Windows Media Center pause buffer

October 9, 2009 7:47 PM

Is there a way to play the pause buffer files created by Windows 7 Media Center?

I watch TV on my PC using a tuner and Windows 7 Media Center. I noticed that it stores the pause buffer data in C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\TempRec in several large files named with a guid and ending in ".tmp.sbf". I was just wondering if there was a way to play these files (or decrypt them if they're encrypted, which they probably are knowing Microsoft) in case I'm ever watching something that I want to save.

posted by zixyer to computers & internet (4 comments total)

On a hunch, drop one into the GUI of MediaInfo and post the output of the text view in this thread. Hopefully we'll luck out and they'll just be the usual weird Microsoft codec-container package.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:14 PM on October 9

No luck there.

General
Complete name                    : C:\Users\Tim\Videos\{4AD4C901-791A-4BA7-BB14-C2EC437AB425}.tmp.sbf
File size                        : 528 MiB

It's probably encrypted. Hopefully someone's working on cracking the DRM.
posted by zixyer at 9:33 PM on October 9

Have u tried renaming it to .WTV and trying to play it back?
posted by wongcorgi at 1:09 AM on October 10

Another option may be using a different player, if VLC or Mplayer works with your tuner, for example, they have very robust options for saving a file as it streams and plays back, and they store streaming file buffers as playable files.
posted by idiopath at 9:30 AM on October 10