oh, and a technical question

[fox]

Do cables exist that are USB-A at both ends?

The reason I ask is this. At my old place, the DVR took the coaxial cable from the wall, right; it also had another coaxial port, from which it connected to the television. The television has three sets of A/V inputs; it connected to the DVD player through video 1, to the VHS through video 2, and to nothing through video 3. The DVR also had at least one set of A/V input and output jacks, so that when I wanted to tape something on a VHS tape from the DVR, I could do this by connecting red/white/yellow plugs between the DVR and the VHS and then choosing the right option from the menu.

My present DVR takes the coaxial cable from the wall, and has no more coaxial ports. It is connected to the television's first video input by component cable. The TV is connected to the VCR by coaxial cable, to the DVD at video 2, and to the Wii at video 3.

I have this year's Oscars in the DVR, and my father has asked me to tape the show for him before I delete it. I can't work out how to do this. I'm out of output jacks on the DVR, and in any case the menu doesn't give me an option to save a program on VHS the way the old one did. The DVR does, however, have many other sockets on the back -- HDMI, SATA, USB, and some others I can't remember right now and don't feel like looking again to see what they are.

So what occurred to me was, if I could hook the DVR to my computer, I could burn the damn thing onto a DVD. But I haven't been able to locate a cable with the right ends. And then I thought, how big is a three-hour television broadcast? What size flash drive would I need to move it that way? (But how would I do this, since the DVR doesn't give me choices other than play, delete, and lock?)

Although now I'm thinking, suppose I run red/white/yellow cables from the DVR to the VHS, and additional red/white/yellow cables from the VHS to the television. The program would then have to go through the VHS to get to the TV, wouldn't it? And I could tape it while it was playing? Somehow that seems like it shouldn't work, but I can't quite think why not.

Some time when I've got a free Saturday, I'm going to take the box to the cable company office and swap it for one like I had at my old place. But even if I could do that now, it wouldn't help me get the program off this one; so in the meantime, anyone have any suggestions? I'm running into the limits of my logical capabilities here.

Comments

[osymandias.livejournal.com]

If it has a SATA port, it's possible you could mount through that, though would depend on how the device presents itself to a computer. If it's got USB A, that suggests it wants to be the controller (perhaps playing video/images off attached storage devices), though, so the same may apply to SATA.

Running it through the VHS would seem to have a reasonable chance of success - the thing you're likely to run into there, however, is that the DVR deliberately broadcasts interference if it detects a VHS output - though whether it can do this through A/V cables as opposed to SCART I don't know. Give it a go?

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I admit that I haven't peered closely enough to see if it's a male or a female USB A. One assumes it's female, for the reason you say - I've found adapter kits that include all six endings and you're meant to be able to change them around, but for some reason that made sense at the time I knew even that wouldn't work.

If I get some time I may also try to call the cable company. I've already told my dad I may not be able to do this - but I will solve the problem for the future, yes I will!, and also, the minute I have the option I'm switching to FiOS, because jesus.