I'm trying to be able to get a digital copy of what is on the hard drive of my "MySky" Sky decoder. It's that new-ish NZ version of the US Tivo, with a 160GB HDD. The back of the unit has heaps of outputs, from optical, to RGA, a coax I think and even a USB port.
Yes, obviously I tried the USB port, but that itself is an issue. The USB port at the back is the same as the USB port in a pc. I looked in Dick Smith, and they had no standard USB connector to standard USB connector cables.
All they had, was a USB 2.0 Network cable. That cable gave Ethernet simulation (I should have realised here it wouldn't work) by installing a program on both pc's you want to "network" to copy files between, then plugging the cable into the USB port on each pc. The obvious problem is that in the middle of the cable is an oval shaped plastic/rubber box. I presume that it's similar to a cross-over cable. That is why when I plugged the cable into the decoder and a spare WinXP pc I have, nothing happened (no new drives appeared). It found new hardware though, so I installed the network drivers on the CD it came with, but no luck after that either. That's because for normal operation, you have to install the drivers and program on both PC's you want to connect - I have no control access to the MySky decoder.
So, finally, my question is this. Cost aside, what is the best way to get a digital copy on my pc, of the programs I have stored on the MySky hard drive? I know you can get TV capture cards, and records the signal through those as it plays, but that seems so slow, and likely to leave me with a reduced quality version of the original. Besides, that's so "last century!".
In the manual, it says the USB port is "for future use". Any clues? Don't forget, all I have is laptops - One new one with the older PCMCIA slots/ports, and another new one with the new Express Slot ports. Any ideas?
Cheers,
Dave.
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