My 6412 is most definately not acting like yours. Everybody Loves Raymond did NOT show up as black in the guide either before or after the scheduled time, and of course did not record either as expected. This is consistent with what I've always seen. Guess we will have to wait from word from someone at Cox to find out what the expected correct behavior is - I would think the way your box is behaving is correct and there's something wrong with mine.

Don't know if this is relevant to the above discussion, but checking Diagnostics (Menu, Down, B, Up, B) I get nightly errors such as:

(Page 4/16)
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12091200.jpg Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12100012.jpg Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12091200.str Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12100012.str Failed

Several other such failures - pretty much one for every day the box downloads data.

Anyone else getting such failures with their box?

Moyekj - I get those same errors every time as well. The only time I noticed the black bars was once on channel 707. I tried to add a recording just before the one I wanted, and the guide said "unrecordable channel". I then tuned to the channel, saw the subscription screen for a second, it cleared, hit guide, and all desired bars turned red. Maybe that's the issue?

Here is part of the e-mail I sent to Cox for my only issue. Somebody please try this and see if you have the problem as well.


Thanks for the help, and for getting the tech out so quickly. I wanted to send you this e-mail to let you know I still have the problem, and to pass along some more info. The unit refuses to record even though there is room on the hard drive. Even if space was low, couldn't the unit just record until it runs out of space? Again, to see the free space available I press menu, down, B, up, B.

1. The unit will not record a 3 hour HD NFL game with anything less than 35 gigs available. I think the game should only take about 24 gigs of free space at most.
2. The unit will not record a 3 hour HD NFL game and a 1 hour HD program at the same time with anything less than 50 gigs.
3. While checking free drive space, the amount of free space listed while recording is always 10-15 gigs more than when idle. (...not really a problem, but wanted to let you know in case it's related.)

Please let me know what you think, and just let me know if you need me to test anything with this unit. I understand you may want to replace the unit again, but could you please test the unit you want to send me before I get it? I don't want to waste your time because it seems to be a software problem to me.

Thanks again.

Anyone in CT watch or record Las Vegas in HD last night.

I recorded it while watching the UConn game. We started playback of Vegas about 8:45 while it was still recording. The playback had a lot of both audio and video dropouts ... complete black screen and no audio. Not the tiling problem but complete loss of both audio and video for 5-10 secs at a time. This was more prevalent during the first half of the show. Don't know if it is the new box or just the bad weather effecting Cox's reception from the station. Anyone else notice this problem?

Thanks....

Originally posted by apaulct
Anyone in CT watch or record Las Vegas in HD last night.

I suspect it was a problem with the network feed. I experienced the same thing on COX and OTA from both Providence and Boston.

Roger

I had the same issues in Wichita, KS but OTA, since NBC is not part of Cox's offerings in HD as of yet

VideooooGuy please answer as to what the errors are.

Omaha is seeing the same issues. I posted last week with a couple of the errors I get they are the same you posted. I wounder if the errors are part of the reason the guide doesn't get a full 7 days of data until guide data is manually refreshed.

Andrew Wees




Originally posted by moyekj
Don't know if this is relevant to the above discussion, but checking Diagnostics (Menu, Down, B, Up, B) I get nightly errors such as:

(Page 4/16)
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12091200.jpg Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12100012.jpg Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12091200.str Failed
CFS 12/3 5:56:26a 2 12100012.str Failed

Several other such failures - pretty much one for every day the box downloads data.

Anyone else getting such failures with their box?

Last week I re set all of my scheduled recordings, just from what I read here, it sounded like a good idea. Last night when I got home from work, it had failed to record "That 70's Show" and "The Simpsons", two shows that I have set up as series recordings. This was at about 7:45PM, so I checked my guide for the indication of "House" being recorded on FOX-HD, and it was not highlighted at all. Rather than set up that as a single recording, just to check, I tried to set up a future recording of "Rebel Billionare". When I hit select, the pop up window would only let me tune to the channel, and at the top said "Unrecordable Channel". I then tried to create a couple of other recordings, and all of the HD channels said "unrecordable channel". I then tuned to an analog channel and it set up the recording no problem. I then tuned back to the HD channels, and it set up recordings no problem. The box then re populated the series recording of "House". Complete and total strangeness. I have since been unable to recreate this problem.

