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Sky+ hd box

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Hi.

The other day my Sky Box froze so I unplugged from the mains and wiped the viewing card. Everything is fine & dandy, but whilst putting the viewing card back, I noticed a USB connector. Can anyone tell me what this is for?

Can I insert a usb stick, and take programmes from my planner so that I could watch any such programmes on my TV upstairs, which has a usb port?

Comments

  • No but you can use it to charge your phone
    4.8kWp 12x400W Longhi 9.6 kWh battery Giv-hy 5.0 Inverter, WSW facing Essex . Aint no sunshine ☀️ Octopus gas fixed dec 24 @ 5.74 tracker again+ Octopus Intelligent Flux leccy
  • Avoriaz
    Avoriaz Posts: 39,110 Forumite
    edited 16 November 2012 at 12:41PM
    That USB connection isn't functional and not all of them provide power.

    The Sky box was designed with a USB connector for a portable Sky player under development that was subsequently dropped.

    More here.

    Even if you could extract programmes via that USB port, you would not be able to watch them on a non Sky+ device as they are encrypted (with the exception of some unencrypted channels such as BBC and C4).

    You can extract those unencrypted programmes and watch them on something else, but you need to physically remove the hard drive (not that easy on the current 890 and 895 boxes) and use a programme called ExPVR to extract recordings to your PC. I do that with some music programmes. For example I will record "Later with Jools Holland", extract the whole recording, edit out the music I want to keep and discard the rest. I can then play the video on my media player. That means that I don't have a Sky+ box full of one hour long programmes with only 5 minutes of music that I want to keep.
  • Poppa_G
    Poppa_G Posts: 100 Forumite
    Thanks Avoriaz, most helpful
This discussion has been closed.
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