____________________________________________________________
What are the odds that I'd have two 6412's with solid subscription bug/zero length record issues?
____________________________________________________________

I don't believe its a bad box. I think its an issue that has been repeated in many boxes in many markets. It does definitely seem to be tied to what channel you are attempting to record as I don't have the problem ever occur except on CBS HiDef where I am always seeing the 'need to subscribe' screen. I am having to just schedule all CBS recordings on the digital channel rather than the HiDef channel for now. I sure hope this is a temporary problem that Cox or Pioneer can fix, since almost all the shows that we like to record and watch happen to be on CBS!

Just for information:

I have every channel and service that cox's has, and I only saw the subscribe problem only once on the first box I had replaced.

After that, I've recorded all the shows from the major channels, SD and in HD and I have NEVER had 0 time recording or the subscribe issue since.

In one of the earlier posts someone complained about the time change happening and screwing up the recording times, nope never had it or the series manager not working.

I'm not trying to say my box is better then anyone elses but the unit must have something to do with it as well.

Plus when I had the engineer bring out the second box, he was saying that he couldn't believe cox was having the boxes shipped in the mail (ups, opps did i drop that package?) and the number of returns they were having on the box.

I hope this helps...

____________________________________________________________
I have every channel and service that cox's has, and I only saw the subscribe problem only once on the first box I had replaced.

After that, I've recorded all the shows from the major channels, SD and in HD and I have NEVER had 0 time recording or the subscribe issue since.

In one of the earlier posts someone complained about the time change happening and screwing up the recording times, nope never had it or the series manager not working.

I'm not trying to say my box is better then anyone elses but the unit must have something to do with it as well.

Plus when I had the engineer bring out the second box, he was saying that he couldn't believe cox was having the boxes shipped in the mail (ups, opps did i drop that package?) and the number of returns they were having on the box.
____________________________________________________________

Videooooguy....we would be very interested in your opinion about this issue. Is it a known software issue with Echo or a hardware issue with the Motorola box? Should we as Cox subscribers be asking for new boxes if we are having the '0' length recording problem? Thanks for your input?

Originally posted by moyekj
For sure the buffer time varies depending on if you are tuned to HD or SD channels, and it probably varies according to available disk space as you mentioned.

It doesn't vary on my 6412 at all. No matter the source I have a 60 minute buffer working on both tuners. I was watching Jordan while recording last nights NFL game on ESPN and had an hour buffer on each.

Greetings all,

I hope this is in the correct forum. I recently had a HD DVR installed by Cox Comm (Orange County CA.).

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

1. Why is the SD picture so much better on the HD channels then the corresponding SD channel? (11 vs. 711)

2. Why is the SD picture on 707 wider then the other SD pictures on the HD channels?

3. Is there any way of telling how much record time I have left?


Thanks very much. Brad

Newbie thread merged.

RACER -

1) the analog station that corresponds to the same HD digital channel should definitely not look as good as the digital station. that's what HD is all about. i think the 707 channel you are talking about might be a local DIGITAL channel, correct? (not SD)

2) your SD picture might be stretched because your TV locks into "full" mode with a progressive signal (the box can send SD as 480p, it might have defaulted to that). My Tv does this "lock"....so i go into the service menu of the cable box (just press the menu button with the cable box off to access this) and fool around with the 4:3 settings....i have mine set to 480i/4:3 override:off and it seems to properly scale 4:3 SD programming to my TV. try the different settings with that and see what happens.

3) no accurate way of telling how much recording space you have left other than just adding up what you have in your head.

hope this helps

Originally posted by oleus

3) no accurate way of telling how much recording space you have left other than just adding up what you have in your head.

hope this helps

As previously posted:

A quick way to check your disk space and firmware version on the 6412:

Hit the settings button to bring up the menu. Highlight the "SAP Play Secondary Audio" option. Hit the following buttons in order: Select, Down Arrow, B, Up Arrow, B. A menu will pop up. The first line is the free space available on the drive, the second line is the time currently in the two buffers, and the third line is the total time of the current recordings. Figure about 8GB for 1 hour of recorded HD. The firmware version is listed across the top of the menu. This works for the older firmware and the new 9.11 firmware. CAUTION: on my box leaving the SAP on will block out audio and video on SHOHD and STARZHD.

Originally posted by oleus
RACER -

1) the analog station that corresponds to the same HD digital channel should definitely not look as good as the digital station. that's what HD is all about. i think the 707 channel you are talking about might be a local DIGITAL channel, correct? (not SD)



I think I explaned it wrong. Channel 7 is ABC SD, channel 707 is ABC HD. When channel 707 HD is showing something that's not in HD, it still looks better then channel 7 (even though both are showing the same show and it's in SD).

In other words, both channels are showing the same SD show, but the one on the HD channel looks better (even though it's not in HD)

Originally posted by ysr_racer
I think I explaned it wrong. Channel 7 is ABC SD, channel 707 is ABC HD. When channel 707 HD is showing something that's not in HD, it still looks better then channel 7 (even though both are showing the same show and it's in SD).

In other words, both channels are showing the same SD show, but the one on the HD channel looks better (even though it's not in HD)

That would be expected also...

Two Separate feeds from KGO...Channel 7 is the analog Feed (and then converted to digital by the 5100/6200..which does a pretty bad job of A/D conversion). Channel 707 is still a digital feed in 480i (which will look much better than its analog counterpart)

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
To all who have asked recently ...

We're still on track to install the "Halloween" fixes by mid-November. I know it's difficult, but please try to be patient as we complete our testing.

Thanks!

It looks like Omaha got the Halloween fixes on November 10 the dvr turned off and downloaded new firmware and now says firmware 0.912. Any idea what the updates were or is mainly fixes and no new features.

My mistake cox in Omaha says it was a EOD software fix, but if was only a EOD software update why did the firmware and passport echo software version number change?

Andrew Wees

Mainly bug fixes are included. I've detailed them in prior posts.

It's more than an EoD software fix - there were also fixes to the OS and guide.

However, on Motorola set-tops the software is built as a single software image containing the OS, Passport guide, and EoD client. It's one big piece of software referred to as a Monolith.

Originally posted by ajwees41
It looks like Omaha got the Halloween fixes on November 10 the dvr turned off and downloaded new firmware and now says firmware 0.912. Any idea what the updates were or is mainly fixes and no new features.

My mistake cox in Omaha says it was a EOD software fix, but if was only a EOD software update why did the firmware and passport echo software version number change?

Andrew Wees

Last night, new software was loaded in the Orange County headend which was designed to fix the HD channel video tiling and macroblocking. I'd be interested to hear if anyone notices differences today. I expect the HD picture quality has improved significantly.

The OS and Passport-ECHO changes are still upcoming ... scheduled to be downloaded into Orange County DCT6412s around November 17th.

Thanks VideooooGuy,

I tested it out, swapped tuners, jumped back and forth in time, basically jerked the box all around for 10 min. No evidence of any tiling or macroblocking. Before, if I rewound at all, the tiling started up every time.

That's one down!

BUT..... I'm still missing my CBS-HD shows. Last night's CSI NY was skipped without any signs from the box, no zero-length recording, just not there. I checked the guide last night (after the show time) and it only had data till Fri morning (1.5 days).

I pulled the plug, it restarted, and then had NO guide data at all. I gave up and went to bed. This morning, the guide data is back.

The subscription bug is still solid at my house, CBS HD (702) keeps putting up the on screen banner whenever I power up the box on 702. Will the 17th Echo release do anything?

So Omaha has the Halloween fixes is that correct?

When will the guide hole bug be fixed in Omaha?

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Mainly bug fixes are included. I've detailed them in prior posts.

It's more than an EoD software fix - there were also fixes to the OS and guide.

However, on Motorola set-tops the software is built as a single software image containing the OS, Passport guide, and EoD client. It's one big piece of software referred to as a Monolith.

Originally posted by Ed Rempalski
Thanks VideooooGuy,

I tested it out, swapped tuners, jumped back and forth in time, basically jerked the box all around for 10 min. No evidence of any tiling or macroblocking. Before, if I rewound at all, the tiling started up every time.

That's one down!

BUT..... I'm still missing my CBS-HD shows. Last night's CSI NY was skipped without any signs from the box, no zero-length recording, just not there. I checked the guide last night (after the show time) and it only had data till Fri morning (1.5 days).

I pulled the plug, it restarted, and then had NO guide data at all. I gave up and went to bed. This morning, the guide data is back.

The subscription bug is still solid at my house, CBS HD (702) keeps putting up the on screen banner whenever I power up the box on 702. Will the 17th Echo release do anything?

Nope, there is still tiling... I recorded amercian chopper on HD at the same time as recording HD1 channel, then I went in to pre-recorded shows and watched a SD program, did fast forward, rewind, paused.. then went back to live tv on the HD channel and the tiling came back, I have to admit it wasn't as bad as before but it was still there on all the HD channels after I stopped the records...

Yes, quality does look better.

Originally posted by Sugrat
Nope, there is still tiling... I recorded amercian chopper on HD at the same time as recording HD1 channel....

Folks in OC, the acid test for this new head-end fix is to have both tuners on HD channels, with one of the channels recording, then invoke one of the transport functions. I am out of town right now so I can not do this myself.

Thanks again VideoooGuy.

niesman

Ok here's my report from Orange County (Irvine to be exact). So far, so good (knock on wood). I gave it a pretty decent workout, tested as much as I could, and NO TILING! Both tuners on HD, watching a pre-recorded HD show, pausing one tuner, swapping to the other, rewinding, skipping back to live, returning to previous tuner, etc. Also having one tuner on an SD channel and fiddling around with it and then returning to the other tuner on an HD one and rewinding, playing, going back to live, watching live for a few minutes. Looking good so far!!

Swapping between tuners seems a tad slower (a black pause, maybe .5 seconds slower than it used to be), but maybe I'm just dreaming things. Other than that, PQ seems real good.

Great work! Even if the tiling problem does manage to creep its ugly head back up, I'm pretty impressed and have full confidence that COX will be right on top of it.

-T

Just a quick update here in Wichita.....It seemed like we were bug free for awhile there since dual tuners were uploaded in Oct. but I noticed severe tiling was back tonight while watching In Theaters on INHD1 and also on the digital cartoon channels, which may have always been there because I've never tuned to those channels until today when I had family over. But I haven't seen the no subcription pop-up and have had only 1 1-min. recording.

James

OK, my report:

I am technically in Palos Verdes Cox area so I don't know if the headend update has been applied in my area, though I am close to OC...so if it has not been applied to my area obviously my observations don't matter.

I am still getting tiling, seems to be essentially the same as before. I cannot seem to pin down consistently what's going on. I spent some time switching back and forth while recording two HD channels, pausing, etc and sometimes it was fine and other times it had bad tiling. I wonder if it is specific channels? ABC (707) and Fox (711) seem to always have tiling while NBC (704) and CBS (702) usually seem tile-free. The INHD channels are hit and miss.

I have never had a problem with the subscription or zero-length bugs.

Damon

Headend fix definately has improved things visually here in OC, and I couldn't get HD tiling bug to re-appear no matter what I tried - and I tried a lot of stuff tonight. The subscription bug did appear on a couple of occasions when I switched to different HD channels. Motion artifacts were not apparent on most channels I watched with the exception of NBCHD which has always been bad at motion artifacting - that is NBC problem.

I would say the headend fix has greatly improved if not eliminated the HD tiling bug. We need another week or so of thoroughly working out the box and dealing with different broadcast bit rates to be sure the problem is gone for good, but so far at least from my tests seems very encouraging.

These were average bit-rate measurements tonight from 2 min clips of each HD channel I subscribe to. Sorry, don't subscribe to premium channels so can't include those:

abchd 13.11Mbps (1280x720p, 60fps)
cbshd 15.22Mbps (1920x1080i, 30fps)
dischd 17.33Mbps (1920x1080i, 30fps)
espnhd 17.48Mbps (1280x720p, 60fps)
foxhd 9.18Mbps (1280x720p, 60fps)
inhd1 14.5Mbps (1920x1080i, 30fps)
inhd2 10.52Mbps (1920x1080i, 30fps)
nbchd 17.19Mbps (1920x1088i, 30fps)

Originally posted by quicksilver
Just a quick update here in Wichita.....It seemed like we were bug free for awhile there since dual tuners were uploaded in Oct. but I noticed severe tiling was back tonight while watching Sorry, Kansas, it seems that there's only so much Cox bandwidth to go around the country. It's OC's turn to now get our share.

Seriously, the true "acid test' will be when HD channels are without artifacts and tiling is eliminated during transport functions for 30 days in a row. Like quicksilver, I have also had a few good HD days before and have gotten my hopes up. We'll see...29 more days to go!

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Last night, new software was loaded in the Orange County headend which was designed to fix the HD channel video tiling and macroblocking. I'd be interested to hear if anyone notices differences today. I expect the HD picture quality has improved significantly.

The OS and Passport-ECHO changes are still upcoming ... scheduled to be downloaded into Orange County DCT6412s around November 17th.

VideooooGuy, how about CT. The firmware version on my 6412 is still 9.11. Has Cox updated the headend? 2 out of my last 3 scheduled recordings were 0 length ... very frustrating. Does the Nov 17th fix address this problem?

Thanks.....

Originally posted by apaulct
2 out of my last 3 scheduled recordings were 0 length ... very frustrating. Does the Nov 17th fix address this problem?

Thanks.....

Well,

Considering that he has said:
The "subscription bug" has been difficult to track down, but is at the top of the list of things we're working on with Pioneer. Sorry, nothing to report on this yet. I'd love to get more specifics on the circumstances or any other details that might be valuable in tracking this down.

The "zero minute recordings" bug can be caused by the "subscription bug" just mentioned.


...The answer I'm assuming is no. :(

To refresh everyone's memory, here's what he said would be included in the update:
In summary ... there is a new version of software (Motorola OS update and Pioneer Guide update) that we're hoping to install in early November. Here's a partial list of the problems fixed:
* HD tiling bug
* Negative length recording when recording a program already in progress
* Incorrect video positioning when going from FF to Play
* Playing a zero-length recording can freeze the STB

There will also be some new features I'll talk about as we get a bit closer.


...Which does make me wonder what the "new features" are...

--Walburga

Day 2 after latest headend fix here in OC and NO HD TILING still even after another heavy workout of the box tonight. I'm curious if Sugrat still has any HD Tiling issues given as that seems to be the only report of a problem following the fix.

Videoguy does Omaha the OS and Passport-ECHO changes you are talking about or was the updates I reported on the 10th just to fix the EOD problems?

You also said there will also be some new features I'll talk about as we get a bit closer. When will be able to talk about the new features?

Andrew Wees

No tiling here in Irvine since the fix either, but I did have some bad freezing on showtime HD even after changed the channel and back. Don't know if that was a showtime problem, Cox problem or box problem yet. Anyone else have problems with showtime HD tonight?

Sho HD freezes and pixelates every 10 seconds for me. Unwatchable.

Originally posted by moyekj
Day 2 after latest headend fix here in OC and NO HD TILING still even after another heavy workout of the box tonight. I'm curious if Sugrat still has any HD Tiling issues given as that seems to be the only report of a problem following the fix.

Recorded a couple of shows on Friday night and doesn't seem to be a problem but i wasn't really working the box either.

What I have noticed now on my unit is that i've got the subscription problem now :-( someone from oc cox must have read my post and 'done me in' :-) it's only happened once so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Can someone please tell me how to activate the front or rear inputs into the 6412. I am trying to plug my minidv into it and I have not been able to figure out how.

Thanks

Originally posted by gpttigers
Can someone please tell me how to activate the front or rear inputs into the 6412. I am trying to plug my minidv into it and I have not been able to figure out how.

Thanks Those composite input connections are not active AFAIK with the current firmware.

Went through the weekend waiting in New England for the 9.12 upgrade and still no update.

We need this upgrade from 9.11 to 9.12 here in New England too!

Joe3, the HD Tiling fix implemented in Orange County, CA was a headend fix implemented at the Cox end, not a firmware update - i.e. we are still on 9.11 release. This Wednesday OC is supposed to get a firmware update and I don't think it's been established the exact version # or even all the fixes enhancements included - some of the expected fixes are listed a few posts ago.

Moyekj
-Thanks

Orange County (along with Hampton Roads, VA and New Orleans) is still scheduled for Tuesday night after midnight. Orange County will receive TCAS5709 (the specific version of DCT6412 software to be downloaded). All of the expected fixes are included.

Roanoke, VA is scheduled for Wednesday night.

New England is scheduled for Thursday night.

Originally posted by moyekj
Joe3, the HD Tiling fix implemented in Orange County, CA was a headend fix implemented at the Cox end, not a firmware update - i.e. we are still on 9.11 release. This Wednesday OC is supposed to get a firmware update and I don't think it's been established the exact version # or even all the fixes enhancements included - some of the expected fixes are listed a few posts ago.

VideooooGuy When Will Omaha NE 6412's be updated with fixes? You seem not to mention Omaha when you posted earlier.

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Orange County (along with Hampton Roads, VA and New Orleans) is still scheduled for Tuesday night after midnight. Orange County will receive TCAS5709 (the specific version of DCT6412 software to be downloaded). All of the expected fixes are included.

Roanoke, VA is scheduled for Wednesday night.

New England is scheduled for Thursday night.

Omaha, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Baton Rouge and most of Texas were upgraded last week.

Tulsa, Lubbock, Tucson, and Macon will be done tonight.

Originally posted by ajwees41
VideooooGuy When Will Omaha NE 6412's be updated with fixes? You seem not to mention Omaha when you posted earlier.

Andrew Wees

VideooooGuy How long should it take the 6412 to get a full 7 days of data? My 6412 stops at saturday the 20th and loads info , it just says no data. It seems like the my 6412 will only hold six days of data. Any info as to if it could be a bad box or what?