That sounds like a symptom of the Subscription Bug. Next time it says "unrecordable channel", try tuning to that channel and see if you get the subscription message.

I did tune to the channel and it did not have the subscription message. I was looking for it.

My closed captioning ONLY works on the Cox HD channels. These are shown in the 700 range.

It does not work at all on any other channel. Does anyone else have the same problem or is this just a local issue?

Thanks,

Bob G

Originally posted by schmitter
Last week I re set all of my scheduled recordings, just from what I read here, it sounded like a good idea. Last night when I got home from work, it had failed to record "That 70's Show" and "The Simpsons", two shows that I have set up as series recordings. This was at about 7:45PM, so I checked my guide for the indication of "House" being recorded on FOX-HD, and it was not highlighted at all. Rather than set up that as a single recording, just to check, I tried to set up a future recording of "Rebel Billionare". When I hit select, the pop up window would only let me tune to the channel, and at the top said "Unrecordable Channel". I then tried to create a couple of other recordings, and all of the HD channels said "unrecordable channel". I then tuned to an analog channel and it set up the recording no problem. I then tuned back to the HD channels, and it set up recordings no problem. The box then re populated the series recording of "House". Complete and total strangeness. I have since been unable to recreate this problem.

This exact problem happened to me last week on NBC (704). It said "Unrecordable" until I viewed that channel.

Tonight "Lost" failed to record on ABC HD. An earlier scheduled recording worked just fine (on an SD channel). I checked right before 9:00pm and "Lost" was in the Recording Schedule and was also in red in the guide, yet no recording. I tuned to ABC HD via the guide and no problems tuning (no subscription bug). I had no recordings on the box, so space was not an issue. These darn "Mystery Missed Recordings" are VERY frustrating.

Originally posted by moyekj
These darn "Mystery Missed Recordings" are VERY frustrating.

moyekj, you may want to have Cox replace the box. Since you don't have any saved recordings, it doesn't cost anything except a couple hours of your time waiting for them to show up.

Since they replaced my 6412 Sunday, I have not missed a recording. Granted, testing has been limited since most network programs we watch were repeats this week ... and I am set to record "first run only". So far, so good. I have at least a dozen shows scheduled to record oven the next 7 days. We will see in a week.

I didn't want to miss the last "Lost" episode before they break and repeat so I watched live. The problem was it didn't go HD until it was more than half way through the program.

This may have contributed to a no record. No HD on a HD channel.

Joe

Originally posted by Joe3
I didn't want to miss the last "Lost" episode before they break and repeat so I watched live. The problem was it didn't go HD until it was more than half way through the program.

This may have contributed to a no record. No HD on a HD channel.

Joe

That was the fault of your local affiliate, I had Lost in HD the complete show. It should not matter either SD or HD on any channel since not all programs on HD channels are broadcast in HD.

Acting on a hunch this morning I did an experiment that may explain "Mystery Missed Recordings" (I've tried this once and more tries are needed though):
- With 6412 on I scheduled a recording on channel 07 from 8:00-9:00am and channel 22 from 8:30-9:00am. This was before 8:00am.
- I tuned current tuner to channel 02, swapped to other tuner and tuned it to channel 300. I verified by swapping back and forth that I was currently tuned to 02 and 300 (i.e. channels different than those scheduled to record)
- I left the 6412 turned on - I usually always leave it turned on
- At 8:00am I verified that channel 07 started recording.
- Came back at 8:30am and used "List" button to check if channel 300 had started recording. Guess what, it DIDN'T. The current tuner was on channel 02 and swapping to the other obviously took me to 07 (currently still recording).

So my running theory is as follows:
When you have 2 overlapping recordings and neither tuner is currently tuned to those scheduled recording channels and you leave the 6412 on, you may get a missed recording. By leaving the 6412 on perhaps the software thinks you are watching a show on the current (non-recording) tuner, so when the second scheduled recording rolls around since the unit can't use the other tuner (which is already being recorded) it doesn't want to use the current active tuner you are "watching" and fails to record the second show. Had I perhaps left the box turned off then perhaps the unit thinks it's free to use the available tuner for the second scheduled recording.

