Dish Network DVR encryption question

[birdman264]

Dish Network DVR encryption question

I have a Dish Network DVR-625. I own the receiver box and I legally pay for Dish and the HBO package. As was noted elsewhere, Dish had begun encrypting HBO awhile ago – however this has been slowly expanding. More and more channels are beginning to be encrypted.

I used the PVRExplorer Pro program, from the Yahoo groups that was developed to allow a subscriber to hook up the DVR HDD to their computer – and copy the recorded programs onto their PC. The DISH DVR’s use a form of Lynux for their operating system – so the PVRExplorer program reads the system structure and allows a user to choose which program it wants – and copy it to their computer in MPEG form. This began not working about a year or so ago – first on HBO and now on more and more channels. The PVRExplorer program would lock up – showing a “ -1x-1 “ error message.

I since began to use another program called Explorer 2fs – which allows me to see the Lynux based operating system on my PC, find the program I want and copy it to my computer. However still, the copied show will not play nor be converted in the numerous programs I tried. And I’m not even trying to copy an HBO program here – I’m trying to view an NBC show I recorded for my wife. Encryption on NBC?

It was first thought and discussed that the DVR receivers themselves were messing with the PVRExplorer program – but I’ve debunked that, now that I have the recorded show on my computer HDD and it still locks up all programs, including PVRExplorer.

The developers of PVRExplorer seemed to have moved on, so there seems to be a dead end now. Does anybody have any suggestions on being able to read/see/convert these files?

I found an older discussion here in the archives with neuron2 and another poster, where it was discovered that there were massive amounts of leading nulls in the beginning of the TSP file. I opened the files up with HEdit and found some of the files had this issue – but it never really made the PVRExplorer screw up. However the HBO and NBC encrypted programs did NOT have the leading nulls – yet still could not play in anything.

Here is a PVRExplorer log from a successful copy of a program:
<< Extract Log File >>
<< Program Information >>
0 ( File )
es8029.tsp ( -- )
<< Program Description >>
Local File
<< Stream Information >>
Video: 544x480 at 29.97fps
Audio: L=II 48kHz at 160Kbs offset:-0.011567 s
Bytes Processed: 117538816
Total Bytes 117538816
Stream Play Length: 0:05:31:28
Proccessing Rate: 21.37 MBs
<< End Log File >>
Also attached is a successful DEBUG log from copying a program over.


Now, here is a PVRExplorer log from a UN-successful copy of an HBO program – up until it locked up:
<< Extract Log File >>
<< Program Information >>
0 ( File )
es8000.tsp ( -- )
<< Program Description >>
Local File
<< Stream Information >>
Video: -1x-1 at -1.00fps
Audio: AC3 48kHz at 32Kbs offset:0.000000 s
Bytes Processed: 290308096
Total Bytes 1483997184
Stream Play Length: 0:00:00:00
Proccessing Rate: 6.60 MBs
<< End Log File >>
And finally, I also attached the unsuccessful DEBUG log from PVRExplorer of the above run.


Any suggestions here will be appreciated. I suppose I could take a snippet of an encrypted file and uplink it if someone wants to give it a try – if we’re allowed to do that. The file is 1.5GB, but I suppose I could cut it down with HEdit – and just post a few KB’s… whatever you guys think.

Could this be the Nagravision 2 encryption that others were talking about in other threads – being used on multiple non-premium channels now?

I appreciate any and all suggestions. This ones a doozy.

[birdman264]

This was a follow up post in the usergroup that I made... and got no response:


IMHO, there appears to be an encryption issue here. I spent the night
working on this... I have a mix of recordings on my 625, from non-
encrypted channels and encrypted channels. Here's what I found...

I have several recordings from HBO that will not transfer and locks
up with the -1x-1 issue, when using PVRExplorer. I looked up the file
name in the Debug log and then found and transfered it using
Explore2fs with no problem... it is now on my computer. But it won't
play in anything I tried opening it with. From VideoRedo to various
MPEG-2 Transport Stream converters to you name it... they're DOA.
The .tsp files will not do anything.

To confirm, I found some recordings from kid off of the Cartoon
Network. I first copied it to my computer via PVRExplorer with no
problem; I then also looked up that files name on my 625 and went in
and extracted it via Explorer2fs -- again, with no problem. But this
time when I tried to play it on my computer... it worked with no
problem. I opened the .tsp file in several different programs with no
problem.

