Is this PocketDish any good?

and will this work, tranfering from DVR-942 to PocketDish and then transfer to computer?

http://www.pocketdish.com/connect_computer.jsp

it says full access to HDD. but doesn't mention the content.

It surely will not work that easily. They are not fools.

From what I have read about, the DVR-942 is actually a rebranded version of the Archos AV700E and the specifications are a direct copy from Archos' model, so I would recommend having a look around for opinions on that player to get an idea of the limitations or other potential downsides to the PocketDish, since as the Archos model was the original brand, there would be more reviews made about this.

While the player allows content to be transferred between the player & PC, there is a catch: Any content protected by DRM will only play on the player itself, which means if it is transferred to the PC, it will not play on the PC. Here's a quote from the FAQ on the player:

So, unfortunately while you may have full access to your player's HD, just like you do with the HD on your PC, if the content is copy protected, you can move it about all you like, but don't expect to be able to play it.

As the player has the ability to record audio and video through its analogue inputs, you should be able to transfer recorded content from these connections to your PC. Unfortunately, the quality will not be as good as the original since it goes through a Digital -> Analogue (AV cable) -> Digital conversion process, not to mention re-encoding to MPEG4.

Has anyone confirmed that the files from the DVR have DRM? The internal format for the Dish DVR 522, as I understand it, is just MPEG-2, with the hard drive formatted for a linux filesystem.

I've also been told the "plain" (ie non-dish) Archos unit just looks like a flash drive to the computer and you can copy on MPEG-2 files and they play.

Does the PocketDish Archos unit just look like a flash drive when plugged into your computer? Does it look the same to the DVR? Has anyone actually tried just plugging a big flash drive into a PocketDish enabled Dish PVR and using th PocketDish interface?

It seems to me dish has no compelling reason to pursue strong DRM from the DVR when the TiVo's TiVoToGo lets you do just about anything with TiVo recordings.

Strong DRM would just make Dish less competetive with TiVo.

Appears to me that the PocketDish is limited to 480i/p resolution. So using it to move HD content is a bust, might as well use a DVD recorder.

bollocks