How To Move Videos From Series 3 to Premier

You can't move copy-protected shows or Amazon downloads.

You can re-download your videos from Amazon until April 15th, 2015.

 

Also, just for reference, you don't need any software nor a PC to transfer recordings between TiVos; just plug them into the same network (and make sure they're both active on the account -- otherwise you will have to use an intermediary system). But the same rules apply.

Also also, just to be pedantic, almost everything you watch is copyrighted -- meaning there's an entity that has legal, theoretical control over the right to copy it. The term you're looking for, to describe something that actually can't be copied (due to technical measures), is different. The content industry prefers the nonsensical, warm-and-fuzzy sounding term "copy-protected", and that's what you'll see most often. I prefer the more accurate "copy-prohibited", which sounds as unpleasant as it is.

 

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It would be nice if TiVo would change the language on the screen for copy-protected shows.

Currently it says that transfers are prohibited by the copyright holder. This is complete bull.

Here's my suggestion for a change:

"This program is copyrighted, just like every show you have ever recorded. Your CABLE COMPANY has decided that they don't want you to copy this show to another device, BECAUSE THEY CAN. There is no other reason why you can't copy this program."

 

Except that you are wrong. It is the cable or broadcast CHANNEL (ie. HBO, BBC America, etc.) that sets the copy-protection flag on behalf of the copyright holder. Your cable company has nothing to do with this. In fact, over the air channels sometimes set this flag on their digital signals.

 

If that were true I would expect that all cable companies would have copy protection flags set exactly the same for a given channel. In fact this is not the case. For example, AMC is copy protected in some areas and in others it is not.

 

There's no need to fight -- you're both wrong. Although Arcady is closer.

On Verizon Fios, for example, the flag wasn't used at all, for many years. Then, at the behest of HBO, it was turned on for the HBO and Cinemax channels, only. It still isn't used for anything else, not even Showtime or Starz.

Meanwhile, over on -- TWC, is it? -- the flag is set on everything except for the broadcast channels, which are only spared because the FCC prohibits it being set there. (The "broadcast flag" that used to be used by some OTA stations is a whole other long story.)

In any case, it's specious to say that this is done "on behalf of the copyright holder". The flag is set indiscriminately, on a channel-by-channel basis -- not program-by-program. Even a public domain program, with no copyright holder, will be flagged if it happens to air on a flagged channel. (This is rare, but it does happen -- think pre-1920's movies.)

 

And sometimes some TWC markets set it on the broadcast stuff as well, until someone threatens to call the FCC on them.