So the differences above, leads me to believe that there is some sort
of encryption issue -- or something in the file that is pointing to a
key on the 625 that is needed for it to work.

For some more info... most programs I tried opening the "encrypted"
versions said "cannot open file" or "cannot render file" or "file
type not supported". I checked the CODEC in G-Spot and it came up as
MPEG-2 Transport Stream... so that I did confirm. However, when I
tried opening the file in VideoRedo, it first said, "Unable to open:
E:\es8000.tsp" and "Buffer too small to store sequence header"...
then said, "Unable to open file: E:\es8000.tsp

So there you go... unless the wizards work this out, as DISH encodes
more channels (or whatever they're doing)... the PVRExplorer will
become a thing of the past.

[setarip_old]

I have several recordings from HBO that will not transfer and locks
upSo the differences above, leads me to believe that there is some sort of encryption issueThis is nothing new. As far as I know, and for as long as I can remember, "premium" channels such as HBO have been encrypted - with the understanding that their presentations are not yours to do with as you please...

[birdman264]

As I stated in the first post, I pay for Dish and pay for the HBO package each month -- and have for 5 years. The channels are decrypted for me by Dish for my viewing... I'm not looking to steal the service; I'm just looking to copy it for myself. Making recordings for personal use, clearly falls under Fair Use... but that's a whole 'nother discussion, not for here.

Back to the topic...

In the past, recordings from HBO copied fine... however, that changed earlier this year... they must have made a change somehow. They no longer copy. Futhermore, NBC channels are not considered "premium"... NBC channels including my local station, as well as the other Universal channels like Sci-Fi channel. None of them will copy anymore -- they all appear to have the same post-encryption on them. Dish has been slowly doing this to more and more channels... and not just the "premium" channels.

I'm just seeing if anyone has found a workaround yet for it.

[rcubed]

As I stated in the first post, I pay for Dish and pay for the HBO package each month -- and have for 5 years. The channels are decrypted for me by Dish for my viewing... I'm not looking to steal the service; I'm just looking to copy it for myself. Making recordings for personal use, clearly falls under Fair Use... but that's a whole 'nother discussion, not for here.

Back to the topic...

In the past, recordings from HBO copied fine... however, that changed earlier this year... they must have made a change somehow. They no longer copy. Furtherrmore, NBC channels are not considered "premium"... NBC channels including my local station, as well as the other Universal channels like Sci-Fi channel. None of them will copy anymore -- they all appear to have the same post-encryption on them. Dish has been slowly doing this to more and more channels... and not just the "premium" channels.

I'm just seeing if anyone has found a workaround yet for it.

Birdman264,
The Video on Demand channels on cable have been implementing a protection mechanism that provides a flag that prevents shows from being copied. :mad: At least in the case of cable if the video out signal from the cable box (not sure about a DVR) is fed through one of the "filtering" boxes available this signal is removed, the video (either component or s-video) signal can then be captured using such things as a Canopus AVDC capture box to an AVI file on the computer HD then encoded to whatever format you wish. I would assume the same could be done as a video input to an internal capture card or other capture device. There is software which can capture and directly (realtime) encode the signal from a box such as the AVDC to MPEG the same may apply to a capture card.

Depending on the support offered by the encoding hardware/and or software a fast CPU may be required. In the case of an AVI file 5 minutes of video/audio produces about 1G of data ones needs lots of HD space.

The DVR is probably honoring the copy once/copy never etc flag which is transmitted with the originating signal from NBC or HBO and not allowing the digital files to be copied / read out.

The encripting issue was discussed in the videohelp forum thread http://forum.videohelp.com/topic300496.html

There are additional black boxes available other than the one discussed in that forum. You may have to do some "Googling" to find them.

I realize this doesn't solve your immediate problem of pulling the digital files out of the DVR. I don't know if there are any software packages that will remove the protection and allow direct digital copying.

I don't have any experience doing this filtering on the video output of a DVR with previously recorded data. Maybe someone in the forum can supply additional information on whether or not this will work. If possible I would suspect the encoding by the DVR/decoding by the DVR and then encoding by a capture device would suffer a picture quality loss. Capturing the original source would produce a better quality capture.

I hope this helps.

rcubed