I found more info on the guide hole bug. If I do the press select and up and down arrows and press b to bring up the the passport echo software version it lists an error in CFS 11/16 5:48:11 a 2 11222210.jpg Failed and an error also in CFS 11/16 5:55:03 2 11222210.str Failed. I have only seen the error when the guide didn't have a full 7 days of data,. Sometimes a box reboot will fix, but the box needs to be rebooted everday or the errors come back and the guide hole reapears.

Omaha doesn't have TCAS5709 it still has TCAS5609 is this the correct version for Omaha? You mentioned TCAS5709 was the specific version of DCT6412 software to be downloaded. Is the version different because of EOD?


Andrew Wees

Originally posted by ajwees41
VideooooGuy How long should it take the 6412 to get a full 7 days of data? My 6412 stops at saturday the 20th and loads info , it just says no data. It seems like the my 6412 will only hold six days of data. Any info as to if it could be a bad box or what?

Omaha doesn't have TCAS5709 it still has TCAS5609 is this the correct version for Omaha? You mentioned TCAS5709 was the specific version of DCT6412 software to be downloaded. Is the version different because of EOD?


Andrew Wees On the subject of Guide bugs I have never been able to get 7 full days of guide data either. 6 seems to be the hard limit from what I have seen. I get no listings beyond Saturday right now also. When paging to Sunday, the Guide just says "Loading data..." but never actually loads it.

Also, there is still the bug that even though the guide data is loaded to disk, it's not loaded automatically to memory. I have to physically page through the guide to get it loaded into memory and be reflected in Scheduled Recordings list. I have a feeling the 0-minute recordings problem may also be tied to this bug in addition to the subscription bug.

Also, I had setup most repeat recordings as First-Run only but found that even though some program descriptions claim the episode is "New" Passport software doesn't always seem to honor that and will not record some episodes. As a result, I changed everything to "First run and Repeats" to work around that problem. One example is
tonight's NBC episode of "Las Vegas":
NBC: Las Vegas - Degas Away With It
It appears to be a new episode (not a re-run) and I think I even remember seeing "New" at the end of the description in the guide, but the 6412 would not list it as a scheduled recording and it was not marked to record (in red) in the guide either until I switched recording options to "First run and Repeats". As a result, I don't trust "First run only" anymore.

Video Guy, can you please address this problem?

I live in OC and have noticed the tiling bug fix. Great Job! However, last night I recorded exactly 6 HD shows. I was very pleased that I was able to record two HD shows at once, while FF/RW one of them, without tiling.

I verified that at least four of the shows were recording last night (by checking the guide and noticing the recording in progress icon). When I woke up this morning, only one new show was listed. There was plently of disk space left, as only one other show was stored. How can I have lost 5 new recordings?

BTW, before checking the list, I powered down the cable box and hit SEL twice to check to see if the new code was loaded. Could this have caused the box to erase 5 recordings from the previous night? Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks,

Video Guy,

Great job on the fix in OC. Have to admit it was a pleasure to use the box this weekend. No tiling, great pic, HD football. All good.

Any info on the ability to add external storage, or add recording capacity?

I had a guide hole on Saturday as well. It was the first one in a long time.

The tiling fix looks like it's working well (especially after Showtime HD was fixed as well on Sunday).

Plus had no subscription bug over the weekend :-) now all it needs to do is make the coffee and serve it hot :rolleyes:

I'm in KS with firmware version 9.11 and tcas5505. I'm a little confused what is supposed to be changing here :confused: . I don't think anything has changed on mine yet. I do know that it took much longer for us to get the last update compared to most of the people on the forum I saw posting, but that might have had something to do with the bug fixes.

Thanks for the info on the update to the 6412. Can you identify what exactly is being fixed and what issues mentioned on this board are still being looked into? Your input is anticipated and appreciated!!

For Pete's sake, leave the poor guy alone.

Videooooguy:

I'm not going to pester you with questions like everyone else here. I just wanted to say thank you for your continued contributions to keeping us all informed. You have no idea how much it is appreciated.

I'll go one step further and say that if it wasn't for the V-Guy, I would have switched to SAT a couple months ago. Thanks.

The bug fixes have been listed in this forum several times, so I'll not repeat that info again. Please look back at my prior posts.

Here are some of the enhancements coming out in this (the "Halloween") version of firmware:
* FF/REW buttons now function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Play/Stop also function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Pressing and holding the front panel POWER button for 5 seconds will force the box to reboot
* Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download
* Various minor enhancements to diagnostics screens
* Support for the future "Phase 2" version of Motorola DCT DVRs

======================================

Developers are still trying to fix the erroneous "not subscribed" screen which can cause zero-length recordings.

Originally posted by dwcliff703
Thanks for the info on the update to the 6412. Can you identify what exactly is being fixed and what issues mentioned on this board are still being looked into? Your input is anticipated and appreciated!!

Thanks, Videoguy, for all the updates.

Is there any chance of fixing the constant hard drive use when the unit is powered down? Besides noise/heat, this will wear hard drives very quickly. As my hard drive is partially filled, the head movement is making a more audible sound at all times, even with the unit off.

Maybe a new feature to set "Do Not Buffer when Power Off"?

Rich4av,

I wonder if you have a bad box? I can't hear mine unless I am standing right next to it with the TV off.

Wonderful, thanks for the update VideooooGuy and I echo the gratitude voiced by others above.

I assume the "Phase 2" version will include support for Motorola Home Media Architecture (HMA) which will enable viewing recorded programs on the 6412 from other TVs in the house (using "thin client" Motorola DCT boxes and IP over coax)?. Also, perhaps external storage (firewall) support?

Support for the future "Phase 2" version of Motorola DCT DVRs

What is the Phase 2 version of the Motorola DVR? Is it the version with the built in Picture in Picture?



Andrew Wees




Originally posted by VideooooGuy
The bug fixes have been listed in this forum several times, so I'll not repeat that info again. Please look back at my prior posts.

Here are some of the enhancements coming out in this (the "Halloween") version of firmware:
* FF/REW buttons now function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Play/Stop also function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Pressing and holding the front panel POWER button for 5 seconds will force the box to reboot
* Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download
* Various minor enhancements to diagnostics screens
* Support for the future "Phase 2" version of Motorola DCT DVRs

======================================

Developers are still trying to fix the erroneous "not subscribed" screen which can cause zero-length recordings.

New England thanks you-Video Guy

Don't want to get too far ahead but this Home Media Architecture (HMA) sound like the Home Media Architecture (HMA) I hear is coming out on satellite services like VOOM.

This is one war I can enjoy watching if it's true.

I've been advised by a Cox tech rep that I might want to put a fan in my video cabinet to keep the Moto box cooled and was wondering if anyone can advise whether the USB ports on this box would supply power to a USB fan? I've read on this thread that they are not active for attaching a external harddrive, but thought they might be at least supplying power. Thanks!

I don't think they are powered at all right now... not sure. They do get warm however.

I've had this unit for about a week now, and I love it. I paused both HD NFL games on Sunday, went to eat breakfast, came back and basically watched both games without missing a play in either game(swapping tuners). I couldn't believe it. I was lucky enough not to have most of the problems I read about here, but I did want to list the minor problems I have and one question.

Standard channels(2-99) are MUCH worse than they were before. Maybe I have something set up wrong? (exact swap from non-dvr HD rcvr)
Some channels like Fuse and radio/music stations will not pause during live TV. It will just "hicup" then continue.
Fast forward tracking is off.(I think this will be fixed tonight)
No 30 second skip....it's just too usefull not to have.

My question is about the video settings. I'm assuming you want to set the unit on 1080i and 480p to get the best possible video. When do you get the 480p, is this just for non-HD digital channels(100+)? If a HD game is broadcast in 720p, am I getting that game in 720 or is it upconverting somehow? Basically I want to know if I can just leave those settings as is to get the best possible picture(meaning I would prefer the progressive broadcast for sports), or if I have to know the broadcast setting and change accordingly.

Originally posted by Shazam1242
Standard channels(2-99) are MUCH worse than they were before. Maybe I have something set up wrong? (exact swap from non-dvr HD rcvr)
Very well known problem (search this thread) that will never be fixed with the 6412 - boils down to analog channels must be encoded to mpeg2 before you see them and the 6412 encoders are pretty lousy. I use ReplayTV PVRs (with much better encoder) for recording all SD programming so this problem doesn't bother me.

No 30 second skip....it's just too usefull not to have.
Agreed, but don't expect it to ever be available from a cable co. PVR - risk of loss of advertising revenue is too great.

My question is about the video settings. I'm assuming you want to set the unit on 1080i and 480p to get the best possible video. When do you get the 480p, is this just for non-HD digital channels(100+)? If a HD game is broadcast in 720p, am I getting that game in 720 or is it upconverting somehow? Basically I want to know if I can just leave those settings as is to get the best possible picture(meaning I would prefer the progressive broadcast for sports), or if I have to know the broadcast setting and change accordingly.
4:3 Override setting applies to all non-HD channels which includes the analog and digital SD channels natively in 480i. I set 4:3 override to 480p for those. DVI/component setting I have at 1080i and I believe that native 720p broadcasts are converted to 1080i before reaching your display. The firewire outputs, however, do output the native format of the input.

Oops ... as it turns out, the Kansas folks decided to test this software for a few weeks before rolling it out to customers. You should be updated no later than mid-December. Sorry bout that.

Originally posted by Brett Miles
I'm in KS with firmware version 9.11 and tcas5505. I'm a little confused what is supposed to be changing here :confused: . I don't think anything has changed on mine yet. I do know that it took much longer for us to get the last update compared to most of the people on the forum I saw posting, but that might have had something to do with the bug fixes.

Update for my box in Orange County happened around 2:42am this morning according to the logs - firmware version is 9.12.

- FF/REW buttons do work same as Day+/- in guide browser as advertised.
- HD tiling issue has not re-surfaced.
- Guide data is still only 6 days instead of the advertised 7, however. Time will tell if Guide will stay current and fully populated in RAM without having to manually page through the Guide.
- Over-correction in skipping back when selecting Play after FF is not much better from my brief experiments. Personally I wish there was no built-in auto-correction - let me use 10-second skip back a few times manually if I went too far with FF.
- Visually didn't notice any other changes yet from my brief browsing.

* Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download


that needs to be done every day that will make the guide usally 7 days.

Andrew Wees

Originally posted by moyekj
Update for my box in Orange County happened around 2:42am this morning according to the logs - firmware version is 9.12.

- FF/REW buttons do work same as Day+/- in guide browser as advertised.
- HD tiling issue has not re-surfaced.
- Guide data is still only 6 days instead of the advertised 7, however. Time will tell if Guide will stay current and fully populated in RAM without having to manually page through the Guide.
- Over-correction in skipping back when selecting Play after FF is not much better from my brief experiments. Personally I wish there was no built-in auto-correction - let me use 10-second skip back a few times manually if I went too far with FF.
- Visually didn't notice any other changes yet from my brief browsing.

VideooooGuy when will the guide hole bug be fixed? I manually have to do the Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download each day to get a full seven days of data.

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by VideooooGuy
The bug fixes have been listed in this forum several times, so I'll not repeat that info again. Please look back at my prior posts.

Here are some of the enhancements coming out in this (the "Halloween") version of firmware:
* FF/REW buttons now function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Play/Stop also function as Day+/Day- keys when looking at the guide
* Pressing and holding the front panel POWER button for 5 seconds will force the box to reboot
* Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download
* Various minor enhancements to diagnostics screens
* Support for the future "Phase 2" version of Motorola DCT DVRs

======================================

Developers are still trying to fix the erroneous "not subscribed" screen which can cause zero-length recordings.

Originally posted by Just_Cruising
Rich4av,

I wonder if you have a bad box? I can't hear mine unless I am standing right next to it with the TV off.

It's a question of time. As your hard drive gets more fragmented, there will be more hard drive head movement when buffering 2 channels. It's a low-level clicking that can be heard in a quiet room. I can put the 6412 inside my AV cabinet, but then heat becomes an issue.

I just think it is not good to have the hard drive buffering 24 hours a day, especially if I don't need it to. That's a bad design decision as it invites more hd failures.

Originally posted by ajwees41
* Pressing and holding the front panel GUIDE button for 5 seconds will purge all guide data from DRAM and the hard drive, forcing a fresh download


that needs to be done every day that will make the guide usally 7 days.

Andrew Wees Here in OC even a freshly purged and re-downloaded guide only gives 6 days total and it's always been that way. For example, today (Wednesday) I only see data to Monday. Tuesday and beyond say "No Data". That's 6 days including today. It may be location-specific as to exactly how many days of guide we get. Since this box has very limited RAM, probably much more than 6-7 days would not be feasible, so I don't expect to ever get the more normal 12-14 days of guide data of most other PVRs (with this box).

I would try pressing the power button the the 6412 for a few seconds also to refresh the pioneer software.

That is why I posted the question again it seems the guide hole bug is fixed some areas like omaha, but the box needs refreshed everyday so maybe the software and firmware need updates. I don't think VideooooGuy has said how many days of data the 6412's can hold. Also I mentioned a few posts earlier that using the trick to check the software codes gave a couple of errors. I wounder if that anything to do with the guide problem?

Andrew Wees






Originally posted by moyekj
Here in OC even a freshly purged and re-downloaded guide only gives 6 days total and it's always been that way. For example, today (Wednesday) I only see data to Monday. Tuesday and beyond say "No Data". That's 6 days including today. It may be location-specific as to exactly how many days of guide we get. Since this box has very limited RAM, probably much more than 6-7 days would not be feasible, so I don't expect to ever get the more normal 12-14 days of guide data of most other PVRs (with this box).

Originally posted by moyekj
Since this box has very limited RAM, probably much more than 6-7 days would not be feasible, so I don't expect to ever get the more normal 12-14 days of guide data of most other PVRs (with this box).

I don't think RAM is an issue. We already know that the guide is saved on the hard drive. I'm pretty sure that only a small part of the guide is paged into RAM at any one time. This would explain why I often see NO DATA at first when using the DAY+ button, then a split-second later it changes to show the programs - the delay is caused by paging from disk to RAM.

Originally posted by gb61
I don't think RAM is an issue. We already know that the guide is saved on the hard drive. I'm pretty sure that only a small part of the guide is paged into RAM at any one time. This would explain why I often see NO DATA at first when using the DAY+ button, then a split-second later it changes to show the programs - the delay is caused by paging from disk to RAM. Exactly my point. Guide data is only utilized once it's in RAM. The Scheduled Recordings list is generated from what's in RAM, not from the file on disk - that's why you don't see all Scheduled Recordings for the next 6 days unless you fully paged through the guide browser for 6 days and forced the guide to be loaded into RAM. With 999 channels (granted not all of them are used or have information) that is actually quite a lot of data per day so you can quickly see that saving all that information for multiple days will eat up a lot of RAM on a system that has limited RAM to begin with. I know for a fact that older ReplayTV PVR models (with limited RAM) actually ran into trouble when setting up for full digital listings and the only workaround was to delete a bunch of channels you didn't care about from the guide such that it wouldn't run out of memory for guide purposes. Also, for the Guide functions like performing real-time search by title or keyword it's only feasible that the information be in RAM, not on disk. So I'm pretty convinced the main reason we don't get more days in the guide is this RAM limitation and possibly because other guide-related functions would slow to a crawl if there were too many days of data to deal with.

Of course VideooooGuy could tell us all in an instant the reason for the limitation and end this speculation.

It's good to see some progress, I'm VERY gratefull for Videooooguy's participation here, he's the only valid source of information.

I still don't get scheduled recordings due to the subscription bug. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with cox cust service and tech support, referenced this thread, and got them to credit my account back the $4.95 DVR fees. I will do this every month till it's really working, or it's returned.

BTW, tech support had no idea about the update last night, or even zero-length recordings. Seems like they should read this forum (I did give them the link).

It's not the money, I simply refuse to pay for a service that doesn't function. If they want the box back they can have it.

If I turn the box off, then back ON, I can see the subscription bug every time. If they can't find something so solid, sheeeez. If it's my box (well, boxes as this is my 2nd), they are welcome to come see it here!

Sorry for the whine, extra features are fine, AFTER the platform is stable. It's not stable.

Originally posted by Ed Rempalski
It's good to see some progress, I'm VERY gratefull for Videooooguy's participation here, he's the only valid source of information.

I still don't get scheduled recordings due to the subscription bug. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with cox cust service and tech support, referenced this thread, and got them to credit my account back the $4.95 DVR fees. I will do this every month till it's really working, or it's returned.

BTW, tech support had no idea about the update last night, or even zero-length recordings. Seems like they should read this forum (I did give them the link).

It's not the money, I simply refuse to pay for a service that doesn't function. If they want the box back they can have it.

If I turn the box off, then back ON, I can see the subscription bug every time. If they can't find something so solid, sheeeez. If it's my box (well, boxes as this is my 2nd), they are welcome to come see it here!

Sorry for the whine, extra features are fine, AFTER the platform is stable. It's not stable.

Ed...As mentioned on this site, I to have had the problem with the subscription screen and subsequent '0' minute recordings and called tech support out to the house about the problem, just to see what they would do. They changed out the box, installed new component cables and made some changes at the outside box to improve the cable signal strength. The tech was sure that low signal strength causes the subscription screen to pop up and could duplicate the problem repeatedly by setting the box to a HighDef channel and turning the box off and on again. The subscription screen would come up almost every time. After the switch out of the box and cables and after the tech changed out my signal amplifier the problem hasn't reappeared. I'm thinking maybe the tech hit it on the head with regard to the signal strength being the culprit and by boosting the strength the problem has at least for now disappeared. I'd be interested if you duplicated these measures if your problem would disappear too!?

I missed tonights episode of Lost and as luck would have it, there not replaying it this weekend! I didn't have a 0-min recording, LOST is at the top of my priority list for recording, have plenty of hard drive space, and I have the series set to record any day, repeats and all. So wtf happened?! Any ideas guys?

James

I had both Lost and LAX recording at same time from 8:00-9:00pm. Lost recorded fine but LAX gave me a 0-minute recording. And sure enough, as soon as I tuned to KNBC HD where LAX was supposed to record from I got the "Subscription Service" caption for a few seconds before tuning completed. In every single case of 0-minute recording I have had (not that many) the culprit has always been the Subscription bug.

