Firstly you need to load your planner, see Planner Loading for details.

From the list of recordings displayed you can select the ones your wish to copy by clicking the check box next to each recording. You can also right click the recording list and click 'Check All' to select all of the recordings.

Once you have selected your recordings, click the hard disk icon on the toolbar.

ExPVR Screenshot

You will then be asked to specify a target hard drive. You can also copy to a disk image by clicking "Create Image", this will backup the selected recordings to your computer.

If you have attached your target hard drive and it is not showing up, make sure that it contains no partitions. Hard drives with partitions are not shown in the list so that a loss of data is prevented.

ExPVR Screenshot

After clicking next, the copy process will start. For large drives this can take some time.

ExPVR Screenshot

Firstly you need to load your planner, see Planner Loading for details.

From the list of recordings displayed you can select the ones your wish to extract by clicking the check box next to each recording. You can also right click the recording list and click 'Check All' to select all of the recordings.

Once you have selected your recordings, simply click the computer icon on the toolbar.

ExPVR Screenshot

Once you have selected a destination for your recordings, they will start to copy to your computer.

ExPVR Screenshot

Note that unregistered versions of ExPVR will only extract the first 200MB of each recording.

Warnings:

The XTV file system is based upon FAT32 but has some important changes. Some utilities try to treat it as a standard file system which is 'broken' and attempt to 'fix' it. For this reason please read these warnings:

  • It is highly recommended that you use an external hard drive caddy. If you choose to install the drive internally you need to watch the windows boot up process carefully and cancel any disk check operations. Windows sometimes tries to 'fix' the hard drive on boot up, corrupting all the recordings in the process. Using and external caddy will negate this risk as you can plug it in once the computer has booted up.

  • Some anti-virus applications can try to write to the disk, so it is recomended that you disable these while your hard drive is connected.

  • Automatic disk defragmenters should also be disabled as these can corrupt the disk.

Firstly you need to make sure you have connected your PVR's hard drive to the computer correctly. A guide on how to do this can be found in the tutorials section.

On opening the application you will be greeted by the following screen:

ExPVR Screenshot

A list of detected Sky+ HD hard disks will be shown the left hand pane. Checking one of these will load it's planner:

ExPVR Screenshot

All of the recordings in the planner will now be shown in the right hand pane. Clicking on a recording will show more detailed information about it at the bottom of the window.

Recordings with a red background are encrypted and will not be viewable on a PC (they can however still be copied to a new Sky+ HD hard disk). Recordings with blue text are Anytime Showcase recordings, and were recorded automatically by your box. Recordings with grey text are deleted recordings which are still in the Sky+ box's recycle bin.

  • ExPVR V3.8.16 Released

    ExPVR V3.8.16 is now available on our downloads page.

    This update fixes the issues affecting recording grouping and on demand content with the new Sky+ planner version on DRX890/5 devices.

    Users who have copies which have been affected by the older ExPVR versions (V3.8.14 and V3.8.15) can fix the grouping issues without needing to perform the copy again using the tool available on our forums.

    Written on Thursday, 27 June 2013 17:08 Be the first to comment! Read 8927 times
  • ExPVR V3.8.13 Released

    ExPVR has now been updated to V3.8.13. This version contains explicit support for the new R006.058.60.00P planner, which has just been rolled out to Sky DRX890 and DRX895 boxes. There are also a number of fixes for copies between legacy and darwin Sky Italia (MySky) boxes and experimental support for reading from Sky Deutschland hard disks.

    This version will now write the newer databases (V2.51) for DRX890/895 devices. For this reason, please make sure that your device is up to date (has at least R006.058.60.00P) before attempting to copy to it if you have a DRX890 or DRX895. Instructions on how to force an update (if your box has not already done this automatically) are available here.

    The new version can be downloaded from the ExPVR downloads page.

    Written on Friday, 10 May 2013 16:38 Be the first to comment! Read 7768 times
  • Brand new website design

    As you may have noticed, the ph-mb.com website has just been updated! It is now running on a customised version of the Joomla CMS which will allow future changes to be made far easier. You can now expect to see far more frequent updates to the content on ph-mb!

    This new system has been extensively tested, but there is a small chance there could be some small bugs. If you do notice anything not working correctly, or just want to give some feedback on the new layout, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or make a post on our forums.

    Written on Thursday, 25 April 2013 00:20 Be the first to comment! Read 7298 times
  • ExPVR V3.7 - Fix for pre-darwin to picasso
    I have just uploaded ExPVR V3.7 to http://www.ph-mb.com/products/ExPVR/downloads. This version contains a rewritten database engine which fixes the issues concerning the new Picasso firmware. There are additionally quite a few bug fixes and some improvements to the copy process and UI.

    The issue with pre-darwin to picasso copies (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=626) has now been fixed and there is now full support for the new picasso features (e.g. the un-deletion support).

    Please visit http://www.ph-mb.com/products/ExPVR/change-log for a full change log.
    Written on Sunday, 13 January 2013 16:17 Be the first to comment! Read 6846 times
  • ExPVR V3.5 Beta - Pre-Darwin Conversion & Disk Merging

    I have just uploaded a new beta version to http://www.ph-mb.com/products/ExPVR/downloads which adds a fair few new features, including support for copying from pre-darwin Thompson boxes (the legacy planner is now converted to the darwin format as part of the copy) and the ability to copy recordings from more than one source drive (disk merging).

    I have also added an option to add the date the recording was made to the beginning of the synopsis of each copied recording. The current sky planner only shows the day of the month, which can be quite annoying for people with older recordings. Obviously this will not work for recordings made after the copy, but it is better than nothing.

    As this is a beta, there may be some issues, but I have tested all the features with my Samsung box, and a Thompson I purchased the other day, and everything seems to be working. One possible problem is that this version is a bit more picky when it comes to the database format (it has to be, as it must also create databases as part of the Thompson conversion and merging features), so if any of the boxes have a slightly different database version it may give an error. If this happens, I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of the databases (PCAT.DB and MFS.DB in the FSN_DATA directory of the sky hard disk) so I can add support.

    Written on Monday, 23 April 2012 10:51 Be the first to comment! Read 7449 times