New T4 ... files on DP2 ..connect or "usb" the old drive?

[mikeyr]

Hi,

I have just purchased a T4 to update from my DP2.
I have a 500g of files on the DP the family still has to work through.

Can I:

A) network the DP2 in a way that I can play files from it, through the T4? How do I do that? Can’t find anything on the forum that explains that. I know another DP can but never had the opportunity

B) take the HDD out of the DP, put in a caddy and attach via USB to the T4 and play from there. Are the file formats compatible?
Any other solutions? I’ve never been able to get the DP2 to reliably “export file”, always craps out..

Cheers

[MrQuade]

There are a few other threads on these forums discussing in more detail, but I can provide short answers for you.

A) No, the T4 cannot play files directly from the DP series over the network. There is currently no equivalent to WizPnP on the T series, and the DP series does not share recordings in any other way than via WizPnP.
One of the forum members has expressed an interest in looking into a WizPnP plugin via the WizFX source code though,
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9369&p=125812

B) The T4 should be able to mount and read the DP's harddisk, but the recording files are in a format that the T4 doesn't understand.

You have a few options, both involving either WizFX, or YARDWiz utilities.

You can use either of those utilities to copy the recordings off to your PC via the network as a series of .ts files. The T4 can read .ts files. You said that your network copies always crap out though. Any ideas why that is? Are you trying to transfer over wireless or something? Have you tried leaving the DP in a menu rather than on a Live TV screen so that it has more power available for the network transfer?

You could initiate the copy from the DP and send them to the PC, but you will end up with files in the native recording format that the T series cannot read. You can also remove the harddisk from the DP and plug it into a Linux PC and copy the files off manually with the same result. Or you can plug a USB drive into the DP and copy the recordings off onto that.
All of these options result in files that the T4 can't play. You'd then need to use WizFX or YARDWiz to convert the files to .ts format.

If you do recover the files from the DP, then I recommend converting them to a more efficient h.264 video format and putting them into .mkv containers using a program like Handbrake.

When I retired my DP-S1, I used YARDWiz to copy the files from the DP-S1 as .ts, then batch converted them all to .mkvs to save some space.

[mikeyr]

Many thanks, had read a lot of posts on this, but that summary brings it together.

Pretty familiar with Wizfx, haven't tried yardwiz. My journey has been long in the epc stakes with the carcass's of egreat's, popcorn hour and even an old clevo set up in HTPC mode .....

The Dp2 with Ice made the whole thing easy! Looking froward to the streaming on the T4!

Many thanks again!!

[Grumpy_Geoff]

... Any other solutions? ...

500GB is a lot to copy, perhaps 50-odd hours to copy over the network or to USB, at ~3 MB/sec with the P2 sitting in the folder list or setup menu and doing nothing else.

Can you leave the P2 in place and connect it to the T4 via the T4's HDMI input (HDMI-IN channel) and watch the P2 files on the T4?
Or again, leave the P2 in place and use either component cables or a HDMI switch into the TV if there's not enough inputs, and watch straight from the P2.

As advised by MrQuade, you can remove the HDD and install into a PC or external HDD dock or case.
If you've a Windows PC only, then boot up using a Linux 'live' CD and copy the program folders/files to 'somewhere accessible'. Once done, reboot back to Windows. Install YARDWiz, use its 'Convert TVWIZ to TS format' Tools entry to concatenate the recorded program segments into a single file for each program.

Or find a Linux or MAC PC, install and use YARDWiz as above to concatenate the recorded segments into a single file.

You can then play the resultant TS files on the T4 from the external drive, network share or T4 HDD itself.

[prl]

... You can use either of those utilities [WizFX, YARDWiz] to copy the recordings off to your PC via the network as a series of .ts files. The T4 can read .ts files. ...

If you want to end up with the files on the T4 (or T2 or T3) rather than on the PC, get the PC to mount the T4's HDD as a network share, then use YARDWiz (or WizFX) to copy the recordings, converting them to .ts files on the fly, direct from the DP to the share mounted from the T4. It means you don't have to have the storage available on the PC to save the intermediate copies you'd otherwise have to have if you copied to PC using a WizPnP tool, and then copied from the PC to the T4 using some other mechanism.

I've done this to copy a program off a DP, and it works, though the bottleneck remains the transfer speed off the DP.

[Bruiser333]

If you do recover the files from the DP, then I recommend converting them to a more efficient h.264 video format and putting them into .mkv containers using a program like Handbrake.

Hi MrQuade, whenever I have transferred files from my DPs (or from my Toppy5000 before that) I have had to demux via ProjectX in order to fix audio sync issues before I could convert & playback reliably on any other device. How did you find Handbrake performed with DP files? No problems?

[MrQuade]

I haven't noticed any sync issues with my converted recordings. Not a lot of mine were edited though. That might make a difference.

[simoncasey]

Many thanks, had read a lot of posts on this, but that summary brings it together.

Pretty familiar with Wizfx, haven't tried yardwiz. My journey has been long in the epc stakes with the carcass's of egreat's, popcorn hour and even an old clevo set up in HTPC mode .....

The Dp2 with Ice made the whole thing easy! Looking froward to the streaming on the T4!

Many thanks again!!

Also, the T4 has a particular naming convention for files that is used to show the recording date/time/channel of the file (you can see it if you browse to the recordings folder using your PC of the file commander). If you replicate the naming convention of the files that you copy off then they you can get them to appear in the media list with the dates of the recordings rather than the file edited date. It makes them look like they were always there.