Cox did come out to replace the box, he checked signal levels said they were good, the picture is excellent on all analog channels, on Replays, TV's Internal Tuners, and from the 6412.

It missed CSI NY tonight, it misses every CBS 702 show, if the box is off, or on another channel.

Originally posted by quicksilver
I missed tonights episode of Lost and as luck would have it, there not replaying it this weekend! I didn't have a 0-min recording, LOST is at the top of my priority list for recording, have plenty of hard drive space, and I have the series set to record any day, repeats and all. So wtf happened?! Any ideas guys?

James

I checked my box at 8:05, and it wasn't recording Lost like it should. I turned on the TV, and sure enough, the famous subscription needed message. After I waited a few seconds, it went away, so I hit record, so at least I got the rest of the show after the intro. The List did show a 0 minute recording for Lost, plus the 9:05-10:01 listing from the manual record. I get the subscription error bug regurlarly.

Chris

Thank god I haven't had these problems. This has only happened once in the week that I've had the unit. I could be wrong, but is it related to disk drive space? The one time it happened is when I loaded up the hard drive with shows to see how much it could handle(mostly HD shows), and to see how it deletes old shows to make room for new recordings. I noticed the red light came on then off quickly, so I looked at the list. 3 or 4 programs were deleted automatically, but I had the 0 recording at the top. Since then I have deleted shows as I watch them and set most programs to keep until manually deleted. I always turn the unit off, and no problems for 5 days. Maybe the unit has trouble powering up, deleting shows, tuning, then recording in a short time span.

Just throwing it out there.

Originally posted by Shazam1242
Thank god I haven't had these problems. This has only happened once in the week that I've had the unit. I could be wrong, but is it related to disk drive space? The one time it happened is when I loaded up the hard drive with shows to see how much it could handle(mostly HD shows), and to see how it deletes old shows to make room for new recordings. I noticed the red light came on then off quickly, so I looked at the list. 3 or 4 programs were deleted automatically, but I had the 0 recording at the top. Since then I have deleted shows as I watch them and set most programs to keep until manually deleted. I always turn the unit off, and no problems for 5 days. Maybe the unit has trouble powering up, deleting shows, tuning, then recording in a short time span.

Just throwing it out there. No, it's not a disk space issue - I keep my DVR very free of space - generally watching the recorded shows the same night, and I've had this issue with mostly no current recordings on the box. The vast majority of the reported cases I have seen are related to the subscription bug, and I can confirm every 0-minute recording I have had was due to subscription bug. I still maintain (as in posts way back in this thread) that the subscription bug itself is related to signal strength - too high or too low, which would explain why there are widely differing experiences with this problem even in the same geographic market.

VideooooGuy, you guys need to work closely with Ed Rempalski to debug the problem as it seems he has a very reproducible problem of subscription bug/0-min recordings.

Ed, go to ebay and search for Electroline. (you can search here, I have some posts and pictures on the subject) They are ultra high quality signal splitter amps. They were not sold to the public until this ebay store IIRC. They are a 25 year old company. I purchased one, replace all the cheezy splitters Cox had in my attic and the small amp that was up there from the previous owner. I was getting that Subsciption Bug with my regular DTV box in the bedroom, as well as some serious digital breakup on the 200-350 channels. Now all is great looking. I learned about Electroline in here last year, I highly recommend it. You can make sure you have the best possible signal in your home, then bug Cox. It saved me from bugging them. A highly worthwhile upgrade. No matter what a prior tech said, I bet you have some signal problem.

Next up I'm ordering the 6412, been reading here everyday and it looks like it might be worthwhile finally.

I guess I must have good signal strength, because I haven't had a 0-length recording in weeks. Both LOST and CSI:NY recorded without a hitch.

Originally posted by TV2000
Video Guy, can you please address this problem?

I live in OC and have noticed the tiling bug fix. Great Job! However, last night I recorded exactly 6 HD shows. I was very pleased that I was able to record two HD shows at once, while FF/RW one of them, without tiling.

I verified that at least four of the shows were recording last night (by checking the guide and noticing the recording in progress icon). When I woke up this morning, only one new show was listed. There was plently of disk space left, as only one other show was stored. How can I have lost 5 new recordings?

Thanks,

I discovered the cause of this error. The last show that was recorded, Law & Order Criminal Intent, as listed as 10:00-11:00. However, when I went to watch the show, I noticed that it actually recorded for 4 hrs. 20 Mins. Since the recording went over, it obviosly, erased the other 4 pre-recorded shows.

I did use the guide to record the show - it was not manual. How come it was listed as 10-11 but actually recorded over 4 hours. Anyone else see this bug?

Thanks JetNinja, my cabling is all new, I'm using channel vision multi-split amps for my Replays and analog cable. The 6412 and a 6002 share a home run to the single split from the street, Cox did install a single Channel Vision amp to this one run. The basic digital box has been flawless, as was the 6412 BEFORE they activated dual the tuners.

BUT, Based on these comments, I'll be playing with all cable connections to this box, add amps, attenuators and see if it makes a difference. Since it's a pretty solid problem for me I hope that it is signal, something that I can work with (assuming it's not at the street).

On the subject of "wildcat-rogue" LONG Recordings. I've heard of this before, some guide misread most likely. I used to think that Replays had issues, but they are solid rock compared to this box. I wouldn't trust it to get anything really important, or wife requested....

That said, when it does get it right, it is a thing of beauty. I love HD :)

Ed, If you saw one of those Electroline Amps in person you'd be impressed. Big and solid, they weigh pounds. ALl sorts of models including bi-directional ones so you can have your PC cable run through it also.

Cox upgraded my line from the street when I got the HD, it went into a tiny spliter (still there) in the house wall box (to split TV from PC...I will remove sometime when I get one of the bi-direction Electroline models, I didn't know enough when I got the version I did) then the TV line got to the attic and went through 3 "1 into 2" splitters. What a mess! And Cox did it.

I have 1 HD box, 1 DTV box, 2 with no Box, PC Cable Modem (which goes into router to feed pimary PC, PS2, and wireless for rest of house) , and Digital Phone. All worked fine except the Bedroom DTV box, and occasional HD breakup. Since I replaced all those $.50 splitters with the Electroline, the DTV is fixed in the Master Bedroom, and my Analog Signal looks better on the HD box. Not a lot, but some.

The less splits (and no open ends!) the better. They make 1 into 8 bi-directional models (got several at work to get them and they love them) that are ideal for our media crazy homes. The run about $80

If in fact the '0' minute recordings are generated by the subscription screen then it seems that Pioneer has a simple software fix.....just allow the DVR to record the full programming even when it sees the subscription screen. Even when we see the screen switching channels to a HighDef channel it disappears in seconds. We don't care if we have 5 seconds of "You need to subscribe" at the beginning of programming we want recorded. The latest firmware update has fixed several problems (i.e. the FF to Play backtrack) and added some nice new features. Maybe Videooooguy and his fellow Cox engineers and their partners at Pioneer and Motorola can get this resolved soon. We all sure hope so!! I love this box when it is working right!

Tonight was a complete disaster for my 6412. The OC recorded 5 minutes in then just decided to stop. I actually noticed the recording light go off, so I turned the box on, tuned to Fox HD and hit record - the rest of the show recorded after that. Then it was supposed to record North Shore at 9:00pm which it did, though for some reason that show wasn't broadcast in HD 16:9 tornight. Then it was supposed to record ER at 10:00pm. The guide marked ER red but it didn't show up in the Upcoming Recordings list and sure enough it didn't record - not even a 0-minute recording, just totally skipped it even though I have marked it as record First Run and Repeats - and ER wasn't even a repeat tonight.

Totally unreliable box, and it's not even the subscription/0-minute recording bugs to blame this time... hate to say this, but it seems like the new firmware created more problems than it solved. If I didn't have ReplayTVs as backups for all these missed shows I'd really be mad.

Not sure how much longer I want to be paying for debugging this box... I may feel different in the morning but right now I'm finding it hard to provide constructive feedback.

Originally posted by moyekj
Then it was supposed to record ER at 10:00pm. The guide marked ER red but it didn't show up in the Upcoming Recordings list and sure enough it didn't record - not even a 0-minute recording, just totally skipped it even though I have marked it as record First Run and Repeats - and ER wasn't even a repeat tonight.


I saw the same problem for the first time this morning. We received the firmware upgrade to 9.12 over night. When I looked at the guide, my scheduled recordings for next Wednesday were highlighted it red but they were not listed on the "Upcoming Recordings" list. After going into the record options list and pressing "accept" they finally were listed. First time for this bug.

Originally posted by dwcliff703
If in fact the '0' minute recordings are generated by the subscription screen then it seems that Pioneer has a simple software fix.....just allow the DVR to record the full programming even when it sees the subscription screen. Even when we see the screen switching channels to a HighDef channel it disappears in seconds. We don't care if we have 5 seconds of "You need to subscribe" at the beginning of programming we want recorded.

At least 1/2 of my scheduled recordings fail due to the 0 length bug. I agree with the other posters ... it is very frustrating and I would rather have 5 sec. of Subscription Required at the start than no recording. Please VideooooGuy, convince your team to implement dwcliff's suggestion ... even as a workaround until the actual problem can be solved.

One last thought, as previously suggested, how about using some of the forum members for beta testing. Most bugs are reported here within days of a firmware release. It may save Cox from having more egg in it's face.

It was trerrible for me last night as well. Constant pixelation, drops in recording, etc; My wife is now ready for the HDTivo, which is being installed next Saturday. This box just doesn't cut it.

I was updated last night as well.

The feature that allowed you to punch the number of days on the key pad to move ahead has been replaced my the the >> & << buttons that move the guide.

I am hoping that this guide is going to update on its own without me and populate my recording schedule.

I'll know more after the weekend.

Originally posted by Joe3
I was updated last night as well.

The feature that allowed you to punch the number of days on the key pad to move ahead has been replaced my the the >> & << buttons that move the guide.

I am hoping that this guide is going to update on its own without me and populate my recording schedule.

I'll know more after the weekend.



The feature that allowed you to punch the number of days on the key pad to move ahead has been replaced my the the >> & << buttons that move the guide. It still does this also it hasn't been replaced.

Andrew Wees

I did not re-setup my recordings following the firmware update, so I'm thinking that perhaps may explain the confused state the box was in last night. I'm going to re-setup all recordings this morning then re-boot the box to see how things go. Sorry for the rant last night... one has to vent occasionally.

Why doesn't everyone have the new firmware. I am still seeing 9.11 in New Orleans.

Originally posted by moyekj
I did not re-setup my recordings following the firmware update, so I'm thinking that perhaps may explain the confused state the box was in last night. I'm going to re-setup all recordings this morning then re-boot the box to see how things go. Sorry for the rant last night... one has to vent occasionally.

You shouldn't say sorry, it's not like cox sent you a letter warning you of the update and that you need to reset your recording details.

Other then VG, the cox experience has been completely useless in this whole matter.

I also had a missed recording and no 0-length file... The program was still highlighted in red in the guide.

I also recorded NO shows last night (CSI and Without a Trace) with no zero-length, just nothing.

Checked the guide this morning and the upcoming recordings, they both have my shows listed as ready to record, we'll see tonight.

not stable.....

I'm fairly convinced that you have to re-setup all your recordings (i.e. delete them and set them up again) that were setup before the latest firmware upgrade or there's a good chance they won't record at all. If that doesn't solve the problem, then "Houston, we have a big problem".

Originally posted by moyekj
I'm fairly convinced that you have to re-setup all your recordings (i.e. delete them and set them up again) that were setup before the latest firmware upgrade or there's a good chance they won't record at all. If that doesn't solve the problem, then "Houston, we have a big problem".

After I got the 9.12 update, I rebooted to check that holding power down forced a reboot. I have not re-setup any of the automated recordings. Last night, Survivor, CSI, and Without a Trace all recorded fine. I still have trouble with the zero length recordings (subscription bug), but otherwise the shows are recording fine. I did see something strange on Tuesday, before the upgrade. According to Jim was recording, and the box was off. It was 9:05. I turned on the TV, and turned on the PVR, and the red light went off, and the recording stopped. No idea why. Since I was there, I hit the manual record button, and got the rest of the show. I had not seen that happen before, although I do keep my box on most of the time anyway.

Chris

Our 6412 in Omaha is more stable then our other DCT 2000 box right now. The 6412 has shown no problem, but right the DCT 2000 doesn't have a guide or show the time on the front of the box.

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by Ed Rempalski
I also recorded NO shows last night (CSI and Without a Trace) with no zero-length, just nothing.

Checked the guide this morning and the upcoming recordings, they both have my shows listed as ready to record, we'll see tonight.

not stable.....

Originally posted by cpteague
According to Jim was recording, and the box was off. It was 9:05. I turned on the TV, and turned on the PVR, and the red light went off, and the recording stopped.
Chris I think that's another bug with the box - I've seen this happen several times now. My solution usually is to just leave the box turned on all the time now - there seems to be nothing to gain by having the box powered off - it still buffers both tuners to disk anyway so disk activity is unchanged.

Update on current list of critical bugs. There are probably a few I have forgotten or don't know about so please post so I can update the list.

* Subscription/0-min recording bug
Well known problem that has not been fixed yet. May be related to signal strength of incoming coax feed - too strong or too weak.

* Missed recordings
Guide indicates (in red) that a recording will record but the recording never happens. This may just be a problem caused by firmware upgrade where one has to re-setup all recordings for them to work properly.

* Guide data in RAM
Guide data doesn't automatically get populated in RAM so one has to manually browse through multiple days in the Guide browser to load the guide data to RAM. If the data is not loaded in RAM then the "Upcoming Recordings" list does not show all upcoming recordings and some recordings will be missed.
I'm not sure if this is still a problem or not with 9.12 firmware. Time will tell.

* Recordings get cut off sometimes when powering on the unit
This happened with old 9.11 firmware and still happens with the new 9.12 firmware

* First-run only repeat recordings sometimes miss first-run episodes.
I have to setup all repeat recordings as "First run and repeats" to be sure that a first run episode will record. This is most likely some missing data in the local guide listings indicating to Passport software this is a first run episode. Passport does not cue off of "New" at the end of the program description.

* Rogue recordings - recording beyond alloted time
Haven't run into this one personally and only seen 1 report of this so far - a case when a 1-hour show setup as a 1-time record from the guide (hitting record button while highlighting show in guide) actually recorded for 4+ hours and deleted existing recordings to make room.

Don't forget the, "it decided to record a 1 hour show for 4 hours, thus purging other recorded shows to make room" bug.

Something I've never seen a Replay do.

Upgraded to version 9.12 here in RI last night.

We'll see, but I still have not had 95% of the problems noted on this post.

Originally posted by Sugrat
....Other then VG, the cox experience has been completely useless in this whole matter.

Honestly, that's because that VideoooGuy and the different systems MTC's (headends) work with each other. They do not have customer contact, and technical support does get in to this conversation either, so much of the updates are done without the reps on the phones knowing, and so the reps can't tell the customers. We only hear from our MTC on rare occasion for firmware/bug/software fixes, and that's if we notice a trend and ask them if there is some sort of problem.

Speaking of, for Omaha, if you go to EOD (channel 998) and get a black screen instead of the EOD welcome screen, that's because of a firmware fix a couple weeks ago. Press select and it will go in. Also, it's rumored that Hampton Roads is trialing a fix for this, and we should have it soon if all goes well.

dloseke do you work for cox in Omaha?

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by dloseke
Honestly, that's because that VideoooGuy and the different systems MTC's (headends) work with each other. They do not have customer contact, and technical support does get in to this conversation either, so much of the updates are done without the reps on the phones knowing, and so the reps can't tell the customers. We only hear from our MTC on rare occasion for firmware/bug/software fixes, and that's if we notice a trend and ask them if there is some sort of problem.

Speaking of, for Omaha, if you go to EOD (channel 998) and get a black screen instead of the EOD welcome screen, that's because of a firmware fix a couple weeks ago. Press select and it will go in. Also, it's rumored that Hampton Roads is trialing a fix for this, and we should have it soon if all goes well.

My 6412 missed the recording of 704 today. So I went in and deleted all my series recordings and reentered them.

I then waited for the next recording - Ch. 13 tonight. The recording did not start. I pressed the record button, selected Record This Program and entered and... nothing. Tried again, nothing. No recording. Weird...

At this point, I pulled out the power plug and cold booted the box. As it came up, it started recording Ch. 13.

I recommend that all of you who did not cold boot the box after the firmware update do so. We should not have to but then again...

We'll see if tomorrow's recordings take place.

Originally posted by moyekj
* Rogue recordings - recording beyond alloted time
Haven't run into this one personally and only seen 1 report of this so far - a case when a 1-hour show setup as a 1-time record from the guide (hitting record button while highlighting show in guide) actually recorded for 4+ hours and deleted existing recordings to make room. [/B]

Actually, way back on page 7 of this thread (9/13/04), I noted that that had happened to me:
Well, Sat. night we watched the "Medical Investigations" show that was the last thing to successfully tape before the box said it ran out of free space..

Weird thing: The show is an hour long, but the recording showed it was 6:28 long!! Especially since I was recording the HD version, that's ALOT of space!

I even FFWDed after the show was over, and sure enough, it DID record 5.5 hrs extra.

I'm baffled why.


And that was before they ever enabled the dual-tuner capability.

In my case, the fact that it recorded all that extra time meant that my box ran out of room and then couldn't show "live" TV at all until I deleted the show.

Though, considering it's only happened twice so far out of all the people who've posted here, it would appear to be a rather rare bug! :)

--Walburga

I thought we were pretty stable here in CT but on Thursday PM it did not record CSI or ER. Like Ed, I got NOTHING, no zero length message or anything else. I had to go away on business on Thurs night, so I checked before I left, and both CSI and ER were scheduled to record, but nothing was recorded. I did check and firmware 9.12 is now installed. Just a thought, would the firmware upgrade have anything to do with the non-record issue? BTW, Third Watch recorded fine last night. Wife is not happy about missing ER. Hope this gets stable soon.