It's just a theory for now and I'll have to try to reproduce again tonight, but I'm thinking somehow these missed recordings are perhaps related to leaving the box on all the time and that live buffering can interfere with ability of unit to record 2 shows at once - perhaps if I go back to turning off the box most of the time the problem will go away.

Originally posted by moyekj
It's just a theory for now and I'll have to try to reproduce again tonight, but I'm thinking somehow these missed recordings are perhaps related to leaving the box on all the time and that live buffering can interfere with ability of unit to record 2 shows at once - perhaps if I go back to turning off the box most of the time the problem will go away.


Moyekj,

I've always left my box on, the only time it was 'off' was on that last firmware update which rebooted the unit i guess.

Just wanted you to know.

Originally posted by moyekj
So my running theory is as follows:
When you have 2 overlapping recordings and neither tuner is currently tuned to those scheduled recording channels and you leave the 6412 on, you may get a missed recording. By leaving the 6412 on perhaps the software thinks you are watching a show on the current (non-recording) tuner, so when the second scheduled recording rolls around since the unit can't use the other tuner (which is already being recorded) it doesn't want to use the current active tuner you are "watching" and fails to record the second show. Had I perhaps left the box turned off then perhaps the unit thinks it's free to use the available tuner for the second scheduled recording.



I don't think this is true, unless your box isn't working correctly. Last night I had the box set to record two 8:00pm shows, one on 704 and the other 707. The box was on and tuned to 354. At 8:00pm the box automatically switched the displayed station from 354 to 704. The second tuner successfully recorded 707.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by joeracerx
I don't think this is true, unless your box isn't working correctly. Last night I had the box set to record two 8:00pm shows, one on 704 and the other 707. The box was on and tuned to 354. At 8:00pm the box automatically switched the displayed station from 354 to 704. The second tuner successfully recorded 707. [/QUOTE

Yes, but was the box on or off at the time of the first recording?

I have always turned my box off when not watching cable and have never had a missed recording. Yes, I have seen just about every other bug discussed including the dreaded "not subscribed". I think that moyekj might be on to something here.

niesman

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.

I Have the same problem with the progress bar in a currently recording show that moyekj describes also.

Chris

Originally posted by niesman
[QUOTE]Originally posted by joeracerx
I don't think this is true, unless your box isn't working correctly. Last night I had the box set to record two 8:00pm shows, one on 704 and the other 707. The box was on and tuned to 354. At 8:00pm the box automatically switched the displayed station from 354 to 704. The second tuner successfully recorded 707. [/QUOTE

Yes, but was the box on or off at the time of the first recording?

...

:confused:

He said: "The box was on and tuned to 354. At 8:00pm the box automatically switched the displayed station from 354 to 704."

--Walburga

I haven't seen anyone post this issue yet. Monday night I was watching CBS in high def (702). TV was on at 8:00pm, but I didn't start watching till a little after 8:40pm. So I rewound to see the first show, and then was fast forwarding through commericals. The only show set to record was Two and a half men at 9:30pm. I was just at the end of Listen Up, and Everybody loves Raymond was next to view. Wall time was 9:30, so the red light went on, and it Started recording Two and a Half men as it should. I had expeted to continue watching Raymond, since it was in the buffer. However, as soon as the recording started, the buffer went empty, and started to fill up with Two and a Half men. So I lost the whole episode of Raymond.

The second tuner was not being used by me.

Is this normal that the start of a recording empties out the buffer without warning?

I had been getting used to watching shows a little late off the buffer to miss the commercials, but now it seems like I need to be careful if there is recorded shows coming up on the same channel.

