HDTV TS Files

In the end I fed the SD Scart output into my DVD recorder and made a recording, although trying the same trick with an HD recording on my Humax You View DTT box doesn't work, so its output has some form of MV spoiler?

Yep - cheap HDMI to Composite downconverter always comes in useful... (HDCP is a different matter - though if you know what you are doing it isn't an issue)

I've got an RGB SCART to HDMI upconverter which can be useful in some circumstances too (it will also do a dreadful frame rate convert allowing 50Hz content to be played on 60Hz-only displays - which can be useful in North America)

I love these sort of challenges but I guess the answer from noggin is the way to get these HD recordings from a freeview transmission stream, I imagine with some research it's possible with Sky as well.

Oh, it can be done, and it is done, most of the HD sports/Sunday political show clips you see on news programmes, are sourced from domestic grade Sky and Freeview boxes, feeding into semi pro HDMI to HD-SDI converters, (but they will have had HDCP legitimately disabled) I've arranged for the relevant documentation to be raised on a few occasions )

For domestic use - yes - recording the streams yourself outside of the Freeview/Freesat licensed ecosystem is the easiest solution.

However in a broadcast environment, it's much easier to arrange to disable HDCP en route to an HDMI to HD-SDI conversion... (Which also allows easy recording of encrypted Sky and Virgin Media content)

And yes - Hollywood studios hate this. And yes - Hollywood studios are also major customers for Blu-ray players with HD-SDI outputs that use HDCP disabling HDMI to HD-SDI converters - as many high-end cinema projectors don't have HDCP and are fed HD-SDI...

If you have a Humax box there is a way to get usable HD files off it using a program called Foxy. Each of the recordings has a .hmt file with it which tells the box it's encrypted. Foxy changes that file so when you export the programme from the box it doesn't apply the encryption.

The beauty of it is that you're not actually cracking the protection, you're letting the box do it

https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/foxy-an-hd-recording-backup-utility-for-the-hdr-fox-t2-now-released.240/


The way I do it is to ftp the hmt file from my box, run it through Foxy and then ftp it back onto the box. Then export the programme onto USB in the normal way (USB is the only way to get video recordings off the box) and ftp it from the USB stick in the box (because I'm too lazy to walk across the room to my telly)

Ah - I was aware of the modified firmware for the Freesat boxes, but not of the Foxy software.

Looks like I'll be investing in a Humax box then!

Mine is about 4 years old, an HDR-T2 I think. If you do get one I would check if it still works with the model/firmware

Do the boxes have component video out? That would be easy enough unless it's disabled for a business enviromennt. (DirecTV here in the US disabled it for businesses because they'd bars would use one box and amplifier to save money for each TV.)

Some do (either 'YUV' or RGB) but unfortunately only a down-converted to SD feed.

Component is far less widespread here than in the US.

In the days of SD we had RGB SCART - which arrived in the 80s (possibly even late 70s in France) here (many of us used it connect home computers to our TVs) so had no need to introduce component for DVD (as RGB delivered the same high quality result, avoiding the artefacts of composite and chroma bandwith issues of S-video) or SD set top boxes. (RGB SCART also had useful stuff like status switching, pin 8 widescreen signalling etc.)

By the time we went HD, HDMI was a standard, and all 'HD Ready' TVs had to include HDMI. Given the copy protection advantages of HDMI - only early first gen STBs had component HD outputs usually (First gen Thomson Sky HD boxes output 1080i and 720p component). However second gen boxes removed it.