Transfer files from old Toppy

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   I can't find this topic covered elsewhere, but am sure it is a common issue.
I have an old Toppy 4400 which has served well for many years, and have just recently purchased a new 7160. I have a lot of recordings on the old machine that I would like to transfer on to the new one, so was wondering if this is possible, and if so, what is the best method.

I do not have the network set up, but do have an external USB drive and of course a computer running Windows.

Any suggestions welcome, as I have already convinced the other family members that it can be done - part of my sales pitch for the new machine! 

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rewind Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Topfield Fan Joined: 31/Jul/2010 Posts: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote rewind Report Post Quote Reply Topic: Transfer files from old Toppy Posted: 31/Jul/2010 at 9:42am
	I can't find this topic covered elsewhere, but am sure it is a common issue. I have an old Toppy 4400 which has served well for many years, and have just recently purchased a new 7160. I have a lot of recordings on the old machine that I would like to transfer on to the new one, so was wondering if this is possible, and if so, what is the best method. I do not have the network set up, but do have an external USB drive and of course a computer running Windows. Any suggestions welcome, as I have already convinced the other family members that it can be done - part of my sales pitch for the new machine!

RE Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 06/Nov/2009 Location: Toronto NSW Posts: 1194	Post Options Post Reply Quote RE Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 31/Jul/2010 at 10:26am
	The procedure would be to copy the recordings from the old PVR to the external HDD, connect the HDD to the 7160, open the Recorded Programs list on the 7160 and use the (<<) or (>>) button to change to another list where you can then select the external HDD and then you should be able to play the recordings as media files. Provided 1) the 7160 sees the .rec files and 2) it plays them OK. If it doesn't see the .rec files the first thing to try is just change the file extension from .rec to .mpg and if this doesn't work then you will need to convert the recordings from .rec to .mpg so as to remove the header detail added to .rec recordings (which I assume would be why they wouldn't play) All this is the theory. It shouldn't be too difficult to test by trying one recording from the old PVR. Note the newer 7160 firmware allows it to read ntfs formatted drives otherwise Ext2 would be the recommended file format.
	Robert

rewind Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Topfield Fan Joined: 31/Jul/2010 Posts: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote rewind Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02/Aug/2010 at 4:00pm
	Thanks RE - if only it were that simple! The first stumbling block is that the 4400 does not support an external HDD. I have now actually done this transfer. Here's what I had to do... First I opened up the 4400 and removed the drive. I thought I might give it a shot to connect this drive to the 7160 via an external caddy. It's an IDE drive, and caddies for these are scarce nowadays, but I had an old one. Straight up the new toppy wouldn't recognise the ext2 drive format. I then connected the old drive to my computer, and used the program "TopfHDRW" to access the drive. It worked, and I was able to copy the files over to an NTFS external drive. This was a very slow process, taking several hours. The 7160 could now read the files off the external drive, but it didn't recognise the old ".rec" file format. Therefore, I had to convert them to .mpg. I searched the net and there are many very complex ways to do this. However, I eventually found the program "VideoRedo", which specifically supports Toppy .rec files. This worked, and was fairly fast. The 7160 can now play the converted .mpg files off the external drive, and can copy them to the internal. Some features (fast forwarding, program info etc) went missing, but picture and sound quality is excellent, and there is a significant reduction in file size.