I did not re-boot my box since 9.12 and I did not delete all my scheduled recordings and re-enter them.

I did reconfig my HT system to always leave the box ON now.

It recorded Joan of Arcadia (702) Fri night, unattended!!

Here in Palos Verdes (near OC), I received the 9.12 update at the same time as the OC. My observations:

1) I have not had any problem with the box failing to record a scheduled recording. I have not deleted or re-scheduled any recordings since the update. However, I have not turned off my box nor have I re-booted it since before the update was completed, I have been leaving the box on since early in this thread.

2) I have not had any problem with subscription bug/zero length recordings either before or after the update.

3) It does indeed appear that the FF/Play bug has been improved, I can now go straight from FF to Play without stopping at Pause. Also, it does appear that the software accomodates for the slight delay between what you see and pressing the button, as it does back up slightly before it begins to play.

4) The guide still only has six days of data, but it is updating without me having to manually page though the days.

5) Rogue recordings: haven't experienced this either before or after the update.

6) Most importantly (IMHO), I have made several recordings, both SD and HD, using both tuners simultaneously, and also while using transport buttons on live TV, and I have had virtually no tiling since the update.

Damon

Tonight's recording was on schedule. The cold boot of the box may have helped.

Ok, I waited long enough (I hope!) and ordered one, it's supposed to be UPS delivered Wednesday. I hope I don't end up being a major contributor in here! :D

Originally posted by DWillens666
Here in Palos Verdes (near OC), I received the 9.12 update at the same time as the OC. My observations:

1) I have not had any problem with the box failing to record a scheduled recording. I have not deleted or re-scheduled any recordings since the update. However, I have not turned off my box nor have I re-booted it since before the update was completed, I have been leaving the box on since early in this thread.

2) I have not had any problem with subscription bug/zero length recordings either before or after the update.

3) It does indeed appear that the FF/Play bug has been improved, I can now go straight from FF to Play without stopping at Pause. Also, it does appear that the software accomodates for the slight delay between what you see and pressing the button, as it does back up slightly before it begins to play.

4) The guide still only has six days of data, but it is updating without me having to manually page though the days.

5) Rogue recordings: haven't experienced this either before or after the update.

6) Most importantly (IMHO), I have made several recordings, both SD and HD, using both tuners simultaneously, and also while using transport buttons on live TV, and I have had virtually no tiling since the update.

Damon


Yeah I'll second that, I haven't touched any shows and they are all working fine.

The only thing that bugs at the moment is some shows are adding an extra minute to the end and that's screwing up recordings... for example

record - 9.00 to 10.01
record - 9.30 to 10.30

You then can't record anything 10.00 (i hope that makes sense) it's not a fault of the box but the damn networks.. (sorry for rant).

You can use a Manual Record to get around these stupid 1-minute extra times. To setup a manual record:

* Menu
* Scroll to Record this channel and hit select
* Scroll to Create a manual recording... and hit select
* At this point you can choose a single or recurring record on any channel, on various combinations of days and any start and end time you please (resolution up to 1 minute). It's pretty flexible and I think most people don't know about this option.

The only minor annoyance with manual recordings is there is no way to edit their title, so they show up as Untitled Recording in the Scheduled Recordings list and after being recorded.

NOTE: If you setup a recurring manual record it also shows up in Series Manager where it can be deleted if you no longer want it.

Overlapping Recordings - In Replay land, it's why most of us have multiple units!

Originally posted by JETninja
Ok, I waited long enough (I hope!) and ordered one, it's supposed to be UPS delivered Wednesday. I hope I don't end up being a major contributor in here! :D

Hey, I was just wondering how you are getting a box via UPS? Did you not have to get a professional install?

Originally posted by collven
Hey, I was just wondering how you are getting a box via UPS? Did you not have to get a professional install? .

In Omaha, we can Airborne Express boxes to customers....takes a couple days to receive them. Customers are encouraged to install the box themselves so that they don't have to pay professional install charges, and cox doesn't incur a cost of sending a tech. Then if the installation failes, then a tech rolls to figure out why.

Originally posted by ajwees41
dloseke do you work for cox in Omaha?

Andrew Wees

I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations as to my employment status with cox for reasons I cannot explain. ;)

I can however say that I do have a DVR with cox, and am experiencing many of the same issues.

Can you aleast give me some info?

Does Omaha have to dct 2500's?

Also is the guide on the dct 2500 like the 6412's minus the dvr stuff?

I also have a 6412 and it works with no problems.



Andrew Wees





Originally posted by dloseke
I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations as to my employment status with cox for reasons I cannot explain. ;)

I can however say that I do have a DVR with cox, and am experiencing many of the same issues.

Originally posted by ajwees41
Can you aleast give me some info?

Does Omaha have to dct 2500's?

Also is the guide on the dct 2500 like the 6412's minus the dvr stuff?

I also have a 6412 and it works with no problems.



Andrew Wees

Um...not sure what my meant by "have to dct 2500's" but I'll try and answer your question anyway. I do know that the 2500's are out there, but if you are asking if there's a plan to move everyone up to it, I have no clue, but I doubt it. I do know that they are trying to get people off of the DCT 1000's and DCT1200's because they cannot do EOD (most actually cannot, but there some that can), and do not have sufficient memory to process a lot of guide information. I've not used a DCT2500 personally as I have my DVR, but I do know the 2500 does have the overlay so that the picture is minimized in the corner of the screen. I believe they are using the Pioneer Passport guide, but I'm not for certain of that since I've not used one. It could still be using the Pioneer Echo, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's using Passport.

Have you heard anything as to a firmware upgrade to the DCT 2000's our dct 2000 can get the channels fine, but no guide.

Andrew Wees


Originally posted by dloseke
Um...not sure what my meant by "have to dct 2500's" but I'll try and answer your question anyway. I do know that the 2500's are out there, but if you are asking if there's a plan to move everyone up to it, I have no clue, but I doubt it. I do know that they are trying to get people off of the DCT 1000's and DCT1200's because they cannot do EOD (most actually cannot, but there some that can), and do not have sufficient memory to process a lot of guide information. I've not used a DCT2500 personally as I have my DVR, but I do know the 2500 does have the overlay so that the picture is minimized in the corner of the screen. I believe they are using the Pioneer Passport guide, but I'm not for certain of that since I've not used one. It could still be using the Pioneer Echo, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's using Passport.

Perhaps I spoke too soon in my earlier post saying everything was great.

I tried to watch Bon Jovi Live concert on INHD2 this evening. The picture and sound were pretty good, but there was TERRIBLE video and audio dropouts, pauses, and breakups. I thought maybe this was a 6412 recording problem, but I stopped the recording and cleared both buffers and the problem was still there. This leads me to believe that perhaps this was an INHD2 problem (or a Cox problem) and not a problem with the box or the software.

As I indicated earlier, I have not had any problems since the 9.12 update until now.

Anyone else notice this?

Damon

p.s. no smart remarks about Bon Jovi please :-)

Sounds like you had a local Cox problem. I watched the same Bon Jovi concert here in Tulsa on Cox. No problems to report. My 6412 was recording another HD program at the same time too. FWIW my 6412 has the 9.12 firmware with 5509 software.

Jason

Jason:

Thanks for the report. I'm glad to hear it was not the box, if you know what I mean :-)

Damon

Originally posted by collven
Hey, I was just wondering how you are getting a box via UPS? Did you not have to get a professional install?

I called them up and specifically asked for that option since I know others here in OC have done it. It was no problem and took but a couple minutes on the phone.

Hi all,
Obviously new to the forums, i tried reading thru this.... very long topic as best i could, but i'm sure i missed some things, so pardon me if what i'm posting about has some obvious answer somewhere... I got my DCT6412 thru Cox (baton rouge) about 2 weeks ago. About 5 days ago i bought a new HDTV and sound system to replace my ailing 1980's model SONY TV.

Anways, i have some serious issues with the picture quality of non-HD channels. There is A LOT of artifacting... i mean MUCH more than i'd expect from an HD tuner. Now, HD channels display beautifully, but any 480i(p) channel just looks blurry, blocky, and pixelated (not beyound viewable of course). It kinda looks like i'm watching something on a computer screen with no antialiasing.

I plugged in my Old cable box be4 we sent it back and got a better picture! Anyone know what the deal is? Why is the artifacting so bad?
I'm really kinda disapointed in the quality of those channels, especially seeing as i bought a $1000 HDTV to enjoy a better quality experience.....

Hmmm Firmware is 9.12, and i haven't really had any other problems that have been discussed in this forum (except for 1 randomly missed recording). I talked to COX tech support... that was kinda a joke, i knew more about it than they did, so they insisted they send a tech guy out today (monday), so we'll see what that yeilds.... but i was curious if anyone here had ideas?

Originally posted by LogicSequence
Anways, i have some serious issues with the picture quality of non-HD channels. There is A LOT of artifacting... i mean MUCH more than i'd expect from an HD tuner. Now, HD channels display beautifully, but any 480i(p) channel just looks blurry, blocky, and pixelated (not beyound viewable of course).

You are correct ... the non HD channels look terrible through the 6412. The digital SD channels are a little better than the analog but both are poor. This has been discussed a few times in this forum.

Cox actually installed a splitter, sending the cable directly to the TV tuner as well as the 6412. The installer knew analog reception was poor and told me to use the TV tuner for analog and the box for digital (both HD and SD). I ran an svideo feed from the box to the TV for SD viewing ... it is a little better. Analog through the TV tuner is about the best SD you can expect.

Hope this helps.

Originally posted by apaulct
The digital SD channels are a little better than the analog but both are poor.

Technically speaking, you can't blame the box for the quality of Digital channels.

The "poorness" of any Digital (SD or HD) channel has nothing to do with the box itself - since all Digital channels are MPEG2 compressed before transmission, all the box is doing is decompressing the image as received.

Any artifacting/blockiness/etc. is caused by the encoding done at the head-end.

Note: I'm not referring to the problem of breakup while recording another channel that we've all had (but even THAT ended up being caused by the head-end equipment), but rather to "generic" channel quality..

--Walburga

Last night I was recording the HD NFL game and all the new shows on Fox(711) while watching a recorded movie. Everything looked great, but it came up with a message that the disk was out of space. The problem is I was only at about 9 hours of recorded info and the menu stated I still had about 32 gigs of free space. It seems as though the unit has trouble managing the disk space, or maybe the 32 gigs is reserved for the buffers?(I think that would be enough space for 4-5 hours of HD though.) Anyone else have this problem?

Originally posted by moyekj
Update on current list of critical bugs. There are probably a few I have forgotten or don't know about so please post so I can update the list.

* Subscription/0-min recording bug
Well known problem that has not been fixed yet. May be related to signal strength of incoming coax feed - too strong or too weak.



For what it's worth; I was having trouble getting channel 354 (Noggin, very important if you have a child) a few weeks ago. Up to that point I had experienced one instance of the subscription/0-min bug. Cox came out and fine tuned my signal level, which solved the problem with 354. Despite this, I got the subscription/0-min bug last night. So I tend to think this isn't a signal level issue. Only a single data point, but a fairly controlled test.

Walburga, the 6412's non-HD video output is absolutely much worst than the older standard SD Boxes AND analog video straight to the TV.

Subscription Bug - I was tuned to CBS HD (702) watching 60 minutes waiting for the transition to the next show (Cold Case) which was scheduled to record. No channel change was impending.

60Minutes ends, cut to commercials, then at 7:59 the Subscription Banner Displays and the recording fails with zero length recording.

I toggled channel away and then back to clear the banner, hit record to get the show.

60minutes was not HD, Cold Case was. Does the box check for subscription at every time slot, or transition between modes??

Originally posted by Ed Rempalski
Walburga, the 6412's non-HD video output is absolutely much worst than the older standard SD Boxes AND analog video straight to the TV.

Ed,

I was referring to the "blockiness" (IE: compression artifacts) of the Digital channels.. THAT is irrelevant of which cable box you have.

Now, if you're talking about how well it upscales to 480p/1080i (if you don't have "Override" set to 480i) or the quality of the DAC output (for S-Video/Component out), that's another issue altogether.

--Walburga

Originally posted by LogicSequence
Hi all,
Obviously new to the forums, i tried reading thru this.... very long topic as best i could, but i'm sure i missed some things, so pardon me if what i'm posting about has some obvious answer somewhere... I got my DCT6412 thru Cox (baton rouge) about 2 weeks ago. About 5 days ago i bought a new HDTV and sound system to replace my ailing 1980's model SONY TV.

Anways, i have some serious issues with the picture quality of non-HD channels. There is A LOT of artifacting... i mean MUCH more than i'd expect from an HD tuner. Now, HD channels display beautifully, but any 480i(p) channel just looks blurry, blocky, and pixelated (not beyound viewable of course). It kinda looks like i'm watching something on a computer screen with no antialiasing.

I plugged in my Old cable box be4 we sent it back and got a better picture! Anyone know what the deal is? Why is the artifacting so bad?
I'm really kinda disapointed in the quality of those channels, especially seeing as i bought a $1000 HDTV to enjoy a better quality experience.....

Hmmm Firmware is 9.12, and i haven't really had any other problems that have been discussed in this forum (except for 1 randomly missed recording). I talked to COX tech support... that was kinda a joke, i knew more about it than they did, so they insisted they send a tech guy out today (monday), so we'll see what that yeilds.... but i was curious if anyone here had ideas?

One, make sure your signal is as clean as can be. Search for my posts on "Electroline" Splitters/Amps. Minimize the amount of splitters, and toss the junk Cox gave you. Two, all content is coded to mpeg2 by the 6412 with the analog channels taking the biggest hit picture wise. Suggest you run second cable into TV bypassing the 6412 just for analog viewing.

I don't want to jinx anything, but so far so good with 9.12 update in New England.

However, I lost a record. It was there Friday and Saturday Afternoon, but disappeared Saturday night. It happen to me before and I"ll just assume its me not the box until it happens again.

Now that some of the problems with 6412 seem to be fixed, we are seeing what this box is all about. I can forgive it for not having all the TiVo's bells and whistles, but I can't forgive this box for giving such poor non-HD reception. The tilting may be gone, but what it leaves behind is a box that could not be sold in competition with TiVo or any other box in an open market because of its overall poor reception.

It seems we'll be paying for two turkeys on Thanksgiving.

Joe

I figured it was gonna fall on MPEG2 as the culprit.... is there any chance a future update to the firmware could increase the quality? If they increased the bitrate for encoding it would eliminate a lot of the problem. i don't suppose they intend to update the mpeg2 codec eh?

MPEG4.... MPEG4... thats all i keep thinking.

Encoding bit-rate is not the problem for the analog channels. The average bit rate is 6.3Mbps (and 7.5Mbps peak) which is pretty high even compared to ReplayTV and Tivo high quality settings. Must be a very lousy ADC or something else. Here's some recent measurements:

ANALOG SD MPEG2 ENCODED
abc: 720x480i, 30fps, 6.31Mbps average VBR (7.5Mbps peak)
cbs: 720x480i, 30fps, 6.29Mbps average VBR (7.5Mbps peak)
nbc: 720x480i, 30fps, 6.24Mbps average VBR (7.5Mbps peak)
Audio = 320Kbps

For size calculations this translates to:
(6.3+320/1024 Mbits/sec)*(60sec/min)*(60min/hr)*(1byte/8bits) = 2,981 MBytes/hr

DIGITAL SD MPEG2
ifc: 704x480i, 30fps, 3.70Mbps average VBR (15Mbps peak)
Audio = 128Kbps

For size calculations this translates to:
(3.7+128/1024 Mbits/sec)*(60sec/min)*(60min/hr)*(1byte/8bits) = 1,721 MBytes/hr

well the tech came out... he didn't say anything i don't already know. All he did was split off the cable, 1 to the DVR and 1 to the TV. Until the analog stations switch to digital (Mandated by the FCC for may 2006) the quality just isn't going to be that good on analog. And he repeated the concern for some of the bugs out there, 1 min record, subscription error, stuff like that, but said they are still working on things.

He did say, however, that if HD channels appear to skip or pixelate every few seconds, it is most likely caused by them adding the new digital telephone service, as they are having to split lines and use bandwidth to get things set up, he said that will eventually go away to.... whether u can beleive that or not, i don't know.

So anyways, that's it.... I'm open to any other suggestions to improve quality, LOL. other than that i guess i'll be using the video source button a lot, and await future firmware upgrades... i want those USB ports, i'd love to hook my PC up to the DVR and grab a TV show i liked a lot and have it on my PC.

P.S.
Using Component output from DVR to TV (optical from DVR to Audio System)
Standard RCA from DVD to TV (coaxial from DVD to Audio System)
Standard RCA for VHS

My TV supports HDMI, is it any advantage to get a DVI/HDMI cable and use that instead of component??

Originally posted by LogicSequence
P.S.
Using Component output from DVR to TV (optical from DVR to Audio System)
Standard RCA from DVD to TV (coaxial from DVD to Audio System)
Standard RCA for VHS

My TV supports HDMI, is it any advantage to get a DVI/HDMI cable and use that instead of component?? If your TV only has 1 component input then I would use that for the DVD player and DVI->HDMI from 6412 box. It's a sin to use standard RCA from DVD to TV - you should at least use S-video and definately component to TV if DVD player is progressive scan capable. If DVD player is not progressive scan and does not have component out, it's time for another purchase - they are so cheap these days there's no excuse to have anything less IMO.

Other than that, I didn't notice a difference between 6412 component out vs. DVI out, though many deeply into AV will swear by the all digital DVI connection (component is carried as analog and subject to interference). I currently use DVI->DVI connection.

I've had the digital phone for 3yrs now, not an issue that I'm aware of...

The USB ports are not active last I heard, but the Firewall (1394) one is. You can feed that one out to the PC. There is a long thread here on how to do that.

I was watching ABC before MNF tonight. MNF was scheduled to record, as soon as the last commercial before the game was done, the Subscription Bug pops up out of nowhere and shakes off the scheduled recording. Although I had just read about this happening somewhere above I was quite surprised to see the subscription bug when not changing channels. Hmmm.