Chris

Originally posted by joeracerx
I don't think this is true, unless your box isn't working correctly. Last night I had the box set to record two 8:00pm shows, one on 704 and the other 707. The box was on and tuned to 354. At 8:00pm the box automatically switched the displayed station from 354 to 704. The second tuner successfully recorded 707.
OK thanks. Still can't explain why channel 22 didn't start recording in my experiment then. I'll have to try and duplicate the experiment again. The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps one of the tuners in my box is flaky, and as apaulct suggests perhaps swapping out the box may help. The reason I think 1 tuner is flaky is that when you are tuned to digital channels you can get readings of Signal/Noise and AGC and correctable/non-correctable errors (power off, select, select and I forget the name of the module containing the info). Consistently I see the readings on 1 tuner are very good - >=35dB Signal/Noise (good) with AGC at ~ 40% (good) but the readings on the other tuner are marginal with ~ 29-30dB Signal/Noise (fair-good) and AGC >= 50% (fair-good) and occasionally some correctable errors. So perhaps the second tuner has a harder time tuning properly and as we all know this can lead to missed recordings. So this may be a variation on the subscription bug problem which does not result in 0-min recording but simply a missed recording - i.e. instead of subscription bug this is a "trouble tuning" bug - seems like there is not much grace period given by the box to allow the tuner pll to properly lock at the right frequency and properly tune to a channel in order to begin recording.

Originally posted by cpteague
I haven't seen anyone post this issue yet. Monday night I was watching CBS in high def (702). TV was on at 8:00pm, but I didn't start watching till a little after 8:40pm. So I rewound to see the first show, and then was fast forwarding through commericals. The only show set to record was Two and a half men at 9:30pm. I was just at the end of Listen Up, and Everybody loves Raymond was next to view. Wall time was 9:30, so the red light went on, and it Started recording Two and a Half men as it should. I had expeted to continue watching Raymond, since it was in the buffer. However, as soon as the recording started, the buffer went empty, and started to fill up with Two and a Half men. So I lost the whole episode of Raymond.

The second tuner was not being used by me.

Is this normal that the start of a recording empties out the buffer without warning?

I had been getting used to watching shows a little late off the buffer to miss the commercials, but now it seems like I need to be careful if there is recorded shows coming up on the same channel.

Chris

I've noticed the same thing. In fact, now, when I am watching via the buffer, I set the show to record to avoid this problem. I think the problem only occurs when a new recording is scheduled to start on the same channel as the buffer you are watching. It's a bit of a pain, especially because of thei limited hard disk space.

How much space is taken up for certain programming. Cox says that UP TO 60 hours of recording are available. How much is taken up for Analog, digital and HD programming?

Last night I tried to record Philly vs. Minnesota on INHD and it told me I couldn't because I didn't have enough disk space. Granted the time period on there was scheduled from 6:00-10:00 p.m. However, in my current list of recorded programs I only had 2-3 hours of Analog, about 8 hours of digital and 1-2 hours of HD programming. I understand that I would need to have 2 hours of HD space available because of the dual tuners could be both on an HD channel and it has to buffer, but what is a good guideline of how much of those 60 hours are used for Analog, Digital and HD programming? Even with a 1, 2, 4 ratio (I have no idea what it is), I figure I would be using 51 hours (3 analog, 16 digital, 8 HD, 8 Buffer, 16 trying to record the BB game). So what is the real ratio then?

Originally posted by TV2000
I think the problem only occurs when a new recording is scheduled to start on the same channel as the buffer you are watching. It's a bit of a pain, especially because of thei limited hard disk space.

Hmmm.. I think your probably on to something here!

I had been wondering why the box decided to use the "live" tuner on him, but now it kind of makes sense.

The box must have some kind of "intelligence" to automatically use the tuner that's already tuned to a wanted channel, if it's "free" for use, rather than one not already tuned to the channel and go through the overhead of having to re-tune.

The box probably considers the "live" tuner to be free for use because you're technically not watching the tuner. You're watching the file on the HD that is the "live buffer" file. From that perspective, it's no different than watching a recording while recording something new.

While the tuner is feeding the end end of the file you're watching, the box must not consider this action to be having the tuner "in use", unlike watching the actual live output of the tuner.

So, the bug would appear to be that if you're time-shifting the live buffer, it doesn't avoid re-using that tuner for recording a show.

The answer would be to have it always use the other tuner if not in use (like when you're watching "live") and ONLY using the current tuner if the other is already recording.

That way, the live buffer would only get dumped if you needed both tuners to record.

What would be even better would be if that happens, it would pop up asking if you want to permanently save the buffer as a recording.

