Copying recorded TV shows from Set top box to my laptop

Sorry to disappoint you, but the content recorded on a STB cannot be viewed on any other system. DTH service providers use a specific encryption to take care of unauthorised copying of the content.
In fact, the content is locked to the particular set top box. Even if you try to use it on another set top box of the same service provider, it will not work on it. No matter whichever software you may use to decode it and save it on another medium, there are little or no chances of being able to achieve it.

However< please note that you can use tools like USB Image Tools to back up the recorded video on your pen drive on your PC. This helps you get more space on your pen drive to use it for further recording once your pen drive is full. But, restore and watch the backed up video, you need to use the software again and the same (I repeat, THE SAME) pen drive. You can only restore the files to your pen drive and watch it on the SAME STB again. Watching it on your PC or other storage media is not possible.

As explained in the earlier answer, you can't play STB file on the Windows. However if you have recorded the file in STR format then that file format is playable on video player software such as VLC. Earlier STR format was not playable other than the internal viewer within the set top box. Now that is not the restriction applicable anymore.

VLC is capable of playing the .STR file format if the version codec supports it. So you have to download and install VLC player on your computer. There are converts such as handbrake that allows you to convert from STR to MP4 or AVI. Make sure you have it installed if you wish to convert the data from one format to another.

It seems the file permission issue can be bypassed by right clicking on the file and opening it with UAC. If you have Windows 7 or 8 (or Win10) then simply right click and choose "open as administrator".

You are forced to ask for UAC because Windows doesn't recognize this file format. And any file format not recognized by the core operating system requires UAC rights. UAC stands for user access control. So this UAC allows you to run the file with specific application which is capable of running it. So UAC comes into the picture even if there is only one user account on the Windows.

You can use the TotalCopy app then you can copy like normal way from the USB to HDD. However if the USB is not allowing you to copy to HDD, then you have to find apps that allow read only file to be unlocked before copying. There are apps that allow you to do this on USB if you search on Softpedia.

Though, the methods indicated in the above response work with most of the files, the basic question about a video file recorded on a STB being able to be viewed on a computer or other medium - none of them seem to work. That is more so because the STB has the recording locked to the particular subscriber ID and the STB.
Besides, the recorded file is divided into several parts and they can be combined and viewed only on by the STB on which they were recorded. As I mentioned in my response above, the video recorded on a STB cannot be viewed on another STB by the same DTH operator, leave alone the possibility of viewing it on any other medium.

You can easily copy the data using active partition recovery.

Hi Anas did you find any way to overcome this issue???