The bug list is getting smaller, but this one is a major bummer.

Well, another missed recording today and no 0-length files. This is a new problem for firmware 9.12. I series-record Channel 704, NBC Nightly News on a daily basis. It still shows up in red on the guide (Schedued recording) for earlier tonight.

This is getting frustrating...

Originally posted by Rich4av
Well, another missed recording today and no 0-length files. This is a new problem for firmware 9.12. I series-record Channel 704, NBC Nightly News on a daily basis. It still shows up in red on the guide (Schedued recording) for earlier tonight.

This is getting frustrating... It could be coincidence, but ever since I re-setup all repeat recordings and rebooted the box following the firmware upgrade it hasn't missed one since. Not holding my breath though.

I stumbled on this tonight and didn't even know the 6412/Passport was capable of it, but you can setup "Theme" recordings similar to how you can on ReplayTV (and Tivo). I'm sure some of you knew about this but I guess I never RTFM or paid much attention to guide searches before. For the benefit of those who don't know:

* Bring up the Guide and choose option C (Search)
* Request to search by Keywords
* Type in keywords. Regardless if there are matches or not, press Record button
* You now have option to: Record all matching shows or just movies.

Now when you go to Scheduled Recordings you can see all future matching shows and you can control the "theme" channel via Series Manager, including limiting the days of the week that it can record matches.

Originally posted by moyekj
If your TV only has 1 component input then I would use that for the DVD player and DVI->HDMI from 6412 box. It's a sin to use standard RCA from DVD to TV - you should at least use S-video and definately component to TV if DVD player is progressive scan capable. If DVD player is not progressive scan and does not have component out, it's time for another purchase - they are so cheap these days there's no excuse to have anything less IMO.

Other than that, I didn't notice a difference between 6412 component out vs. DVI out, though many deeply into AV will swear by the all digital DVI connection (component is carried as analog and subject to interference). I currently use DVI->DVI connection.

TV has:
4 standard RCA inputs (1 front, 3 rear)
2 S-Video inputs
2 Component inputs
1 HDMI input
1 Coax Cable input

Tech guy said using DVI for the analog channels is even worse than component or standard RCA.

Originally posted by LogicSequence

Tech guy said using DVI for the analog channels is even worse than component or standard RCA. Don't see how that's possible. The analog channels are already encoded to mpeg2 before they reach the 6412 outputs which means they are already digitized - and DVI/HDMI will keep them digital into the TV which is about the best you could hope for. You may find DVI is no better than component, but worse I sincerely doubt it - but there's one sure way to find out.

Anyone else, please try this....had the same result all three times here. I sent a message to Cox, but would like to know if anyone else has the problem.

Record a HD game of three hours or so while recording multiple shows on another HD channel. Usually for me the game records fine(it starts first) and the first two recordings on the other channel are ok, but the third recording on the other channel will not start. It will tell me the disk is full even though I have as much as 30-50 gigs of free space left. 2 of the 3 times I was watching an already recorded show while recording, but tonight I wasn't.

I would like to know if others have the same problem.

Originally posted by moyekj
Don't see how that's possible. The analog channels are already encoded to mpeg2 before they reach the 6412 outputs which means they are already digitized - and DVI/HDMI will keep them digital into the TV which is about the best you could hope for. You may find DVI is no better than component, but worse I sincerely doubt it - but there's one sure way to find out.

He indicated that component video on analog channels will make the picture look brighter, with more contrast, and that DVI would be even worse....

Anyways, assuming that's crock, what's the best kind of DVI to HDMI cable i can get??? I'm not looking to spend a fortune tho, i saw some that were like $150!!!

Originally posted by LogicSequence
He indicated that component video on analog channels will make the picture look brighter, with more contrast, and that DVI would be even worse....

Anyways, assuming that's crock, what's the best kind of DVI to HDMI cable i can get??? I'm not looking to spend a fortune tho, i saw some that were like $150!!!

To be honest, because DVI/HDMI is digital, as long as the cable works, it doesn't matter.

Unlike the old days, spending more doesn't gain anything (besides an unfounded sense of self-importance because you spent $XXX).

Therefore, spending $20 on EBay is just as good as a $150 "Monster Cable".. in fact better, because you have $130 for other things! :D

--Walburga

Bug List

Now that the major issue of tiling appears to have been fixed, I was thinking we should start a "bug list" to help identify outstanding issues to be resolved. I was going to add wish list items (external storage), but want to keep this focused on features already in place but which need to be tweaked or fixed.

If you want to add a bug to the list, please copy this post and add your item to the list.

1. Zero length recording
2. Subscription bug error
3. time bar not updating when start viewing a program from the list when it is still recording.

Here's a new one tonight ... all my scheduled recordings for the next 3 days show up in black on the guide and have rec with a line through it. They were on the schedule last night and were in red on the guide. Now they don't appear on the "scheduled recording" screen and are in black on the guide. Funny thing is that future recordings are still scheduled.

Has anyone else seen this???? Anyone know what the black highlight on the guide means?

Update: I went to a guide entry for tomorrows scheduled recording (in black) and pressed record. Not only did it schedule that show, it changed all other scheduled recordings from black to red. It even recorded a show in the current time period ... the red record light was not on when I started but the show recorded from the beginning. All this happened while I was on the phone with a Cox CSR. My wife thinks the box is full of poltergeist.

The CSR thought it may be because the disk is full ... I have not received any out of space messages and the hard drive status screen says I have 40 GB free.

Weird ... and frustrating.

rdenichilo, I summarized the current list of bugs a few posts ago:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4684462#post4684462

TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

1. I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

2. Is there any way to set something like a macro or function key on the remote? i'm tired of having to switch to TV and scroll thru menus to use the TV's 16:9 -> 4:3 Zoom feature. My TV's remote has a one touch button for this, but i don't wanna drag my TV remote out all the time, i'd love to be able to program it into the Universal Remote.

As always, any help is appriciated!!! :)

Originally posted by Walburga
To be honest, because DVI/HDMI is digital, as long as the cable works, it doesn't matter.

Unlike the old days, spending more doesn't gain anything (besides an unfounded sense of self-importance because you spent $XXX).

Therefore, spending $20 on EBay is just as good as a $150 "Monster Cable".. in fact better, because you have $130 for other things! :D

--Walburga

Ok, so my best option is to grab a cheap DVI -> HDMI cable from somewhere, and use the Component cables for say, my DVD player, instead of standard RCA cables?

ALSO:
Currently, i'm runing optical sound from my DVR to my audio system, and digital coaxial from the DVD to the Audio system, should i switch those? Or is it worth using optical from the DVR?

Originally posted by apaulct
Here's a new one tonight ... all my scheduled recordings for the next 3 days show up in black on the guide and have rec with a line through it. They were on the schedule last night and were in red on the guide. Now they don't appear on the "scheduled recording" screen and are in black on the guide. Funny thing is that future recordings are still scheduled.

Has anyone else seen this???? Anyone know what the black highlight on the guide means?

Update: I went to a guide entry for tomorrows scheduled recording (in black) and pressed record. Not only did it schedule that show, it changed all other scheduled recordings from black to red. It even recorded a show in the current time period ... the red record light was not on when I started but the show recorded from the beginning. All this happened while I was on the phone with a Cox CSR. My wife thinks the box is full of poltergeist.

The CSR thought it may be because the disk is full ... I have not received any out of space messages and the hard drive status screen says I have 40 GB free.

Weird ... and frustrating.

I getting the black highlight with a line through it on the guide.

I was wonder what it means as well.

Anyone?

Thanks :)

Joe

Originally posted by LogicSequence
TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

1. I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

2. Is there any way to set something like a macro or function key on the remote? i'm tired of having to switch to TV and scroll thru menus to use the TV's 16:9 -> 4:3 Zoom feature. My TV's remote has a one touch button for this, but i don't wanna drag my TV remote out all the time, i'd love to be able to program it into the Universal Remote.

As always, any help is appriciated!!! :)

Do a google search for JP1 remote hacks. You can build a cable for about $6, download some free software and program the remote to do just about anything. I have several macros set up, and was able to program the remote to operate my Denon reciever with discrete on/off. I was also able to upload the commands to operate my Zenith OTA HD reciever. (No MNF-HD on cable here).

If you just want to do macros, the F1,F2,F3 keys are easily programed by following the instructions on http://www.urcsupport.com/.

Originally posted by LogicSequence
Ok, so my best option is to grab a cheap DVI -> HDMI cable from somewhere, and use the Component cables for say, my DVD player, instead of standard RCA cables?

ALSO:
Currently, i'm runing optical sound from my DVR to my audio system, and digital coaxial from the DVD to the Audio system, should i switch those? Or is it worth using optical from the DVR?

Don't know about the DVI since my TV does not support it (bought it 6 months too early!) but Coax vs Optical is no diffference. Digital is Digital....1's and 0's. In worst case scenarios Coax could create ground loop, and Opticals are fragile and prone to uplugging easily. Both cables do the same thing.

A big question on your DVD player is what type is it? Is it a decent Progressive Scan unit? You must use Component (or DVI/HDMI) to take advantage of P-Scan. By decent I mean..there are tons of $40 P-scan units. Something like a $100+ Toshiba or Pioneer has much better processors (all dvd players are is a simple PC...it's the power and quality of the processors that dictate Picture quality and Color)

I just finally replaced my HTB Receiver/P-Scan DVD player with a $200 Toshiba I got onsale at BB for $100 6 months ago. I noticed a big improvent in detail, color redition, and no digital glitches that I'd see on the cheap unit...

I bought my DVI cable for about $40, from L-Com, there is a link at the top of the page. It did improve my analogs slightly, and it stopped the stupid components from falling out of the back of my box. Don't get me wrong, the analogs still are nothing compared to directly into the TV, but they are a little better than they were.

I'm having trouble getting the 6412 to output Dolby 5.1 on the channels/programs that support it.

It's set properly in the menu system, and my Denon 2802 reciever is set to "auto", which means it will choose PLII or DD 5.1 when the signal supports them, but I haven't had it flip to 5.1 yet. For reference, I have Cox cable, and am in Orange County, CA.

Originally posted by Mako8888
I'm having trouble getting the 6412 to output Dolby 5.1 on the channels/programs that support it.

It's set properly in the menu system, and my Denon 2802 reciever is set to "auto", which means it will choose PLII or DD 5.1 when the signal supports them, but I haven't had it flip to 5.1 yet. For reference, I have Cox cable, and am in Orange County, CA.

Are you using one of the digital outs on the 6412...coax or optical?

mako -

during one of the last 6208 firmware updates, i remember reading that some people had to go into their sound options and change some stuff to get DD 5.1...maybe to Matrix or something like that...can't quite remember, you might want to fool around with that for a while to see if that triggers 5.1

and of course use optical or coax outputs for the sound but you knew that already i assume

oleus

Originally posted by schmitter
Do a google search for JP1 remote hacks. You can build a cable for about $6, download some free software and program the remote to do just about anything. I have several macros set up, and was able to program the remote to operate my Denon reciever with discrete on/off. I was also able to upload the commands to operate my Zenith OTA HD reciever. (No MNF-HD on cable here).

If you just want to do macros, the F1,F2,F3 keys are easily programed by following the instructions on http://www.urcsupport.com/.

OK got the macro's figured out... but this JP1... SHEESH, that's alot to assimilate... so if i get the interface cable, i'll need to DL some software (and drivers i assume) so that i can program the remote correct? How would i go about finding what signal a specific key on ANOTHER remote sends so i can emulate that with the DVR remote i'm programming??

P.S.
u wouldn't happen to know if ALL of the keys are programmable via the macro settings eh? :)




TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

Originally posted by JETninja
A big question on your DVD player is what type is it? Is it a decent Progressive Scan unit? You must use Component (or DVI/HDMI) to take advantage of P-Scan. By decent I mean..there are tons of $40 P-scan units. Something like a $100+ Toshiba or Pioneer has much better processors (all dvd players are is a simple PC...it's the power and quality of the processors that dictate Picture quality and Color)

I just finally replaced my HTB Receiver/P-Scan DVD player with a $200 Toshiba I got onsale at BB for $100 6 months ago. I noticed a big improvent in detail, color redition, and no digital glitches that I'd see on the cheap unit...

Apex Digital AD-2600. Yes it's a decent P-Scan DVD player, i got it b/c i knew it would play all DVD formats (retail, -R, -RW, +R, +RW, -ROM, VCD, etc... etc...)

Now... i do have a question, i was under the impression that Interlaced was BETTER than P-Scan for moving images...? is that true?




TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

Originally posted by Mako8888
I'm having trouble getting the 6412 to output Dolby 5.1 on the channels/programs that support it.

It's set properly in the menu system, and my Denon 2802 reciever is set to "auto", which means it will choose PLII or DD 5.1 when the signal supports them, but I haven't had it flip to 5.1 yet. For reference, I have Cox cable, and am in Orange County, CA.

I'm having the same issue, the best i get is Dolby 3/2.1. I looked at the audio menu for the DVR, the only options i have are:

Digital:
1. Pulse Code Modulated
2. Dolby Digital AC3 (<-SET)

Analog:
1. Mono
2. Stereo
3. Surround (<-SET)

Analog/Digital Channels are all giving Dolby 2/0 so i'm using ProLogic II to emulate surround sound for those channels, but like i said, even on some HD channels, i get Dolby 2/0 and the best i get on those is Dolby 3/2.1.





TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

dolby 3/2.1 *IS* dolby 5.1 isn't it?

that's how one of my receivers reads when it's decoding a 5.1 signal.

Originally posted by oleus
dolby 3/2.1 *IS* dolby 5.1 isn't it?

that's how one of my receivers reads when it's decoding a 5.1 signal.

WELL.. that very well could be, as i have limited knowledge of how home theatre systems display things. Anyone like to confirm that Dolby 3/2.1 = Dolby 5.1?





TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

i am 99.9999 percent sure 3/2.1 = 5.1 for some reason some receivers display it that way. it means "3 in front" "2 surrounds" "1 sub channel" - that is how my Harman Kardon avr75 from way back when broke it down.

one more thing -

it's normal for HD channels to broadcast programming in 2.0

here in atlanta, CBS is all 2.0 via comcast....and many movies are only 2.0

just because it is an HD channel does not mean it is 5.1 all the time

oleus

Analog:
1. Mono
2. Stereo
3. Surround (<-SET)

Try setting your analog to stereo. That's what mine is set to, and I get 5.1 in OC all the time. I think I had the analog set up on surround at one point, and I changed it because of that problem....but I'm not too clear on that. I'll probably go down and check it out again.

To check for 5.1, just go through all your movie channels(not just HD). Encore West seems to always have 5.1 going.

Originally posted by LogicSequence
Apex Digital AD-2600. Yes it's a decent P-Scan DVD player, i got it b/c i knew it would play all DVD formats (retail, -R, -RW, +R, +RW, -ROM, VCD, etc... etc...)

Now... I do have a question, i was under the impression that Interlaced was BETTER than P-Scan for moving images...? is that true?


I heard that long ago also (my TV will do either to improve picture) but to tell the truth I never have seen anything to make me want to not run P-Scan, and with a large family (4 boys 3 - 15) so we watch a ton of movies, specially action stuff.

They also said 720p was better then 1080i for sports...but in realty everyone is discovering that sports look fantastic on 1080i as well.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by LogicSequence
[B]OK got the macro's figured out... but this JP1... SHEESH, that's alot to assimilate... so if i get the interface cable, i'll need to DL some software (and drivers i assume) so that i can program the remote correct? How would i go about finding what signal a specific key on ANOTHER remote sends so i can emulate that with the DVR remote i'm programming??

P.S.
u wouldn't happen to know if ALL of the keys are programmable via the macro settings eh? :)




What they don't want you to know, is that you can reprogram ANY key as a macro key. For example I don't use the FAV key, so that one is now a 4th macro. It is possible to fill the memory of the remote, my remote is pretty loaded, and I haven't had any problems with that yet.

i was supposed to have 2 6412's installed today....even after calling comcast twice to confirm that would be what i was getting, the tech came out with 2 regular digital cable boxes.

luckily he had 1 6412 in the truck but he had no idea what it was....he watched me install it. He called in my serial number but none of subscriptions are activated three hours later. i've been on and off the phone with comcast for an hour and they have no clue!!

and to think i'm going to have to do this all over again for a second 6412....sheesh

Originally posted by oleus
i've been on and off the phone with comcast for an hour and they have no clue!!


Since you posted this in the COX thread perhaps you might try calling them instead! :)

oops. i saw the 6412 thread and assumed it was comcast - my apologies.

Still no mystery missed recordings after I re-setup all series recordings and re-booted the unit following the firmware upgrade. Also, haven't had a 0-minute recording for a while even though the subscription bug has appeared a couple of times when changing channels. Quality of the HD channels here in OC has also been quite good following the last headend change addressing HD tiling bug - which also has not re-surfaced. Pretty happy with this unit right now but hope that Cox is still working on the remaining outstanding issues.

With regards to 0-minute recordings, it could be coincidence but I have left the unit powered on all the time now and haven't had the problem since. My main reason for leaving it on is one of the listed bugs where sometimes turning the unit on causes any current recordings to stop.

You are lucky moyekj, I have had nothing but problems since the firmware upgrade last week. Last night, all scheduled recordings disappeared from the "scheduled recordings" list. They were still highlighted in red in the guide but not in the list. Again, I deleted all series recording schedules (still in red in the guide) and rebooted the box (now back to blue). I rescheduled the series and everything was back in the list ... at least last night. Today, one show disappeared from the middle of the list. It shows in black in the guide. Shows before and after it are ok. Plenty of space left on the hard drive and all saved show can be deleted if space is required.

Cox will be out on Wednesday ... for what that is worth.

Anyone else having any problems like this ... or did the firmware update fail on my box.