This all make sense? :confused:

--Walburga

wildjays, below is some info on the different streams I measured a while back. Note that even though we have 120GB hard drive (120e9/1024^3), only about 88GB or 88*1024MB is allocated for recorded shows (subtracting software + buffers).

So based on my measurements this works out to roughly:
88*1024/8400 =~ 11 hours for HD recordings
88*1024/1721 =~ 52 hours for SD digital recordings
88*1024/2930 =~ 31 hours for SD analog recordings


6412 HD STREAM INFO
===================
Channel = NBC-HD
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=*18.29Mbps, Peak=19.2Mpbs
Resolution 1920x1088i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 16:9 (1920x1080)
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 6 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 384 Kbps
1 hour show size 8,400 MBytes
(18.29+384/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 8,400 MBytes/hr

6412 SD DIGITAL STREAM INFO
===========================
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=*3.7Mbps, Peak=15Mbps
Resolution 528x480i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 128 Kbps
1 hour show size 1,721 MBytes
(3.7+128/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 1,721 MBytes/hr

6412 SD ENCODED FROM ANALOG STREAM INFO
=======================================
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=6.2Mbps, Peak=7.5Mbps
Resolution 720x480i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 320 Kbps
1 hour show size 2,981 MBytes
(6.2+320/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 2,930 MBytes/hr

Thanks. That is very helpful. So it is more of a 1, 1.75, 5 ratio.

Walburga:

You noted;

"What would be even better would be if that happens, it would pop up asking if you want to permanently save the buffer as a recording."

Hopefully one could also install a pop-up blocker if we didnt want to see it

Originally posted by wildjays
Thanks. That is very helpful. So it is more of a 1, 1.75, 5 ratio. Hmmm. Seems more like (12, 35, 59)/12 or ~ 1, 3, 5 ratio.

I spoke too soon ... the new box is acting up.

When we went to bed last night everything was OK. All future series recordings showed in the "scheduled recording" window. I had a one time recording scheduled over night and series recordings starting Thu. night for the rest of the week. Turned off the box.

When I got home today I turned on the box. It was set to channel 1 ... normally sets to last channel viewed. The box must have rebooted itself. No indication of power failure which may have rebooted the box.

The overnight recording was complete and OK. Nothing on the "scheduled recording" window. All series recordings were gone. Went to the guide. Some of the series were in black, some still in red. All were in red and showed on the "scheduled recording" window last night.

Using the "series manager" window, I changed one of the "black" recordings from "first run only" to "first run and reruns". That show and about 1/2 of the others appeared on the "scheduled recording" window. Did the same for another that did not show ... like magic, all scheduled recordings are now back. Changed the two back to "first run only" and the schedule is still there.

Could this be related to the first run / rerun bit setting bug??????? The mysterious reboot???? Maybe it just has a mind of it's own!!!

Hi guys,
I have a 6412 from Cox in New Orleans and I found this reply
Posted by MarcL on 11-10-04 03:58 PM:

Here is the exact procedure to program a swap or 30 second skip to the remote.

1) Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2) Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3) Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice
4) Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button
5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip) or 00236 (for Swap).
6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip or swap function to.

Marc
It was on this thread
Official Comcast 6412 w/ iGuide Discussion
Is there any chance this will work with Cox Cable 6412 w/ Pioneer Passport ?

Mark, don't waste your time - that 30-sec skip solution only works with Iguide software - it won't work with Passport Echo software which is what Cox is using. Believe me, this was one of the first things I tried and confirmed it does not work with Passport. You can confirm it for yourself it doesn't work using the remote that came with your 6412. The equivalent code is either 0173 or 173 instead of 00173 for that remote - you can tell by when the remote double flashes the correct number of digits expected. In any case, it doesn't work - i.e. the unit doesn't respond to the IR signal associated with that code. That same remote that came with my box already had a swap button so no need to program that one - of course that one does work.

Concur. This did not work with COX and the Atlas remote. The extra digits ('00'173) caused my '3' to be reprogrammed. It took me 10 minutes to reprogram the 3 (by trial and error).

And just using 173 did not work as well.

Still holding out for the 30 sec skip!

Maybe some more fodder for the 'box being on' might cause the missed recordings.

