Subj : When everything is digita
To   : AUGUST ABOLINS
From : Rob Mccart
Date : Wed Mar 15 2023 01:17:00

RM> [...] The unit will accept an external hard drive attached to it
RM> but I'm not sure how it decides what goes where. I'd have to look at
RM> the settings.

AA>My understanding is that the material recorded onto the
  >external drive is encrypted and would only be accessible from
  >another Bell branded PVR (if the encryption and format remain
  >the same between PVRs)

That could well be to save people easily 'sharing' TV shows with others
who don't pay for the service.

AA>One salient difference he noted between the one he was
  >currently using and the one they sent in as a replacement/
  >upgrade, was that the new one does NOT support PIP (picture-in-
  >picture) which he had grown fond of using.

My TV set is too old to support that sort of thing. I could easily
afford a newer one but haven't been bothered enough to do so up to
this point. Mine is an old tube type 29" Toshiba, a nice unit at the
time of purchase but ancient by today's standards. My living room is
small so a bigger unit isn't really required, although things like
sub titles when characters are mixing langages in TV shows are getting
so small they are near impossible to read..

RM> [...] the unit Only works with that one company so it
RM> becomes just an external drive after that. Hmm.. that
RM> said, the drive in it is a standard computer type hard
RM> drive so you could open the thing up and pull it to use in
RM> whatever you wanted if the video is stored in a standard
RM> format..

AA>Hmmm is right.  I wonder if the HDD could be salvaged to
  >operate independently.

I think it would only be a problem if you were trying to save things
from the original PVR. Almost for sure you could reformat the drive
to use in/for something else.

RM>> My Stereo is fairly old, so getting digital music into it
RM>> is difficult unless I do it through the aforementioned CD/
RM>> DVD player which is directly wired into it.

AA>It doesn't have an AUX/IN ?

Not for a flash drive or other digital storage device. It has several
AUX/IN lines but they use 2 wire RCA jacks since it's for sound only.

RM> [...] What I could do is burn a music DVD and I can run
RM> the DVD player through the Stereo. I've done that before,
RM> just not used it often.

AA>Hmmm.. I've never tried putting music files on DVD and playing
  >that.   My TV supports SD card media, but then it has to be
  >photos only. However, an external USB with .mp3 or .wma are
  >supported.

My VCR/DVD unit uses the TV to show menus and it supports all sorts
of formats. The nice thing about using a DVD for music is you can
have hundreds of MP3 pieces on a single disk.

AA>Not a real audio nut here either, but I always dreamed of
  >having a more advanced set up with a Klipsch pair and dedicated
  >amp (not just a commercial receiver).

That friend of mine with over 1500 classical music CD's was one to
buy amplifiers worth more than most pay for a full stereo. His system
was probably worth close to $15,000. My stereo was a cheap unit compared
to his but I do have a dedicated amp so you have to have separate units
for playing Cassettes and Records and even a Tuner for Radio use.

But I think most of my more serious dedication to music got pushed
aside when I discovered computers back around 1982..    B)

---
 * SLMR Rob  * CAUTION: Try this on somebody else's computer first
 * Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (1:2320/105)

.