Media

Michael wants to know if he can get the programs off his TIVO. Leo says it was possible with the Series 1 TIVO. But now the data is encrypted, so it's almost impossible to decrypt it and copy it off. TiVo does have a feature called TIVO to Go, but the only way he could really do it is to exploit the analog hole. That will lower the quality a bit, but he can use the analog connections that would go to his TV and connect them to a recorder. Then he could play the content back and record it in real time. It can be complicated though, because of HDCP.

Richard has some old 8mm home movies that were transferred to DVD. They were transferred out of order and he wants to redo them, re-edit the video files, etc. Leo says that those DVDs are a treasure chest but he'll need to make sure he gets those videos off them and onto a hard drive, because sooner or later that DVD may not be playable. Is there something online that he can use? Leo says that video files are too big to upload to the cloud.

Chris has an old iPod Classic. But since his PC died, he needs to find a safe way to get his music off his iPod and back onto his new computer. Leo says that Apple doesn't let you do that because they're afraid of piracy. But there are third party options on both Apple and PC.

Isaac has a nice Sony home theater system. But with 4K, he wants to know if the difference in quality is worth rebuilding it in 4K. Leo says that Blu-ray is not only 4 times the resolution as 1080p, it also has the high dynamic range and that's more important. If his home theater supports HDR, then there's no problem. If not, he may want to think about it. Moving forward, he can start picking up UHD HDR Blu-rays for his collection. Billy Lynn, Master and Commander, the BBC Earth series — all are excellent.