I have both CSI and ER set to record, both on the analog stations as I don't havea HD monitor, nor wish to dedicate the drive space (I only get CBSHD anyway). However I do prefer to watch the shows in WS, so since I was in front of the TV I watched CSI on the HD station. ER is one of those shows that the networks have been sliding the time back a minute, so tenichally the two shows overlap, and I was watching a "third" show.

When the credits started rolling for CSI, Down on the bottom, like an Info bar I recived a notice that ER was starting in 1min, and started counting down, A to confirm, C cancel recording. I hit A and the manually changed the channel not wanting to screw something up. But is it possible that this is screwed up and if you don't respond it just continues on the channel you're on? I've never missed a recording since I got my box 2 weeks ago, but I also turn off the box when not watching TV.

Originally posted by jditoro3
But is it possible that this is screwed up and if you don't respond it just continues on the channel you're on?

No if you ignore the request it changes channels and begins the recording, at least mine does as I tried it to see what would occur.

Originally posted by jditoro3
When the credits started rolling for CSI, Down on the bottom, like an Info bar I recived a notice that ER was starting in 1min, and started counting down, A to confirm, C cancel recording. I hit A and the manually changed the channel not wanting to screw something up. But is it possible that this is screwed up and if you don't respond it just continues on the channel you're on? I've never missed a recording since I got my box 2 weeks ago, but I also turn off the box when not watching TV. I tried another experiment last night and I saw what you are talking about with the countdown to confirm recording. I didn't do anything (i.e. didn't choose confirm or cancel). 20 seconds or so before the recording was scheduled to begin the dialog box went away and in another few seconds the unit automatically tuned to the appropriate channel on the second tuner and started recording. So I think leaving the box on should still work in most cases - but perhaps it's better to leave the box off to avoid this extra prompting and extra chance for something to go wrong. Last night I left the box off and all 3 scheduled recordings (2 of them overlapping) recorded with no problems. So I still can't explain occasional "Mystery Missed Recordings" though.

Originally posted by apaulct
When I got home today I turned on the box. It was set to channel 1 ... normally sets to last channel viewed. The box must have rebooted itself. No indication of power failure which may have rebooted the box.

My box rebooted last night while I was watching it. Something was definitely wrong - it started responding to commands from the remote slower and slower until finally it was taking about 15 seconds to respond to any command from the remote. Then it finally rebooted. After reboot, everything was back to normal. Weird.

I got this box yesterday and have been playing with it. Seems simple to use, and pretty amazing to me.

Omaha still has the guide hole bug. The guide will show info on the current day until the sixth and on the seventh day the guide will say no data until the guide is mainually refreshed.

Andrew Wees

Andrew, consider yourself lucky - we never get the 7th day here in OC market even via manual refresh.

Hmmmm ....

Today, (this Saturday morning), I tried a themes search.

I went to HDTV and scanned forward to next Saturday. Sounds like seven days to me.

We'll see, if the recording of "Island Bikini IV" on INHD shows up. :D

Hmmm. That would be 8 days: Sa, Su, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa. I only get until Thursday.

Originally posted by moyekj
Andrew, consider yourself lucky - we never get the 7th day here in OC market even via manual refresh.

moyekj
have you tried forcing the 6412 to reboot by holdng the power button on the front of the box? I had to do that once and I all I needed to do to get a full 7 days of data was manualy refresh the guide data?

You might have a bad or it might depend where cox gets ther info from for your area it might only have 6 days available.

Andrew Wees

Sighhhhh. I set an NFL game to record today padded by 1 hour (4 hour total). When I sat down to watch it I saw a banner saying the machine had run out of disk space - I had NO OTHER SHOWS RECORDED and even the NFL game didn't save partially. I checked disk space available and it said only 35G available?? So I reboot the machine and when it comes back up then I have 90G available and the recording starts right back up after reboot...

So looks like this 6412/Passport solution needs to be rebooted on a regular basis to clear up "phantom" disk space being used. And I thought my babysitting days were over...

I'm starting to think some of the "Mystery Missed Recordings" may be due to this "phantom" disk space problem.

When I have no recordings, the diagnostic screen reports 109 GB allocated and 19 GB used.

I assume that the 109 GB allocation represents 120 GB hard-drive capacity less the amount allocated for the two live buffers. If this is true, I would expect that it would show 0 GB used when no programs are recorded.

