Hi everybody,

I have a Laptop and a 'TV with a USB enabled Set-Top-Box'.

Laptop: Intel i3, Linux 17.2.

The Set-Top-Box: Cable MPEG-4. Component video, Three-wire standard. Linux The Set-Top-Box has the USB facility [2Gb-7TB] on which programs can be recorded for later viewing.

What I am attempting to do is;
I want to copy other videos from other sources like Laptop, to the USB and view them on my TV.

What I tried is;
I disconnected the USB from the Set-top-box and mounted it on to the Laptop. However I could not open the contents, may be because of lack of an appropriate software that can read the files and also could not copy, paste files from-to the USB may be because of system permissions or File system differences. Since I am not well versed in computers, I do not understand much of what could be the problem.

What I found was; after a bit of my tinkering here and there was that the file system on the USB is Ext3. On the Gparted it shows that the software embedded on the USB i.e the Set-Top-Box is Linux. Here below is the information got from issuing the 'fdisk -l' command.

What I want to make possible is;
Can the USB somehow be accessed and the videos from my Laptop converted to appropriate formats [I read that Set-Top-Boxes use the .trp formats] and copied to the USB, so that they can be viewed on the TV.

I would very much appreciate any guidance towards achieving this.

Kindly help.

Thank you

what is the manufacturer and model of this set-top-box. my stab in the dark is that it is some sort of proprietary file format (maybe even encrypted) and the manufacturer designed it to prevent people people from tinkering around with it.

Thanks for coming, Schneidz.

Here below is the manufacturer and model of the STB.



I just tried to mount it and open it with root privileges. Here below is the screen shot of what I found.



The recorded video could not be played with VLC. Probably because of permissions. The MediaInfo does not give much of information, except that its aspect ratio is 1.333333 and its size.

I was not able to copy the files, even with root privileges. Permission denied.

The file structure is Ext3. The STB initially asked to format the drive when inserted for the first use. Just to test, I formatted the USB in Ext4 on my Laptop and inserted it in the STB. It didn't accept. But then I removed it and again reformatted it to EXT3 on my Laptop, and it accepted it! I was able to record a program and watch, as normal.

Isn't it possible to use the STB hardware to boot temporarily with a live USB which is installed with another 'open source STB operating system', like I do it with my PC.

My PC is dual boot Windows/Linux. Whenever any of the OSs goes wary, I just insert my Live Linux USB and fully take control of my PC. Can we not do the same thing with the STB? I just want to be able to use the STB Hardware to do whatever is possible with my TV, like playing videos that I want my STB to play. Of course the STB is capable of playing back videos, isn't it?

Thank you again, for your compassionate reply, Schneidz.

Anil

Forget watching those files. No hardware manufacturer lets you bypass DRM, they would go out of business fast if they did.