keep but what we do tends to be 2 hours or over, filling up the V+ box.
Ted
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>Upgrade when the video recorder's analogue tuner no longer works because of the digital switchover ;-) <
HAHA! It records the output of my digibox! And some people call me a dinosaur... ;-)
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my pvr digibox i bought last xmas has 46 hours of boyd coddington on it
i cant work out whether i should keep all these episodes in case i break a leg or wipe them
can members of the board advise?
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too late they now gonarth
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>>It records the output of my digibox!>>
A Freeview STB basically converts the digital signals back to analogue, which is why you can continue to use an analogue TV even after the digital switchover (if it's not come to your area yet).
I recorded many a digital programme to a VCR, but had to use one of the VCR's channels intended for satellite (L1 or L2); the aerial feed was STB, VCR and then to the TV. I can still watch them on my new TV as it has an analogue tuner, as well as the HD tuners for Freeview and Freesat.
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>> Wifey has all the Swedish Wallenders and wants to keep them. I don't know why....once
>> you've seen a murder mystery you know what's happened........but she knows best.
I don't blame her, they are mesmerisingly good, it's not just the storylines, it's the scenery and the atmosphere they manage to convey.
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TV Recording. - Zero
