UPC mediabox usb

Howitzer

Hiya,

I just figured how to get the volume working on my upc remote for mediabox.
manual here if anyone needs it.

There's no mention of the usb connector in the manual.
Has anyone used it? Know how?

cheers
(i did a quick search on this forum for this - but no joy - any info appreciated)

d8player

I believe its for firmware updates or something like that. Not usable for home users unfortunately,

paulm17781

I think it's part of the modem and has no connection to the DVR as such. My understanding is that you could connect a PC to it for a modem but they don't use this functionallity at all.

zilog_jones

Yes it can be used as a cable broadband modem, but I'm not sure if the USB port is related to that. It does nothing useful AFAIK anyway

Alun

The Ethernet port certainly gives access to the inbuilt cable modem, not that you can do much with it except connect to it with a browser and stare at the diagnostics page with it failing to make a connection, but if that entertains you ... I've not tried the USB port yet to see what that's connected to internally (I don't have a USB type A - type A cable to try it).

Just connect a laptop up to the Ethernet port with an Ethernet cable (straight cable is fine, no X-over required), set the laptop to get it's address via DHCP, if not already configured to so so, and you'll get an address of 192.168.100.11, and a default gateway of 192.168.100.1. Browse to that with your favourite browser, and this is what you'll see ...

Like I said, not that interesting (yet, at any rate!).

Howitzer

thanks for all feedback. Surprised I dont have an a-a usb cable... might get one

in a perfect world I'd plug one in and be able to get my hands on my saved programs... Think it's possible? or pipe dreaming?

zilog_jones

I highly doubt they would allow such a thing unfortunately. Even if you managed to access the files stored on the DVR it will all be encrypted in some way.

Alun

Possibly encrypted, but almost certainly using some esoteric, proprietary file system as well which you'd need to reverse engineer somehow.

GerardKeating

zilog_jones wrote: »

I highly doubt they would allow such a thing unfortunately. Even if you managed to access the files stored on the DVR it will all be encrypted in some way.

Sometimes you cannot even watch them with the actual UPC box...

watty

Howitzer wrote: »

thanks for all feedback. Surprised I dont have an a-a usb cable... might get one

in a perfect world I'd plug one in and be able to get my hands on my saved programs... Think it's possible? or pipe dreaming?

Some of those boxes can use a USB hard Drive for extra storage.

A-A cables don't generally work as normal USB one end (A) is Master and (B) end is slave.

There is a miniAB for smart devices that can be slave for PC and host storage or camera. (USB To Go)

You can only play back recordings via the box, but some boxes will play your own photos and Video on USB HDD or Memroy stick or USB SD card adaptor.

If it's an USB "A", then it won't be for PC.

flogen

Howitzer wrote: »

thanks for all feedback. Surprised I dont have an a-a usb cable... might get one

in a perfect world I'd plug one in and be able to get my hands on my saved programs... Think it's possible? or pipe dreaming?

Would be great if you could but I doubt it's possible - your best bet if you want to do that is probably get an RGB-USB device... I just ordered this from DealExtreme... haven't gotten it yet so I don't have a clue if it works.

Would be great if you could plug in USB devices for extra storage or to use the box as a media centre device (plug in a dongle with videos on it or something) but I doubt either are going to happen.

zilog_jones

flogen wrote: »

Would be great if you could but I doubt it's possible - your best bet if you want to do that is probably get an RGB-USB device... I just ordered this from DealExtreme... haven't gotten it yet so I don't have a clue if it works.

Well it's not RGB so prepare to be disappointed. Capture cards (never mind USB dongles) with RGB inputs are very hard to find, and the few professional products that do exist are very expensive. I don't think the DVR outpus s-video either. The most viable way of recording RGB is with a DVD recorder, but of course that will mean encoding into MPEG2 *again*.

flogen

zilog_jones wrote: »

Well it's not RGB so prepare to be disappointed. Capture cards (never mind USB dongles) with RGB inputs are very hard to find, and the few professional products that do exist are very expensive. I don't think the DVR outpus s-video either. The most viable way of recording RGB is with a DVD recorder, but of course that will mean encoding into MPEG2 *again*.

Sorry, meant composite not RGB (I might even be wrong on that - I'm talking about the yellow, white and red cables.)

zilog_jones

Yellow phono is composite video, the other two are audio.

Solair

Newer Sky digital boxes also have USB ports. I suspect they could be used for future interactive services which might require the addition of a mouse and keyboard or a joypad for games.

An external hard drive rumour is also circulating about Sky's USB port too as they only seem to exist on the Sky+/Sky+HD boxes.

There's also a possible music download type service to a player yet to be designed that could end up competing with iPod/iTunes...

Basically, nobody knows, it's quite likely UPC don't even know but just put one there for unspecified future plans.
I suspect the same is true of sky.

As for downloading the content of a DVR or Sky+ box to your PC, basically forget it. The file system's completely proprietary and there is no way that any of these companies will release the details. On top of that, the file content on the disk is usually encrypted and the data stream is decoded when its played back as if it were a normal cable/sat stream.

So, in other words, yes you could add an external hardrive, but only the DVR box could ever play it or authenticate the content of the disk.