Originally posted by apaulct
You are lucky moyekj, I have had nothing but problems since the firmware upgrade last week. Last night, all scheduled recordings disappeared from the "scheduled recordings" list. They were still highlighted in red in the guide but not in the list. Again, I deleted all series recording schedules (still in red in the guide) and rebooted the box (now back to blue). I rescheduled the series and everything was back in the list ... at least last night. Today, one show disappeared from the middle of the list. It shows in black in the guide. Shows before and after it are ok. Plenty of space left on the hard drive and all saved show can be deleted if space is required.

Cox will be out on Wednesday ... for what that is worth.

Anyone else having any problems like this ... or did the firmware update fail on my box. I'm curious as to what black and blue colors mean. I will have to play around with the box and try and setup conflicting recordings to see what happens. Obviously it means they won't get recorded, but the color itself must mean something - cannot record due to lack of space or conflict. When you setup the recordings are you specifying "Keep until I delete"? I believe using that option actually reserves space for the recording up-front even if it hasn't recorded yet - that's the case in ReplayTV land. Thus, if you have too many of those perhaps that explains things somewhat. I don't use that option on any of my setup series recordings as I tend to watch and delete as they get recorded (it helps I have multiple ReplayTVs to record and save shows for extended periods - my 6412 is for HD recordings only).

After a little experimentation:

Black in guide means this show was scheduled to record but conflicts with other recordings and thus won't be recorded (i.e. there are at least 2 other shows in that time slot to be recorded with higher priority). In "Scheduled Recordings" list it shows up as greyed out and with a circle with a slash through it indicating it won't record with current priority settings.

Not sure about blue though... maybe that's space related.

Originally posted by moyekj
After a little experimentation:

Black in guide means this show was scheduled to record but conflicts with other recordings and thus won't be recorded (i.e. there are at least 2 other shows in that time slot to be recorded with higher priority). In "Scheduled Recordings" list it shows up as greyed out and with a circle with a slash through it indicating it won't record with current priority settings.

Not sure about blue though... maybe that's space related.

This is what I was thinking....black is what I've found to be a programming conflict also, but I've not seen blue, though I'd venture a guess it space related too....but I don't see it because some of my scheduled recordings are set to save until more space is needed, though I do have some that are set to stay until permantly deleted....I might have to play with it and see.

Originally posted by moyekj
Black in guide means this show was scheduled to record but conflicts with other recordings and thus won't be recorded (i.e. there are at least 2 other shows in that time slot to be recorded with higher priority). In "Scheduled Recordings" list it shows up as greyed out and with a circle with a slash through it indicating it won't record with current priority settings.

I had 2 shows scheduled, 1 from 9-10pm, another from 9:30-10, (a third from 10-11 on the same channel as the 9:30-10). Nothing else was scheduled during the 9-10 slot. When I scheduled them, everything was fine. The next day the 9-10 show was in black. Wonder if the "overlap" with the 10-11 caused the problem even though all were scheduled to start and end on time (no early or late options). I have done this many times before the 9.12 update without problems.

Also, the program in question disappeared from the scheduled recordings list, it did not show up as grayed out.

I always use the keep until space is needed option and let the box manage the drive space.

Not sure about blue though... maybe that's space related.

The blue I referred to is the normal background, i.e. no recording scheduled.

VideooooGuy: if you are still out there ... should I let them replace the box next Wednesday or could this be another software problem????

Has anyone made up a .ccf file for the 6412 for a Pronto Pro TSU6000?? I don't have time do make one up right now. Thanks

Originally posted by apaulct
You are lucky moyekj, I have had nothing but problems since the firmware upgrade last week. Last night, all scheduled recordings disappeared from the "scheduled recordings" list. They were still highlighted in red in the guide but not in the list. Again, I deleted all series recording schedules (still in red in the guide) and rebooted the box (now back to blue). I rescheduled the series and everything was back in the list ... at least last night. Today, one show disappeared from the middle of the list. It shows in black in the guide. Shows before and after it are ok. Plenty of space left on the hard drive and all saved show can be deleted if space is required.

Cox will be out on Wednesday ... for what that is worth.

Anyone else having any problems like this ... or did the firmware update fail on my box. Not so lucky anymore I'm afraid. Tonight I had NBA basketball scheduled to record on INHD1 and since I don't trust the box I watched as 6:00pm rolled by when the recording was supposed to start and nothing. I left the box alone for a couple of minutes and still nothing (it was already powered on). Then to try and figure out what went wrong I brought up the "Scheduled Recordings" list - as soon as I did that the red recording light went on and the show started recording - almost like the old days when you sometimes had to kick the TV to make it work properly.

Speaking of bugs, there are a couple more I left out regarding watching a show that hasn't completed recording all the way yet.

1. The progress bar stops at the point when you started to watch the show (rounded to the nearest half hour). e.g. a show is scheduled to record from 1:00-4:00pm and you start watching at 2:22pm, the progress bar stops at 2:30pm and never updates itself after that, so you have no idea where you are in the show.

2. If you stop watching a show that is still recording there is no option to resume playback from where you left off - very annoying especially because of bug # 3.

3. 15 minute skip doesn't work right if you get too close (but > 15 minutes) to the live point of the recording. I've had several cases where I try to skip ahead 15 minutes about 30 minutes delayed from the live recording and it jumps me forwards to the live point thus ruining the show.

ReplayTV has none of the problems mentioned above and behaves as if the still-recording show was a previously recorded one up to the live point.

It's funny how we waste no time in complaining about the things that don't work, me included. Remember, this box was just about useless just two weeks ago? I was one of the original skeptics that didn't think the 6412 had the processing power necessary to even perform the tasks that it was designed to do. With the tiling problems behind us, I am now truly amazed at this technology and very impressed with Motorola's design. Again, I'm very grateful to VideoGuy & others on this Forum for their contributions and dedication. With that said, it still sucks when the box misses a scheduled recording - especially when it's a favorite show, but now I am confident that this as well as other bugs will get fixed.

So now on to my concerns: I'm now having new problems with the transport functions, and I'm wondering if anybody else is experiencing this. The Play, Rew, Stop, FF, & Pause functions do not seem to respond quickly or accurately. I've had a recording "stuck" in FF and I wasn't able to get out by pushing Play, only Stop. And then, only after after a 10-second delay. I rebooting the unit, and it seemed to have made things a bit better but I'm still having problems. In fact, the Play after FF function rarely works and I'm still barely getting-by by still hitting Pause between functions. Batteries in the remote are fresh.

Also, FF & Rew in the fastest setting (3 clicks) seem to be going a lot slower than before the update. Anybody else getting this?

Originally posted by moyekj
Speaking of bugs, there are a couple more I left out regarding watching a show that hasn't completed recording all the way yet.

1. The progress bar stops at the point when you started to watch the show (rounded to the nearest half hour). e.g. a show is scheduled to record from 1:00-4:00pm and you start watching at 2:22pm, the progress bar stops at 2:30pm and never updates itself after that, so you have no idea where you are in the show.

2. If you stop watching a show that is still recording there is no option to resume playback from where you left off - very annoying especially because of bug # 3.

3. 15 minute skip doesn't work right if you get too close (but > 15 minutes) to the live point of the recording. I've had several cases where I try to skip ahead 15 minutes about 30 minutes delayed from the live recording and it jumps me forwards to the live point thus ruining the show.

ReplayTV has none of the problems mentioned above and behaves as if the still-recording show was a previously recorded one up to the live point.

I wasn't even aware that the box has a 15 minute skip? I know that if a program has been recorded and i would like to skip thru a big portion of the recording, the fastest i can skip ahead is at about a 15 second clip(3rd FF). Am i missing something?

Also...I was having many of the same problems described on this forum especially with '0' minute recordings tied to the subscription screen problem, but I had Cox come out and they replaced the box, the component cables and switched out the signal amplifier that had been installed several years ago. Since their visit I have had no subscription screens and no '0' minute recordings. I really believe that the subscription/'0' minute recording bug is tied to signal strength. Maybe every person encountering this problem needs to have Cox out and demand that the signal be boosted in some way or the box be switched out. Something changed in my situation that has completely eliminated the problem and has allowed me to set up a recording and have confidence that I will find the shows I have requested to be recorded actually on the LIST...fully recorded.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dwcliff703
I wasn't even aware that the box has a 15 minute skip?
Start single FF then each right arrow press will jump ahead 15 mins.
Start single REW then each left arrow press will jump back 15 mins.

I really believe that the subscription/'0' minute recording bug is tied to signal strength.
Yes I've been saying that for a long time too... however the "mystery" missed recordings where a program is red in the guide and in the "Scheduled Recordings" list but does not record for no apparent reason and does not generate 0-min recording is a new problem introduced apparently with 9.12 firmware. I can understand/explain the subscription/0-min recordings (which does not excuse the bug but at least makes it explainable), but plain missed recordings are even worse. Perhaps the only trend I've noticed seems to make this mystery non-record worse is when you have more scheduled recordings setup - but it's probably because that simply increases the odds that one will be missed.

I finally caved and decided to order one of those high quality 8-way Electroline amp/splitters to replace my current setup of 15dB amp followed by 5 2-way splitters. Should help improve signal strength even more, though it's pretty good right now on 3 TVs. I'm hoping somehow this will solve the 0-min/subscription bug plus mystery missed recordings as an added bonus - worth a shot anyway.

Ok, I have a question. I have noticed that all of my record problems are with programs really late at night, between 1am and 7am. Is this what you all are seeing, or are your issues in the middle of the day. I have an idea, but would like to see a couple of answers before I share.

Thanks,
Schmitter

Last night I was in the middle of recording Desperate Housewives while watching the Oakland vs. Denver on ESPNHD when at 9:30 the 6412 had nervous break down.

The 6412 went dark as if someone pulled the plug. Then after a minute the box went on blink 12:00 for almost two minutes. :confused:

When it was done it gave me back my TV. I Picked up the remote to get back to the game and I noticed it wasn’t recording Desperate Housewives. I checked the schedule and it was listed as recorded. I went to the recording channel that wasn’t and hit the record button. I went back to the schedule and it showed recording, but the first half-hour of Desperate Housewives was gone.

This is not good

:eek:

Originally posted by moyekj

Start single FF then each right arrow press will jump ahead 15 mins.
Start single REW then each left arrow press will jump back 15 mins.

[/B]

Sorry...i'm still a little confused! If i am playing back a recorded program and hit FF once I get about a 5 second continuous skip....hit the FF twice i get about a 10 second continous skip....hit the FF three times i get about a 15 second continous skip. I'm still not understanding 'jump ahead 15 mins.'

Let us know if the signal amplifiers fix your problems...I would have been tempted to call Cox out and made them try to boost the signal first and put the cost on them! Since their last visit here I haven't had any of the missed recordings you have mentioned (non subscription bug). We have the 9.12 version update too and all i've notice with the update is that i can now go from FF to Play and it doesn't kick me back a minute or two.....seems to work right now.

Originally posted by schmitter
Ok, I have a question. I have noticed that all of my record problems are with programs really late at night, between 1am and 7am. Is this what you all are seeing, or are your issues in the middle of the day. I have an idea, but would like to see a couple of answers before I share.
All my "mystery" missed or 0-min recordings happen during the day or primetime (8-11pm). I never record anything on the 6412 between 1-7am.

Originally posted by dwcliff703
Sorry...i'm still a little confused! If i am playing back a recorded program and hit FF once I get about a 5 second continuous skip....hit the FF twice i get about a 10 second continous skip....hit the FF three times i get about a 15 second continous skip. I'm still not understanding 'jump ahead 15 mins.'
Not sure how else to phrase it. While playing back a show hit the FF button once - this will start fast-forwarding the playback. Then hit the right-arrow on the remote (the button to the right of the select button) to advance 15 mins ahead. The unit will jump 15 mins ahead and then continue to fast-forward at that point (it's pretty clear you jumped forwards from the timeline indicator).

Let us know if the signal amplifiers fix your problems...I would have been tempted to call Cox out and made them try to boost the signal first and put the cost on them!
They have been out 2-3 times already even before my last amp I ended up buying which made a big difference. They didn't seem to like the fact I had a ReplayTV on each TV (even though I showed them a bypass picture to TV) and would insist those were the problem after measuring signal levels and claiming they were "in range" on every TV - in range being very liberal. After I installed my own amp low and behold the picture quality improved quite significantly on all TVs and even my cable modem download speed improved.

Originally posted by dwcliff703
Sorry...i'm still a little confused! If i am playing back a recorded program and hit FF once I get about a 5 second continuous skip....hit the FF twice i get about a 10 second continous skip....hit the FF three times i get about a 15 second continous skip. I'm still not understanding 'jump ahead 15 mins.'

He means hit the left or right arrows after hitting either rew/ffwd - not hitting rew/ffwd again.

Edit: Whoops, moyekj replied while I was typing mine! ;)

Originally posted by moyekj
Not so lucky anymore I'm afraid. Tonight I had NBA basketball scheduled to record on INHD1 and since I don't trust the box I watched as 6:00pm rolled by when the recording was supposed to start and nothing. I left the box alone for a couple of minutes and still nothing (it was already powered on). Then to try and figure out what went wrong I brought up the "Scheduled Recordings" list - as soon as I did that the red recording light went on and the show started recording - almost like the old days when you sometimes had to kick the TV to make it work properly.

That game was "Blacked" out for us I think, at least it was for me. Was fine on regular FSW, but was black on InHD-1. (which they mentioned in the guide as possible) Sucks, because no SD Laker game is ever blacked out here.

Originally posted by JETninja
That game was "Blacked" out for us I think, at least it was for me. Was fine on regular FSW, but was black on InHD-1. (which they mentioned in the guide as possible) Sucks, because no SD Laker game is ever blacked out here. Yes, the blackout started at 6:30pm. After it started recording at 6:04pm (with a little coaxing on my part) it played back fine until exactly 6:30pm when the blackout started. Then the picture froze and I couldn't go forwards and was not given option of erasing the show. What was funny was at that point the unit showed it was still recording the show even though nothing was making it to disk (because of the blackout), which is good behavior IMO since I don't want video glitches to end recordings. The FSW feed recorded fine on 1 of my ReplayTVs and was not blacked out as you mentioned.

Well, I'm out of the 6412 game. Just couldn't take all the missed recordings, so I sprang for an HDTivo. I hope Cox gets the unit fixed, but man is it buggy right now.

Probably a good move madpoet, but HDTivo only works with DirecTV satellite service last I checked, so not really an option for me - at least not without a lot of hassle. I guess you are able to get HD locals OTA OK? DirecTV doesn't provide feeds for those last I checked - you have to use an OTA antenna.

Originally posted by Walburga
He means hit the left or right arrows after hitting either rew/ffwd - not hitting rew/ffwd again.


Great...another feature of this box I didn't even know existed! And one of my biggest complaints had been that I couldn't move thru recorded programming at a faster pace! Now if we could just get a 30 Sec skip button working on this box!!

I notice the Subscription Bug error whenever both tuners are on the same channel. The first tuner always hits the channel without problem. If you then hit Swap, and tune to the same channel: wallah - "Not Subscribed" comes up for a few seconds - enough to ruin a recording! This is consistant.

I know this is not a cure-all, but it might help if you make sure the tuners are not on the same channel, and the default channel when you turn it on is also not on the channel that you're recording. I did not notice this before the latest upgrade.

Anybody else getting the transport problems I described a few posts ago?

Originally posted by sucha deal!
Anybody else getting the transport problems I described a few posts ago? Haven't had problems so far - and I use transport functions quite a lot.

I have several of the bugs mentioned recently. I get the slow response to commands from the remote. I also get the problem of scheduled recordings not starting when you are watching the box, and then the minute you hit anything on the remote, the box seems to wake up and start recording them. And I get the problem with the progress bar not displaying correctly when watching a program that is still recording. I also still get the subscription bug fairly often. Sometimes I can tell a channel has the subscription bug before even going to that channel. I'll be in the guide and select a program to record it, but the only option that comes up is "View Channel" (no recording options). This is a dead giveaway that the channel currently has the subscription bug.

I also rarely get the problem of a recording extending way past the ending time of the program. I recorded a 30-minute program the other day (on a SD digital station) and the recording ended up going on for 7 HOURS. Because I had marked that recording "Keep Until Manually Erased" when I scheduled it, nothing else got recorded that day because I had this massive 7 hour recording that couldn't be erased.

Even though the tiling and guide hole problems have been fixed (which is wonderful!), I still don't trust the box to record anything important (I still use TiVo as a backup).

In the interest of keeping all known outstanding bugs listed in 1 place, here's the current status. VideooooGuy, if you're still with us please email this to your team:

* Subscription/0-min recording bug
Well known problem that has not been fixed yet. May be related to signal strength of incoming coax feed - too strong or too weak.

* Mystery missed recordings
Guide indicates (in red) that a recording will record and the "Scheduled Recordings" list also lists a program to be recorded, but the recording never happens - not even a 0-min recording.

* Recordings get cut off sometimes when powering on the unit
This happened with old 9.11 firmware and still happens with the new 9.12 firmware

* First-run only repeat recordings sometimes miss first-run episodes.
I have to setup all repeat recordings as "First run and repeats" to be sure that a first run episode will record. This is most likely some missing data in the local guide listings indicating to Passport software this is a first run episode. Passport does not cue off of "New" at the end of the program description.

* Rogue recordings - recording beyond alloted time
Haven't run into this one personally and only seen 1 report of this so far - a case when a 1-hour show setup as a 1-time record from the guide (hitting record button while highlighting show in guide) actually recorded for 4+ hours and deleted existing recordings to make room.

* Unresponsive remote
This appears to be new to 9.12 firmware. Sometimes the remote is not responsive and transport functions and/or guide browsing don't respond to the remote (even with fresh batteries in remote).

And the bugs related to watching a show that is still recording:
*Wrong progress bar
The progress bar stops at the point when you started to watch the show (rounded to the nearest half hour). e.g. a show is scheduled to record from 1:00-4:00pm and you start watching at 2:22pm, the progress bar stops at 2:30pm and never updates itself after that, so you have no idea where you are in the show.

* Missing resume playback option
If you stop watching a show that is still recording there is no option to resume playback from where you left off - very annoying especially because of bug # 3.

