I have a DVR and is there anyway to get the recorded movies off of it and on to my computer. I would like to burn them on to DVD's to watch later.

Uh, it depends on the DVR. Can ya be a little more specific? ;)

The key to a good "help me" post is giving waaay too much information!

Sorry I just thought they were all the same in this aspect.

It is a Motorola DCT6416III, The cable company basicly said it was illegal which I thought was a bunch of crap. What is the difference if I record them with a DVD recorder or with a DVR to DVD.

DVR just means "digital video recorder". It does record shows, but, for the record, it is illegal to record to VCR tapes also :) I am pretty sure you are transferring copyrighted material you don't own (you just pay to watch it) to a source which you own, and most shows are "you cannot replay this" - by replaying it for yourself, you are kinda re-broadcasting it, and you don't have a license to do so. When you buy a DVD, you are paying for the right to rebroadcast as much as you want.

Technically, most DVR's have some kind of "ripping prevention" in place to keep you from ripping movies off the little bastards. I love my Tivo because they're so popular and the user community is so large that several tools have been released to let you connect to the Tivo and rip/decrypt/re-encode the recorded shows with a few simple tools. Your DVR is probably not as popular, so trying to figure that one out might be a challenge :)

I did some searching around for Motorola DCT-6416 hacks and didn't find much of anything.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=295104?

That has some good info about how to ID what software is on your box, which might help others answer your questions.

I would start by looking on the back of your box - is there a firewire port? Is there a USB port? I think you can use the firewire port to do a real-time recording to your PC if you want.

You might find even more info here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR

Thanks, the reason I have this brand is because this is what the cable company gave me. I love it and plan to buy one if I ever downgrade my cable to were I don't get a DVR.

Yes I do have a usb port, and am pretty sure a firewire port.I think i found the softwear I have.

What I got out of the reading everything is what I have to record through my DVR onto my computer, then record on to a DVD.

Exactly. And I think it might only work in real-time, I am not sure you can do it with a pre-recorded show. :confused:

I am not 100% sure about that.

Basically, the typical way for people to do this is to find a way to grab the file off the the hard drive inside the unit. Most of the time, it is required to decrypt/descramble the file, then encode/re-encode it into MPEG format and slap it onto a DVD.

not that I would ever break a copyright....but, you could buy a DVD recorder ($100) and back up all of your "home videos" to it. Simply hook the output from your "device" to the input and it records like VCR's use to. Oh yeah, Not sure if your DVR blocks it but my Dishnetwork DVR never did.

Exactly. And I think it might only work in real-time, I am not sure you can do it with a pre-recorded show. :confused:

I am not 100% sure about that.

Basically, the typical way for people to do this is to find a way to grab the file off the the hard drive inside the unit. Most of the time, it is required to decrypt/descramble the file, then encode/re-encode it into MPEG format and slap it onto a DVD.

Do you know of anyway I could do this. Can it be done no say, a Tivo?

not that I would ever break a copyright....but, you could buy a DVD recorder ($100) and back up all of your "home videos" to it. Simply hook the output from your "device" to the input and it records like VCR's use to. Oh yeah, Not sure if your DVR blocks it but my Dishnetwork DVR never did.

Depends - a lot of digital devices are protected with Macrovision to prevent this - hence why you can't copy a lot of DVD's to VHS videotape. You can get firmware for several DVD players to re-flash the player and kill the macrovision, but ...

Do you know of anyway I could do this. Can it be done no say, a Tivo?

Yeah, thought I mentioned that already :D

Like I said, Tivo has a huge community behind it. Tivos are typically setup with "HMO" (Home Media Option) which lets computers on your network talk to the Tivo. Unless you have a network jack on the back of your Moto box, I doubt this is a possibility for you.

Tivo also have a feature called Tivo To Go, which lets you use the HMO interface to send shows to computers on your network. Once you get ahold of the recorded program, you can use any of several free programs out there to convert them to a viewable/burnable format - Graphedit is one. There is one called autopilot that will let you re-encode the Tivo program into an iPod-compatible video. The opportunities are wide open there.

I haven't dorked around with it much, but my roommate has. I have a server in the basement that I keep my 300GB+ of MP3's on to spool throughout the house. We've been dropping video on it to play from anywhere in the house. Not sure what he's using. One of these days I'll get off my duff and re-encode the 79+ Trucks! TV episodes I have saved right now (after editing out the commercials :D)

Why does there seem to be nothing special about the $800 one? Do any of these look like a good deal? I am not sure If I plan on buying one I am just looking to see what is out there. I paying $7 a month right now to use the cable companies one.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;jsessionid=1LNGMSOR4E1PFKC4D3HVAFI?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=tivo&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories

The larger the internal hard drive, the more it will cost.
If it has two tuners instead of one, it will cost more (lets you watch one channel while live recording another one live).

Those are the big breakdowns on pricing. Find one with a 40GB drive it's going to cost squat, versus the 250GB which is $800.

I would go Series 3 if you can. I have a Series 2.