So I got my Firewire cable (as I knew he would, the FedEx guy finally came when I decided to stop waiting and go for a walk, though I spotted him and was able to get back in time). I ran it from the DVR to the computer, turned the DVR on, and the Windows "Add New Hardware Wizard," as expected, popped up to install the drivers.
...
Therein lay the problem.
While I had no driver disk, I thought that Windows would either download drivers from the Internet, or, and this is what I was mostly expecting, it would just recognize the DVR's hard drive as a hard drive in much the same fashion that it recognizes the hard drive in my MP3 player.
Neither proved to be the case, and though Windows recognized that something was connected to the computer, it couldn’t learn how to use it.
So that was discouraging, but, undaunted, I went out onto the Web to find some kind of workaround.
And I did.
Only it didn’t work, so it wasn’t so much a workaround as a…well, just an “around,” I guess.
Actually, the workaround wasn’t really what I wanted anyway. What I wanted was a direct transfer from one hard drive to another, but the workaround essentially involved using the Firewire port to do the same thing that I can already do via my TV tuner card.
Kind of, at least.
Basically, it involved installing a driver for the DVR that would allow Windows to recognize it as a video source, then running a program that would encode the video (and audio) stream directly to the hard drive.
The problem was that I couldn’t get the software to recognize that the driver for the DVR was installed.
But like I said, this would essentially be the same as using my TV software to record a program to my hard drive, and would not be the simple drag and drop transfer I was looking for.
The one advantage to this system, though, would be that it would bypass my TV tuner card, so, for example, I could encode HD video files directly to my hard drive without losing quality due to the limitations of my tuner card, which is not an HD tuner.
But, like I said, it didn’t work anyway.
So that brings the total number of Firewire cables I’ve purchased for no reason to two.
That wouldn’t bother me so much if they were cheap, but they’re on the pricey side, particularly considering that they’re useless to me.
But whatever. In the future I may still acquire Firewire devices.
If nothing else, my external hard drive does have a Firewire connection, so if I wanted, once it arrives I could sacrifice 40 Mbps of speed and use the Firewire connection rather than the USB 2.0.
We’ll see, I guess.
On the topic of the DVR, the other night I set it to record “Bowling for Columbine,” and today I decided to watch it.
No matter what you may think about Moore or his views, or the spin he places on the information presented, there’s no denying that “Bowling” is interesting. Personally, I found the animated “Brief History of the United States” especially entertaining.
One of the most famous scenes from the movie involves Moore, who is himself a lifetime member of the NRA, going into a bank and opening up a CD and receiving a rifle for it.
I found the scene kind of funny, as the bank that he went to, which is in Michigan, was a bank that I used to have an account with when I lived there (though of course he had gone to a branch in the lower peninsula).
For those of you wondering, the rifle was not his “free gift” for opening an account. Basically he received the rifle in lieu of getting interest on the CD. That’s actually not too unusual back home. In some cases you can get other, less lethal items, such as grandfather clocks, though I suppose that you could kill someone with a grandfather clock, if you were of a mind to do so.
As I said, the movie was interesting, and it’s something that I may write more about some other time (consider that topic tossed into the 99 Cent Bargain Bin of Ideas).
I’m sure you’ll note that this entry is not accompanied by a picture of Rachael Leigh Cook. Because I was busy messing with the Firewire thing for a while and then I watched “Bowling,” I never got around working on it again.
I’m sure that I’ll have plenty of time over the weekend to work on it (even her accursed, yet lovely, hair), though, since I’m not working for most of it.
However, I am working tomorrow, so that’s going to do it for now.
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