* 15 min skip doesn't work passed "stuck" progress bar
15 minute skip doesn't work right if you get past the "stuck" progress bar (see above) of the recording. I've had several cases where I try to skip ahead 15 minutes (beyond the time at which you started playing back the recording - i.e. the "stuck" progress bar point) and it jumps me forwards to the live point thus ruining the show.

I believe this one I reported previously is fixed with 9.12:
* Guide data in RAM
Guide data doesn't automatically get populated in RAM so one has to manually browse through multiple days in the Guide browser to load the guide data to RAM. If the data is not loaded in RAM then the "Upcoming Recordings" list does not show all upcoming recordings and some recordings will be missed.
I'm not sure if this is still a problem or not with 9.12 firmware. Time will tell.

I noticed last night the 6412 would reboot on it's own lastnight I also noticed trying watch HBO ONDEMAND didn't work either if I tuned the 6412 to chanel 998 the box would lock up and reboot the only way to fix was to undue the cable from the 6412 and let it warm up first then plug the cable back into the 6412. To day I see a new problem when tuning to channel 998 EOD sometime it works and sometimes it says Tuner Failure 01, but both tuners stil work.

Andrew Wees

Originally posted by moyekj

* Mystery missed recordings
Guide indicates (in red) that a recording will record and the "Scheduled Recordings" list also lists a program to be recorded, but the recording never happens - not even a 0-min recording.


In addition, a recording will disappear from the "Scheduled Recordings" list and may or may not change to black in the guide.

Andrew,

It's actually Tune Failure 01 of I recall. Typically that is one of two things...either it's not able to contact the EOD server (i.e. the server it's contacting is down) or it's not able to receive the feed. You'd prolly be getting other errors like no data on your guide though if that is the case.

Originally posted by apaulct
In addition, a recording will disappear from the "Scheduled Recordings" list and may or may not change to black in the guide.

I've heard of this one once or twice, and I prolly has happend to me, but I have so much stuff recording I prolly wouldn't know if if it did.

I corrected one of the bug descriptions above, since now it's clear to me exactly what is happening:

* 15 min skip doesn't work passed "stuck" progress bar
15 minute skip doesn't work right if you get past the "stuck" progress bar (see above) of the recording. I've had several cases where I try to skip ahead 15 minutes (beyond the time at which you started playing back the recording - i.e. the "stuck" progress bar point) and it jumps me forwards to the live point thus ruining the show.

i'm not sure if it's necessarily a bug, since for some people it's not a problem, but these are bigtime issues for many of us trying to output via firewire to something like a DVHS deck, without going through a specific series of events like turning off the 6412, turning on the dvhs deck, then turning on the 6412. it was never like this for me and the 6208.

* First-run only repeat recordings sometimes miss first-run episodes.
I have to setup all repeat recordings as "First run and repeats" to be sure that a first run episode will record. This is most likely some missing data in the local guide listings indicating to Passport software this is a first run episode. Passport does not cue off of "New" at the end of the program description.

I wonder if this is a glitch in the guide data, and not a box isssue?

Originally posted by schmitter
* First-run only repeat recordings sometimes miss first-run episodes.
I have to setup all repeat recordings as "First run and repeats" to be sure that a first run episode will record. This is most likely some missing data in the local guide listings indicating to Passport software this is a first run episode. Passport does not cue off of "New" at the end of the program description.

I wonder if this is a glitch in the guide data, and not a box isssue? Yes, it most likely is a listings provider issue, though my understanding is ultimately it's Tribune Media Services that provides the listings which is same company that provides listings for ReplayTV, Tivo, etc. and I don't have this problem with ReplayTV.

because of the different software, there could be a data format issue, or syntax issue with the data.

Had another missed recording last night. All mine seem to happen on 702 (CBS), but I did have it happen at least once on channel 5 (KTLA).

VideoGuy, are you still out there? Any info on additional fixes that you can share?

The box is much improved but still not there IMHO. With missed recordings you can't really trust it. Also, with such minimal guide data, you cant even schedule recordings properly. I was watching something on Sunday night and saw a promo for movie airing this coming Sunday (7 days later), went to select the program in the guide for recording, but guess what? Couldn't do it because no guide data for the following week. This is one of the next major issues that needs to be addressed (along with insufficient storage capacity). 14 days worth of data is what I would like to see.

OK what the crap, has anyone else noticed that since this last update, EXTREMELY intermittently the Stop button will suddenly act like a pause!?!? Basically I'll be at the end of a show and hit stop and it will pause, I can play, pause, and hit stop and everything works except stop and pause BOTH pause! It's not a HUGE deal because I can just go into list and erase the program from here but it's a DEFINITE bug! I will say FF navigation has improved SIGNIFICANTLY so kudos for that one!!!
Tom

I have a series record set for "Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best" (repeats & first run) and yet it never showed up in the "Scheduled Recordings" list or was highlighted in red in the guide, and sure enough did not record tonight. Anyone else recording this show successfully or not using series record? I have a feeling perhaps the colon or apostrophe may be causing problems for the Passport scheduler.

NOTE: I triple-checked the characters in the series record setup against the show title shown in the guide tonight and they match exactly, so no good reason for it to be missed.

Another failed recording. Monday night NCIS was scheduled to record on Tuesday. It was in red on the guide and showed in the "Scheduled Recording" list. I left the box on (suggestion of Cox TSR) Monday night. Came back at 9:30 Tuesday to watch NCIS and nothing. No 0 length recording ... nada. It disappeared without a trace.

Since the last firmware upgrade the box is worthless. I actually get about 10% of my scheduled recordings. It was much more reliable before the 9.12 update. Cox is coming out tonight ... let's see what they say. At this point I don't know if it was a bad firmware update, problems with the 9.12 release, or a hardware problem with the box.

VideoooGuy, any comment???????

apaulct,
I live in Plantsville, and don't have not had any problems recording. Ncsi was on tuesday not monday and I recorded it and had no problem. Maybe your box is bad

apaulct,
I live in Plantsville, and don't have not had any problems recording. Ncsi was on tuesday not monday and I recorded it and had no problem. Maybe your box is bad

I just received the COX DVR in Williamsburg. I am having a problem with the Closed Captioning. When I activate it the captioning on the new converter it only works on the few channels that are in HD. The old Motorola box that I replaced is the model 6200. It worked fine showing closed captions on all the channels.

Is this a design flaw or just something local? Does this happen on everyones converter or just mine? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Bob G

Originally posted by paul172
I live in Plantsville, and don't have not had any problems recording. Ncsi was on tuesday not monday and I recorded it and had no problem. Maybe your box is bad

Hopefully it is that easy. Cox will be out tonight and if a box replacement fixes it, great.

Sorry for the delay in posting ... my real job has been consuming me lately.

Here's an updated on some bugs that were mentioned several days ago - I just wanted everyone to know that we're still highly focused on wringing out the bugs you are struggling with. Unfortunately, I do not know when the fixes mentioned below will be released.


Subscription/0-min recording bug
This is not related to signal strength. It's a bug and Pioneer has implemented a fix. We have only seen one instance of a zero-length recording since implementing the fix, but we don’t believe this one instance is related to the “Unauthorized Service” problem that was the main culprit of the zero-length recordings.


Missed recordings
We have not been able to recreate this issue. We did have a daylight savings problem where recordings fired off at the wrong time, but this is no longer an issue. To further analyze this we need more information. One scenario that is possible - did the recording happen, but was erased to make room for a different recording?


Guide data in RAM
This issue has been fixed in the 9.12 release that has been installed in all locations.


Recordings get cut off sometimes when powering off/on the unit.
This should not occur and we have not been able to reproduce it. Under normal circumstances, Echo does not cancel recordings when powering off and on the settop. It could be that the user is accidentally hitting SEL or MENU after powering off and truly putting the box into a powered off state, thus killing the recording.


First-run only repeat recordings sometimes miss first-run episodes.
We believe this is caused by missing information in the guide data. Echo looks for a specific bit to be set in the guide data which indicates a program is a first-run episode (i.e. “new”). If this bit isn't set in the guide data, Echo doesn't know it's a first-run episode.


Rogue recordings - recording beyond allotted time
Pioneer implemented a fix for this. Since implementing this change, we have not seen any instances of extended recordings in testing.

VideooooGuy

Do you if Omaha downloaded anything new or different to the 6412's on the weekend of November 28th? I had to unplug it and when I plug it back I have to hold pause on the remote or it will reboot for ever.

Thanks

Andrew Wees

Glad to hear from you again VideooooGuy and it's great to see some of the bugs are being actively worked on and fixed. Some on the missed recordings below:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Missed recordings
We have not been able to recreate this issue. We did have a daylight savings problem where recordings fired off at the wrong time, but this is no longer an issue. To further analyze this we need more information. One scenario that is possible - did the recording happen, but was erased to make room for a different recording?

I use the "watch as you go" philosophy with this box with limited space and never keep more than 2 or 3 hours at most of HD recordings on the box, so all the mystery missed recordings I've had (i.e. not subscription/0-min recording related) are not related to space. I believe that there may be some bugs in the "Series Record".

There are 3 categories of missed recordings not related to subscription/0-min bug that I can think of (1 and 2 below I have personally run into a few times):
1. Guide and Recordings List indicate that a show will record and yet it fails to record for some reason. Under this category, I have found that sometimes "stimulating" the box by tuning to a channel during the time frame it's supposed to be recording will wake it up and it will start recording.

2. Guide and Recordings List do NOT indicate a show will record even though it should. This I believe is a bug in the matching algorithm for Series Record. I don't recall an instance of a single-record setup that falls in this category, though I use single-record very seldom.

3. Space or conflict related. If there are too many programs already recorded and set as "keep until I delete" obviously this will lead to missed recordings eventually. If there are > 2 overlapping recordings obviously there aren't sufficient tuners to accomodate and a recording will be missed.

To help us help you it would be good to know the algorithm Passport uses for Series Record matching. For example, I assume the algorithm used is something like:

- The channel # of the Series Record setup must match the channel # in the guide
- The title of the Series Record setup must match the title in the guide exactly.
- Check first-run flag in the guide if setup as first-run only.
- Check the day of the week versus what is setup as allowed in the Series options.
- Check for specification on number of episodes to keep and "keep until I delete" specification.
- It's not clear to me if the time of day matters or not? ReplayTV for this kind of Series Record DOES care about the time of day the show airs - it cannot stray more than +/- 1 time slot from the time slot the Series Record was setup as. It's important to know if the Passport software cares about the time slot or not.

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Missed recordings
We have not been able to recreate this issue. We did have a daylight savings problem where recordings fired off at the wrong time, but this is no longer an issue. To further analyze this we need more information. One scenario that is possible - did the recording happen, but was erased to make room for a different recording?

VideooooGuy, here are some specifics about my missed recordings:
1. Last night (Tues) CSI-New York was scheduled to record Wed from 10-11 PM on channel 701 (WFSB-CBS HD). It was listed on the "Scheduled Recordings" list and was in red in the guide.
2. At this time this is the next scheduled recording and nothing else is scheduled until Thus.
3. I have one SD recording (2 hrs) set to save until manually deleted and 6 1 hour HD recordings set to delete if space is needed. Disk status shows 56368 used out of 109944. This does not look like a space problem to me.
4. Turned the recorder off last night.
5. When I turned it back on tonight, CSI-New York is no longer in the "Scheduled Recordings" list and is in black in the guide ... don't record.

This same scenario never happened prior to the 9.12 update. It has happened many times since. Come to my house ... I can recreate it daily.

Hope this info helps.



7:30 Update - Cox had a 5-7 PM appointment to swap out the box. The tech never showed. The official word from Cox is that "he called and there was no answer". We were home the entire time and the phone did not ring. Now we have to wait until Sunday for a tech visit.

VideooooGuy, in addition to the problems you already commented on a page back I have a complete list, including some new ones you may have not seen:

Bugs related to watching a show that is still recording:
*Wrong progress bar
The progress bar stops at the point when you started to watch the show (rounded to the nearest half hour). e.g. a show is scheduled to record from 1:00-4:00pm and you start watching at 2:22pm, the progress bar stops at 2:30pm and never updates itself after that, so you have no idea where you are in the show once you pass 2:22pm.

* Missing resume playback option
If you stop watching a show that is still recording there is no option to resume playback from where you left off (which of course is an option for fully recorded shows) - very annoying especially because of next bug when quickly trying to get back to the point you stopped watching.

* 15 min skip doesn't work passed "stuck" progress bar
15 minute skip doesn't work right if you get past the "stuck" progress bar (see above) of the recording. I've had several cases where I try to skip ahead 15 minutes (beyond the time at which you started playing back the recording - i.e. the "stuck" progress bar point) and it jumps me forwards to the live point thus ruining the show.

Originally posted by moyekj

* Missing resume playback option
If you stop watching a show that is still recording there is no option to resume playback from where you left off (which of course is an option for fully recorded shows) - very annoying especially because of next bug when quickly trying to get back to the point you stopped watching.


moyekj

Dumb question???

Why not hit pause on the recording tuner and swap back and forth.

Works for me

Joe

WHAT ABOUT STOP SOMETIMES BECOMING PAUSE!?! Am I the only one that has seen this? I'm watching a show, it's near the end and I hit STOP on the remote, but the PVR PAUSES instead, with the two pause bars ||
Hitting pause or stop both do the same thing, I don't get the stop menu where I can erase the recording and instead have to go into List and erase it from there. It seems to be on a show by show basis, if I start another show and hit Stop it usually works... Not critical, but a bug nonetheless and quite annoying...
Tom

This isn't always consistent, but watching COX RI's ABC or NBC HD channels, either through composite or Digital Coax to receiver, I get these occasionally pops where the audio drops off for about a second, and then comes back.

Happens with both DD.5.1 and standard, I can see my receiver lose the 5.1 signal briefly. This happened a few times during Lost last night, but prior, watching a recording of Las Vegas, no issues.

Happens with Scrubs on the HD channel as well, but not the SD version.

Originally posted by Joe3
moyekj

Dumb question???

Why not hit pause on the recording tuner and swap back and forth.

Works for me

Joe Usually I stop watching for a while because I have to go off and do something, not to tune to another channel, so the idea of pausing the playback never occured to me, but sounds like a reasonable suggestion/workaround. Still, the problem remains with that workaround that if you leave it paused and come back later to watch by "unpausing" it then the Wrong progress bar bug is still in effect, even if the recording has terminated - i.e. the progress bar end time never gets updated to reflect the true ending time of the recording.

Originally posted by mdg
Has anyone made up a .ccf file for the 6412 for a Pronto Pro TSU6000?? I don't have time do make one up right now. Thanks

I use the ProntoPro TSU6000 at home and thought I had one, but on further checking I don't. Try here:
http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mboard/rc-prontong/thread.cgi?4111,1#2

Originally posted by d2tw4all
WHAT ABOUT STOP SOMETIMES BECOMING PAUSE!?! Am I the only one that has seen this? I'm watching a show, it's near the end and I hit STOP on the remote, but the PVR PAUSES instead, with the two pause bars ||
Hitting pause or stop both do the same thing, I don't get the stop menu where I can erase the recording and instead have to go into List and erase it from there. It seems to be on a show by show basis, if I start another show and hit Stop it usually works... Not critical, but a bug nonetheless and quite annoying...
Tom I specifically looked for this problem on 3 shows that I watched and then stopped/deleted last night and didn't have the problem. Stop behaved the normal way giving me the option to erase each show which I did. One possibility is that perhaps your remote has a problem or old batteries and the 6412 is sometimes getting the wrong IR signal (pause instead of stop). It's a long shot but try new batteries in the remote. Seeing as you are apparently the only 1 here reporting this problem perhaps it's not widespread and is remote/IR transmitter/receiver related or perhaps a defective unit.

Originally posted by moyekj
Usually I stop watching for a while because I have to go off and do something, not to tune to another channel, so the idea of pausing the playback never occured to me, but sounds like a reasonable suggestion/workaround. Still, the problem remains with that workaround that if you leave it paused and come back later to watch by "unpausing" it then the Wrong progress bar bug is still in effect, even if the recording has terminated - i.e. the progress bar end time never gets updated to reflect the true ending time of the recording.

I've seen you outline this problem a couple of times so thought I'd add a comment. My 6412 does not behave in the manner you describe. I am able to pause either a live or prerecoreded program without ever losing functionality of the progress bar timeline.

I know this doesn't help any but thought you might have a probelem with your specific DVR.

Originally posted by Jimbo Moran
I've seen you outline this problem a couple of times so thought I'd add a comment. My 6412 does not behave in the manner you describe. I am able to pause either a live or prerecoreded program without ever losing functionality of the progress bar timeline.

I know this doesn't help any but thought you might have a probelem with your specific DVR. Hmmm. Thanks for the input. Guess I'll have to look at this more closely. Note that this will only be a problem for >= 60 min shows and if you start watching > 30 mins before the end of the show. Most of the time I run into a problem is for the Sunday NFL games which are 4 hour long recordings each (I always add 1-hour end padding to be sure to catch the whole game). I'll start watching an hour or two into the 4-hour recording. Let me experiment some more tonight and report exactly what is happening and potentially exactly how to reproduce the problem. It's possible that the progress bar end point actually does update itself but only every 30 mins such that this is only a problem if you are less than 30 minutes delayed from the live recording.

Originally posted by Jimbo Moran
I've seen you outline this problem a couple of times so thought I'd add a comment. My 6412 does not behave in the manner you describe. I am able to pause either a live or prerecoreded program without ever losing functionality of the progress bar timeline.

I know this doesn't help any but thought you might have a probelem with your specific DVR.

I agree, i've never had this type of problem with my 6412. The only similar issue i've noticed, and it's not really an issue, is that on some occasions if i only FF for a second or two, it will not FF at all, it will jump back to the point i started the FF. This, i've attributed, to the box trying to be to smart, and figuring i'm FFing so fast that from the time i hit play and it received the play command, it FFed to much, so it jumps back a little to compensate.

