tech question

[fox]

Anyone out there who can answer this sight-unseen?

On Saturday, I took my old non-functioning cable box (well, non-functioning; it brought the cable in, but it freaked out and quit working quite a lot, and sometimes even when it was working it haughtily informed me its recording side was unavailable) back to the office and got a new one. And the new one has a USB port in its front. Does this mean I can get stuff off my TV/DVR into my computer? Does it mean I can play things from my computer on the television? Does it, miraculously, mean both? (I see, now that I've found the thing via google, that there's a lot of documentation. So maybe in a few minutes I'll go hunting for the answer myself. :->)

Comments

[jgesteve.livejournal.com]

Most likely the USB port is meant to be used to attach a wireless network adaptor to allow updates to the internal software and the programming schedules via the internet as opposed to either via a phone line or the cable itself.

On a TiVo, there is also software that allows you to copy saved programs to PC and to view PC content on the TiVo, but I'd be highly surprised if any of the major cable companies offer this ability (even if the technology is there to support it - much the same way that Verizon cripples some of their cellphones so that you need to send picture messages as opposed to downloading it via the USB cable it comes with, etc.)

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Ostensibly, the brand of DVR I have is supposed to be able to connect like that, but in reality? It doesn't. I'm pretty sure the cable company had the manufacturer make it specially for them so it wouldn't.

[abka.livejournal.com]

I know little on this topic, but I do know that we can play things from my laptop on the tv, we just had a buy the a black box thingy from radio shack and the right cord.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

According to the manual, the USB port is for connecting to external equipment like a keyboard or mouse. Sounds like WebTV!

It also says that it is reserved for future use. Knowing cable companies, it would suprise me if one of the future uses was connecting to an external storage source. Sure, it would make the receiver far more user-friendly and extensible, but this is the cable company we're talking about. Not to mention that it might be difficult for them to prevent you from making an HD recording of a broadcast and creating a perfect HD digital copy of it on DVD (unless the recorder uses a digital>analog converter).

TiVO does allow you to send recorded video to a computer via Wi-Fi, which is a painfully slooooow process. Not sure if this box has that capability.

[rubyrosered.livejournal.com]

My cable box has several connectors that look very inviting but are, essentially, inactive. My understanding is that it's not just the hardware, but the internal programming that governs whether you can use them or not and as far as I can tell Comcast does NOT want me to use them. I tried to hook my computer to a firewire port at one point and found some interesting suggestions online as to how to get around the Comcast blocks, but when it came to the part where I needed to edit the BIOs on my computer I just gave the whole thing up as a bad idea.

That said, technology is a wonderful thing and with luck you'll have a different experience. Many things are possible and google is a great tool for finding the fixes that aren't necessarily considered general practice. I wish you lots of luck!