topic HDD recording titles - disk format info in Other TVs

HDD recording titles - disk format info

geturne14 — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:27:20 GMT

Having got so fed up with the wrong titles on the HDD recordings, with no expectation of a fix from Sony, I've tried to see what I can do to rename the recorded titles.

I've been using a WD Essentials 300Mb drive for recording. The Bravia TV has formattted it into a number of partitions and volumes, not recognised by Windows, but readable in Linux.

As you'd expect, the largest partition has the actual recordings in a "stream" folder. But in 2 other partitions, there's a "db" folder with a file "0001.db" - which is a SQLite database. These 2 copies appear to be identical.

The database is a pretty straightforward list of the recordings with - hurrah! - a "title" column.

So all you have to do to correct the recording titles is:

1. Get hold of a Linux system with SQLite database browser.

2. Edit the titles in each copy of the database.

What could be simpler? (well, a Rename option in Title List?)

PS. No sign of the Recording Results list...

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

Bravia55HX — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:48:35 GMT

Hi,

im sure that for those with linux systems this would be very useful, however for the vast majority of average joes on here with this issue this would be as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

i blame Sony for not being clear regarding the use of HDD's on their tv's in the first place.

HDD recording titles - disk format info

mijewen — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:10:19 GMT

I blame Sony for a total disinterest in making their products work properly. Clearly, their R&D efforts are all focussed on their revenue streams - getting new products ready for sale. They won't be selling them to me, though. I've had it with Sony.

Message was edited by: mijewen

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

mijewen — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 23:00:00 GMT

I also have been very dissatisfied by Sony's attitude to customer relations. I have a Bravia TV which has a generic code problem when using the Record function with a hard disk - it records the programs OK, but on the list of recorded programs, many of them have the title of the program before. In fact, if the previous program has a few seconds to run when the recording starts, then it picks up the title of that one. The problem is a bit bigger than that, but I won't bore you with the details.

I initially contacted Support about it about two years ago, and have kept up the correspondence tenaciously ever since. I even posted a YouTube clip of the issue, hoping to shame them into doing something about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8pIACClwGk

A concerted lobby from dissatisfied customers might have got things moving a bit quicker, but my last communication was ...

"In response to your query, I have passed your case to the senior who was dealing with the query in order to resolve the issue for you. You will be contacted as soon as an outcome has been released."

... so maybe - just maybe, something will happen - there may be a code update - but it has taken two years to get this far, so don't hold your breath........

It seems to me that the bottom layer of support, who interface with the customer, are terrified by the prospect of escalating to the layer above them.

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

mijewen — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 13:28:54 GMT

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

AmiimA — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 14:44:15 GMT

Thanks for the information. I had not realised that the files on the partitions were from an SQL database.

I am making this post to this thread two years after the thread was started and while I appreciate that using linux to hack around a consumer products failure is a problem, many people will be able to download and run versions of Linux such as Fedora from a CD or USB stick and be able to fix the naming issue without having to install Linux on thier computer's hard disk.

I have a further question. Is there a program for Linux that will allow the watching of the programmes recorded on the Sony disk?

For those interested the rest of this post is information about the partitions on the Sony disk.

I have a computer with an old version of Fedora on it (a Redhat build of Linux) it can and does mount the partitions automatically.

I have a one terabyte drive is split into multiple partitions the first few of which were not accessible.

Here is the same information using a program called parted

# parted /dev/sdc
GNU Parted 1.8.8
Using /dev/sdc
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Model: TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 6423kB 12.8MB 6423kB primary
2 19.3MB 25.7MB 6423kB primary
3 32.1MB 135MB 103MB primary
4 141MB 1000GB 1000GB extended
5 148MB 250MB 103MB logical
6 257MB 525GB 524GB logical
7 525GB 1000GB 476GB logical
(parted) quit

As can be seen below 4 of them are auto-mounted on my Fedora linux box as vfat (windows 95 compatible format): partitions 3, 5, 6, and 7

4 partitions All the files are of type binary (ie that are not text files)

#mount -l
...
/dev/sdc3 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=500)
/dev/sdc6 on /media/disk-1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=500)
/dev/sdc5 on /media/disk-2 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=500)
/dev/sdc7 on /media/disk-3 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=500)

disk

total 512

drwxrwxrwx 2 jsb root 524288 2000-01-01 02:16 db/

total 2560

-rwxr-xr-x 1 john root 73728 2000-01-01 02:16 0001.db

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jbs root 20 2000-01-01 00:45 0001.enc

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 3000 2000-01-01 00:45 0001.sdt

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 20 2000-01-01 00:06 ver.enc

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 5 2000-01-01 00:06 version

disk-1 [NB 1749639168 is about 1.7 GB]

drwxrwxrwx 2 jsb root 524288 2000-01-01 00:45 stream/

total 410657280

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 1749639168 2000-01-01 04:14 01000000.00

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 2455154688 2000-01-01 08:03 01000001.00

...