Aside from my issues with compression artifacting on analog channels, i've only noticed the following issues:

Subscription bug: Only on HD channels, 99% of the time it corrects itself within a matter of 2 seconds, as soon as the info bar disappears.

0/1 min recording: Only happened to me once, when i had a recording sceduled on an HD channel and an analog channel at the same time. This resulted in a cr*p out of the box where it always displayed the same random channel no matter what i tuned to, a simple power off fixed this, afterwards, i had two 0min recordings in my recordings list.

randomly missed recordings: well kinda i suppose... ONLY one time, i noticed a series recording i had failed to highlight (in red) an upcoming episode a few hours later. i tried to manually record it to no avail, no matter what i did it simply would not highlight that episode. But like i said, i've only seen that once.

As for the new-repeat episode issue, if u notice on the guide descriptions, there will either be a blurp at the end of the description that says New, or there wont be. the box looks for this to determine if a broadcast is new or not. Now, seeing as now many networks repeat shows throughout the nite, i've noticed that only the FIRST showing of a NEW episode is listed as New... perhaps that is an issue for some people trying to record subsequint broadcasts of new episodes.


P.S.
i actually have 2 questions as well, LOL. Any suggestions as to where to get a cheap DVI --> HDMI cable? Or just get it off of eBay?
And which is better, interlaced or p-scan on the 6412? I've been confused by previous posts...




TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

Originally posted by LogicSequence
randomly missed recordings: well kinda i suppose... ONLY one time, i noticed a series recording i had failed to highlight (in red) an upcoming episode a few hours later. i tried to manually record it to no avail, no matter what i did it simply would not highlight that episode. But like i said, i've only seen that once.
That's a symptom of the subscription bug problem. When a channel is "stuck" on the subscription bug you are not able to schedule it to record from the guide until you tune to that channel and wait a few seconds for subscription bug to dissapear.

As for the new-repeat episode issue, if u notice on the guide descriptions, there will either be a blurp at the end of the description that says New, or there wont be. the box looks for this to determine if a broadcast is new or not. Now, seeing as now many networks repeat shows throughout the nite, i've noticed that only the FIRST showing of a NEW episode is listed as New... perhaps that is an issue for some people trying to record subsequint broadcasts of new episodes.?
I had a few first-run episodes that aired for the first time ever that were missed. The end of the description had "New" but perhaps for whatever reason the flag that Passport cues off in the guide was not set to new. Now that I think about it, though, more likely the show was not recorded because of the "mystery missed recordings" problem (not the subscription/0-min bug) instead of being a problem with the guide flag.

And which is better, interlaced or p-scan on the 6412? I've been confused by previous posts...?
If you're talking about 720p vs 1080i setting, choose whatever your display natively wants so no extra processing is needed. Problem is some HD-channels use 720p and some 1080i, so whatever you set the 6412 to output it has to process a subset of channels to convert to the format you set. I would really like the option to natively pass-through whatever the native format of the transmission is. i.e. pass 720p or 1080i and let the display handle conversion if necessary, but still keep an override option in case the display can't handle different formats. We all know these boxes are cheaply made compared to your HDTV display, so I would rather leave as much processing to the TV as compared to the box - the analog encoding of the 6412 is a good example of what cheap/lousy hardware the box has.
In other threads (like Moxi) I've seen users actually adjust the output of the box according to which channel they are watching so as to avoid any additional processing by the box or the display - this is a little extreme IMO.

If you're talking about 4:3 override I actually use 480p since my TV can apply all kinds of stretches to 480p source compared to 480i source (so in this case I am violating my rule of thumb to minimize conversions made by the box).

The progress bar problem that moyekj was describing only affects scheduled recordings that are still in the process of recording. It does NOT affect the Live TV buffer or playback of fully recorded scheduled recordings. And I can say that the problem definitely exists, because I experience it all the time.

Originally posted by gb61
The progress bar problem that moyekj was describing only affects scheduled recordings that are still in the process of recording. It does NOT affect the Live TV buffer or playback of fully recorded scheduled recordings. And I can say that the problem definitely exists, because I experience it all the time. Ahh yes, well said, I thought it was pretty clear (I even gave examples to that effect) I was talking about playback of shows still recording as opposed to pre-recorded or buffer playback (which do work fine as you said). I hope to outline a clear way of reproducing the problem sometime soon so that Cox can reproduce it themselves. Without being in front of the machine though, it seems the procedure to reproduce the problems I'm describing is pretty simple:

- Schedule a single 60-min recording in the guide, say 8:00-9:00pm
- Wait until about 28 minutes into the recording, i.e. 8:28pm and then initiate playback
- Note that the progress bar end point will not be 9:00pm, it will show 8:30pm.
- Wait a couple of minutes until after 8:30pm rolls around and check the progress bar end point by clicking the play button. From my recollection it will not update itself anymore for the current playback and will display wrong using any transport button from this point onwards.
- Fast forward until just after 8:30pm and click on play to display the progress bar and note that at this point you have no idea where you are in playback since the end point is stuck at 8:30pm.
- Pause playback and let the recording proceed to 8:50pm
- At 8:50pm resume playback by unpausing (you should still be just past the 8:30pm mark at this point). Now try and perform a 15-min skip ahead that should take you to around 8:45pm, but note that you are actually taken to the live recording point (i.e. around 8:50pm). NOTE: You can tell you are at the live point because you won't be able to fast-forward any more.
- Also note that the little popup balloon with the blue background showing the time point you are in the recording will eventually dissapear off the 4:3 part of the display once you go far enough beyond the stuck point.

VideooooGuy one simple question which I can't believe hasn't been asked yet:

We all know that the analog channel encoding of the 6412 box (and all other Motorola HD boxes) is very poor because of "cheap" encoders used to keep the cost of the box down. The only viable solution to this problem is that certain cable companies (Comcast is one of them) are planning on dual-carriage of analog channels as high-quality encoded digital channels. I'm pretty sure Cox has this planned too - also to be used as transition to digital-only cable eventually. Can you give a time frame when this may happen in Cox markets. Is it months, years, decades, never? I believe Comcast will be doing this in many markets starting Q105.

Originally posted by moyekj
VideooooGuy one simple question which I can't believe hasn't been asked yet:

We all know that the analog channel encoding of the 6412 box (and all other Motorola HD boxes) is very poor because of "cheap" encoders used to keep the cost of the box down. The only viable solution to this problem is that certain cable companies (Comcast is one of them) are planning on dual-carriage of analog channels as high-quality encoded digital channels. I'm pretty sure Cox has this planned too - also to be used as transition to digital-only cable eventually. Can you give a time frame when this may happen in Cox markets. Is it months, years, decades, never? I believe Comcast will be doing this in many markets starting Q105.

Great question. I can't believe it hasn't been asked before. That is one advantage of satellite (all digital). Any input from Cox, VideoGuy?

Originally posted by moyekj
- Schedule a single 60-min recording in the guide, say 8:00-9:00pm
- Wait until about 28 minutes into the recording, i.e. 8:28pm and then initiate playback
- Note that the progress bar end point will not be 9:00pm, it will show 8:30pm (or perhaps it will show 8:28pm - this I'm not certain about until I can sit in front of the unit and try it out).
- Wait a couple of minutes until after 8:30pm rolls around and check the progress bar end point by clicking the play button. From my recollection it will not update itself anymore for the current playback.
- Fast forward until just after 8:30pm and click on play to display the progress bar and note that at this point you have no idea where you are in playback since it the end point is stuck at 8:30pm.
- Pause playback and let the recording proceed to 8:50pm
- At 8:50pm resume playback by unpausing (you should still be just past the 8:30pm mark at this point). Now try and perform a 15-min skip ahead that should take you to around 8:45pm, but note that you are actually taken to the live recording point (i.e. around 8:50pm). NOTE: You can tell you are at the live point because you won't be able to fast-forward any more.



That is the exact scenario that I encountered tonight, as well as the stop/pause issue. That is repeatable, its happened to me three times this week. While not particularly a deal breaker in and of itself, it is a minor frustration.

Perhaps the problem is unique to me, however I'm fairly certain it's not a battery issue. It doesn't happen all the time and when it does, if I begin playback of another channel stop works just fine. I've tried the remote batteries, etc... I have a feeling more will notice this as time goes on. I saw it tonight with Survivor, I was within a minute of the end of the recording and saw the problem... Time will tell I guess...
Tom

Originally posted by moyekj
- Wait a couple of minutes until after 8:30pm rolls around and check the progress bar end point by clicking the play button. From my recollection it will not update itself anymore for the current playback.


I see why I've never seen this bug. I have never seen a need to press the play button to check my progress. I click on the info button and then exit.

I suppose for me it isn't a bug! :)

Originally posted by moyekj
Randomly missed recordings: well kinda i suppose... ONLY one time, i noticed a series recording i had failed to highlight (in red) an upcoming episode a few hours later. i tried to manually record it to no avail, no matter what i did it simply would not highlight that episode. But like i said, i've only seen that once.

That's a symptom of the subscription bug problem. When a channel is "stuck" on the subscription bug you are not able to schedule it to record from the guide until you tune to that channel and wait a few seconds for subscription bug to dissapear.

No you misunderstand, if it was the subscription error, it would display unrecordable channel. I mean it did NOTHING, pressing the record button or select button produced no results whatsover, no menu popup, nothing, NADA, ZIP, ZILCH.

As for the Interlaced vs. P-Scan, yes i mean for 4:3, specifically analog channels, which produces the better picture? Irregaurdless or any stretching features (esp considering i have 4:3 HDTV)

P.S.
Any suggestions as to where to get a cheap DVI --> HDMI cable? Or just get it off of eBay?





TO ANYONE WHO RECEIVED the ATLAS DVR/PVR 5-DEVICE UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL (By Universal Electronics) with your COX DCT-6412:

I have an Apex Digital AD-2600 DVD player, none of the listed codes in the manual work for this player, and the search feature turned up nada as well. Has anyone else had this problem? Or can anyone suggest a code that might actually WORK for this DVD player??

Excited to see the Remote has the JP1 Connector inside....have to get a cable now. Still got a RS2116 never opened, may not need it now. Hope the memory is decent and can handle the macros I have planned. With 4 boys of all ages, I cant handle having an expensive remote around this place!

Cables, check around. I dont have DVI, but RAM Cables up there in the vendors above made me a sweet cable (Component to HD15) for a sweet price couple years ago.

Originally posted by Jimbo Moran
I see why I've never seen this bug. I have never seen a need to press the play button to check my progress. I click on the info button and then exit.

I suppose for me it isn't a bug! :) It's not just play button, that's just for the example as a way to show the progress bar and popup balloon without using a transport function, if you initiate a FF you will see the progress bar is "stuck", and the little popup balloon will go ahead and if you FF far enough beyond the stuck point the balloon actually dissapears off to the right side of the 4:3 part of the display - quite comical and certainly a bug. Similarly, REW, PAUSE or any other transport function will display wrong info. Also part of the bug is if you use the 15 min skip beyond or close to the stuck point you are jumped back to live buffer. All definately bugs and all these I confirmed tonight.

P.S. The Info button also shows the "stuck" progress bar.

In any case, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so I'll post a picture perhaps tomorrow of exactly what I'm talking about.

Someone mentioned earlier a problem with the stop button not working properly (it pauses instead of stops). I have experienced this problem and I believe it is related to the progress bar problem when watching scheduled recordings that are still in the process of recording. Once you go past the end of the visible progress bar, the stop button will no longer work properly.

AHA! THANK YOU, it isn't just ME! Funny how my problem and the recently discussed problem are probably linked after all. Thanks for the post!
Tom

Here's a picture of the popup balloon going off the right end of the screen while fast-forwarding ahead. Note that one has no idea what time into the recording this is at given that the popup balloon that contains the time is dissapearing from sight.

Sorry for the poor picture quality (this was an analog channel I used as an example).
This illustrates one of the bugs I have been talking about related to playing back a recording that hasn't completed recording yet.
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/BUG.JPG

Originally posted by d2tw4all
AHA! THANK YOU, it isn't just ME! Funny how my problem and the recently discussed problem are probably linked after all. Thanks for the post!
Tom Yes I confirm this too. To be specific about the bug, this only seems to happen when you start playing a show while it's recording and then when you press stop once the recording has completed. So there are actually now 4 bugs related to playback of a show that has not completed recording yet.

Unfortunately, all I can say at this time is that we're looking into digital simulcast for analog channels. It's a clear step on the future roadmap, but the timing hasn't yet been determined.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

Originally posted by moyekj
VideooooGuy one simple question which I can't believe hasn't been asked yet:

We all know that the analog channel encoding of the 6412 box (and all other Motorola HD boxes) is very poor because of "cheap" encoders used to keep the cost of the box down. The only viable solution to this problem is that certain cable companies (Comcast is one of them) are planning on dual-carriage of analog channels as high-quality encoded digital channels. I'm pretty sure Cox has this planned too - also to be used as transition to digital-only cable eventually. Can you give a time frame when this may happen in Cox markets. Is it months, years, decades, never? I believe Comcast will be doing this in many markets starting Q105.

Videooooguy,

Thanks for your continued support. A couple of questions. Do you know if anything is being done to turn off the output of the 6412 when it is turned off? It is causing automatic switching gear to sense that it is on and switching to it even after it is turned off via the remote. I am specifically talking bout the Component output.

Also, are there any plans to activate the video input jack on the front of the box and if so, will it scale the video to whatever you have the non-HD set to (i.e. 480p)?

Thanks again.

Ed

Originally posted by edsuski
Also, are there any plans to activate the video input jack on the front of the box and if so, will it scale the video to whatever you have the non-HD set to (i.e. 480p)? Just curious what you would use this for? Analog Camcorder perhaps?

I think I have more incite to the missing recording bug reported last week.

Cox was out yesterday and replaced the box. With the new box, if you schedule a series recording as "first run only", the reruns show in black in the guide. I guess this is the way it is supposed to work. Red means record, black means don't record (possibly because it is not first run). The new box performs consistently, if you schedule a show as first run, the reruns are in black. If you change it to first run and reruns, it changes to red, change back to first run and the guide changes back to black.

The old box randomly changed first runs to black.

Will keep an eye on it for the next week. Hopefully, the only shows I will miss are due to the 0 length recording bug ... and Cox will solve that one soon.

apaulct, that is certainly not the behavior I see here in Orange County market. For example, tonight's CBS "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode is a re-run and I have a series record set as "First Run Only". The Guide has no indication it will record or not record. i.e. it's not red and it's not black and has same blue background as other entries in the guide. Also, the "Upcoming Recordings" list does not indicate it will record. If I change Series options to "First Run and Repeats" then it changes to red background in the guide and shows up in the "Upcoming Recordings" list.
This difference in behavior is pretty strange given I assume we are both using 9.12 firmware. Anyone else see what apaulct is seeing?

I have seen it in the omaha area, but only after the recording time has passed. I also see what moyeki is seeing with the repeats in blue until the time of the original recording passes then the repeats are in black.

Andrew Wees



Originally posted by moyekj
apaulct, that is certainly not the behavior I see here in Orange County market. For example, tonight's CBS "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode is a re-run and I have a series record set as "First Run Only". The Guide has no indication it will record or not record. i.e. it's not red and it's not black and has same blue background as other entries in the guide. Also, the "Upcoming Recordings" list does not indicate it will record. If I change Series options to "First Run and Repeats" then it changes to red background in the guide and shows up in the "Upcoming Recordings" list.
This difference in behavior is pretty strange given I assume we are both using 9.12 firmware. Anyone else see what apaulct is seeing?

Originally posted by moyekj
This difference in behavior is pretty strange given I assume we are both using 9.12 firmware. Anyone else see what apaulct is seeing?

Yes, the new box has the 9.12 firmware and the most current Passport software.

I tested it many time yesterday morning while the Cox tech was here. Originally, I had Cold Case set to record "first run only" and the guide entry was black (nothing on the "scheduled recording" screen). I then went to "series recording" screen and changed it to first run and reruns. It appeared on the "scheduled recordings" screen and the guide entry changed to red. I went through this same procedure a few times changing from "first run only" to "first run and reruns" and back. Each time the "scheduled recording" screen changed and the guide entry changed red/black. The tech did not know if it was supposed to act this way ... but the behavior makes sense. IMHO, the box is indicating it recognizes the show and is not supposed to record it. Will do more testing tonight.

Videoooooguy, is this the way the box is supposed to operate?????

Originally posted by apaulct
IMHO, the box is indicating it recognizes the show and is not supposed to record it. Will do more testing tonight.

Videoooooguy, is this the way the box is supposed to operate????? Actually I would prefer if my box would behave the same way yours is - i.e. indicate that a show will not record because the box thinks it's a re-run. Currently with re-runs and my First Run recordings I don't really know if the box is skipping a recording because it is a re-run of if the box is indeed missing a show it should record. But still the most disturbing part is why are we seeing a difference in behavior in the first place?

It could be what Andrew posts above is the difference - it's only black in the guide AFTER the time it was supposed to record has passed - not so useful if that's the case - better to be notified up-front that something will not record rather than after the fact.

Can you describe exactly how the "black" background entry in the guide looks. Does it look the same as the case for a conflict with a graphic of a circle and a line through it or is it simply black background with no graphic? It's possible that somehow in Orange County market our boxes did not download the graphic used (i.e. firmware upgrade may have missed some files) which may explain the difference. When I bring up diagnostics (Menu, down, B, up, B) I see some cases of .JPG files that failed to be downloaded so I'm suspecting maybe I'm missing a few files that make up this behavior. I'll have to take note of the missing .JPG files and post here to compare with other markets.

Here is a picture of the screen:

http://members.cox.net/apaul2/dscf0058.jpg

This is definitely prior to the scheduled recording. Not sure what is going to happen after the scheduled time. I will take a look tonight.

I am not sure why this box is acting differently than yours moyekj, or why it is acting differently than the first box I had. Could it be that this is a new box (still had the User Guide in the package) with the latest firmware loaded at the factory? Possible download problems? Newer chip-sets? Videooooguy, any incite???