How do I hook up an external hard drive to a DVR?

Use external Hard drive to watch movies on TV?

• Is there a way I can hook up an external hard drive to my DVR(Scientific Atlanta 8300HD) to watch movies? If there is what format would the movies have to be in and would it work the other way? Could i save fromt he DVR to the Hard drive to watch on my computer? Thanks

• Answer:

  I am almost positive that this would not work. First you would need to find out which type of format the DVR uses, and second it most likely is a format which that brand of DVR or the Cable provider uses. For instance if you have a Tivo brand DVR the show/movies files are .tivo format and DirecTV Tivo uses a .ty file format. Both are actually a type of MPEG but it has to be converted to even play on a PC. Now with your DVR I do not believe there is a way to connect an external DVR to the DVR. The usb ports are not activated. A better place to ask a question or search for an answer to this would be at http://www.dvrplayground.com I hope this helps you out...