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 1694945280 2000-01-01 04:46 0100012f.00

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 2408964096 2000-01-01 06:04 01000130.00

disk-2

drwxrwxrwx 2 jsb root 524288 2000-01-01 00:08 db/

total 1536

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 73728 2000-01-01 02:16 0001.db

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 20 2000-01-01 02:16 0001.enc

-rwxr-xr-x 1 jsb root 3000 2000-01-01 02:16 0001.sdt

disk-3

total 512

drwxrwxrwx 2 jsb root 524288 2000-01-01 00:06 stream/

total 0

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

hcr_hassen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 16:16:19 GMT

My understanding is that regardless of the partition and filesystem types, the main problem is that the video files are either encrypted, or in some non-standard format. This is what I gather from reading around, but I wonder if open air broadcast channels are subjected to the same limitations.

Myself, I've never tried to record anything, so no first hand experience.

What sort of broadcast did you try to record?

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 16:23:35 GMT

As a rule of thumb, ANY equipment that can record from a HD tuner in the UK must comply with the DBook standard and enforce encryption on the recorded content. This is mandatory.

It is not mandatory to encrypt SD broadcasts, however many manufactureres (including Sony) encrypt both SD and HD content by default.

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

hcr_hassen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 17:30:40 GMT

I might check eventually how it behaves here (SD, and not the UK variant of the firmware).

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 21:39:18 GMT

I could be wrong here, but I dont think the encryption is FW (software) based, I believe the encryption/decryption is hardware based, and hence the reason why your TV recordings will not work on another Sony TV - even the same model.

I once tried this with my PVR recorder (SVR-HDT500b) from mine, to my mothers. We both have the same model, and transferring recordings failed. I believe TVs are the same.

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

hcr_hassen — Sun, 14 Dec 2014 13:03:01 GMT

Regardless of what exactly does the encryption there will be a key that's written in flash somewhere. It could be the device's serial number, or more likely some hidden internal key. But when to use it will definitely be firmware controlled, and I'm guessing that part is probably not well protected because TV firmware hacking isn't common.

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

chrisbrowe — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:54:58 GMT

Thanks for raising this again, I have done previously.

Can I ask the Mods here to use their contacts with Sony to enquire not if this option will be offered but when? It's really poor that this hasn't been offered so far, It's moreso that this continues surely someone in the product development team has noticed this. Why hasn't the fact that it occurs been resolved in the first place.

I'd do the same myself but the contact EM webpage refuses to cooperate.

Maybe asking North Korea to sort the issue might get this sorted quicker.

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

mroohani43 — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 14:56:32 GMT

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

mroohani43 — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 14:59:36 GMT

@geturne14 wrote:
Having got so fed up with the wrong titles on the HDD recordings, with no expectation of a fix from Sony, I've tried to see what I can do to rename the recorded titles.

I've been using a WD Essentials 300Mb drive for recording. The Bravia TV has formattted it into a number of partitions and volumes, not recognised by Windows, but readable in Linux.

As you'd expect, the largest partition has the actual recordings in a "stream" folder. But in 2 other partitions, there's a "db" folder with a file "0001.db" - which is a SQLite database. These 2 copies appear to be identical.

The database is a pretty straightforward list of the recordings with - hurrah! - a "title" column.

So all you have to do to correct the recording titles is:

1. Get hold of a Linux system with SQLite database browser.
2. Edit the titles in each copy of the database.

What could be simpler? (well, a Rename option in Title List?)

PS. No sign of the Recording Results list...

Re: HDD recording titles - disk format info

manuoleo — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 14:58:52 GMT

Just one little "Up" on this subject. 2017 is here and this bug (wrong title names) is not fixed, nor is the renaming feature available... I make a lot of recordings, and use a rather big HDD, so I have to deal with a long list of wrong titles when I look for something I want to watch.I bought my TV in 2015, when the HDD recording was made available I thought renaming option would come with a next (and quick) firmware update, but still nothing...

Even if the titles naming bug is not fixed (I can understand it is not so easy to pick up the correct title when the recording overlaps the programs before and after the target program), for sure it would not be complex to add at least the possibility to rename the recordings manually. As it was showed by someone here it is just a matter of modifying an information in an SQLLite database. Why is this feature not released (nor planned, it seems) ? It can be found on any low cost external HDD recorder...

Is there something we can do to get this feature ?