Another theory is that the 19GB used represents the two live buffers (which will never go away), and the other 11 or so GB not allocated are used for guide and other data - but that seems fairly excessive.

Does anyone know the answer to this? Video Guy can you comment? Is my box reporting correctly - or is there some problem? BTW, I rebooted the box, but got the same results. Thanks in advance for any insight.

First of all, 120GB is "false" advertising, just like DVDs are advertised as 4.7GB but are really 4.7e9Bytes/2^30=4.37GB.

Similarly for a "120GB" drive what you really get is: 120e9/2^30=111.76GB
(1KByte = 2^10 = 1024 Bytes)
(1MByte = 2^20 = 1024^2 Bytes)
(1GByte = 2^30 = 1024^3 Bytes)

Looking at allocation totals:
System=238MB
GPFS=2861MB
PVR Content=109944MB
PVR Index=1431MB
=>TOTAL allocation = 114474MB = 114474/1024 = 111.79GB

NOTE how total allocation matches true drive size.

Useage (with no recordings on the box):
System=1MB
GPFS=21MB
PVR Content =~ 19280MB
PVR Index =~ 96MB

So really these are the true numbers in GB:

Total drive space =~ 112 GB
Total recordings space =~ 109944/1024 =~ 107 GB
Buffer space (for 2 tuners) =~ 19280/1024 =~ 19GB (corresponds to just over 2 hours of HD)
Space available for recordings = 107-19= 88GB (corresponds to about 10 hours of HD)

I think this analysis explains why some 6412 users are surprised how quickly they run out of space - there is really about 32GB less space for recordings then most think they have.

If the above numbers are correct, then this is much less than the 25 hours of HD recording time Cox told me I would have. I am not saying they are guilty of fraud, but I think they should allow us the opportunity to add more space and/or archive to RW DVD.

Joe3, pretty sure on the disk space numbers as they are pulled directly from diagnostics info. HD hours available will vary depending on the actual HD programming and bit-rate and I would say a good range is 10-13 hours. Don't know where you heard 25 hours... I was always told 12-13 or so. No question more space is needed though, especially since many veteran PVR users use the box almost exclusively for HD recordings.

I was first told 17 hours of HD by Cox, but I guess they were wrong. It would be nice if the unit would record until there is no space left, rather than just refuse to record something because it may be a few bytes short. Here is the e-mail they just sent me...

Thank your for your patience as we investigated this problem.

The latest calculations from Cox engineering based on average bit rates
(7.5 Mbps for analog) are as follows:

26 hours of all analog recordings
50-60 hours of all digital SD recordings
8-10 hours of all digital HD recordings

According to the information I received, on the 120GB hard drive
approximately 89.7 GB are available for recording purposes, which is
very close to the amount you had when the DVR would not record any more.
The rest of the space on the hard drive is reserved for DVR functions,
and cannot be changed to provide more storage room.

I hope this helps explain why the DVR has been performing the way it
has. I'm sorry that it took so long for us to get the information to
you.

It seems that a very cost effective way Cox and Costumer can help each other with 6412 and everyones space limitations is to begin to slowly migrate analog to digital.

You can start with the not so popular analog channels (get the ball to slowly roll, see what the reaction will be, gently nudge) to digital. This would make room for more much needed HD channels and/or free up some space on 6412 hardrive.

One thing is clear, analog has got to go, either way. Cox, it is always good business to get ahead of a business trend. Its always bad business when you have to chase it. There are many who learned this the hard way, but were to late, AT&T, Times Mirror etc...

I had to have our 6412 replaced this morning and when the tech left I was playig around with it and noticed it has more output settings then the old 6412 did and it defaults to 1080 Wide perserve pic I don't know that is the correct spelling.

Anyone in CT having problems with the HD channels tonight? I am getting black screens on all 7xx channels ... Cox TSR knows nothing about an outage.


Thus AM update ... their back this morning ... guess it was a network outage at least in CT. Cox still doesn't know a thing.

Happy Holidays all... I'll be removed from my 6412 for a few weeks. I fully expect that all the bugs will be fixed and enhancement requests fulfilled by the time I get back. :)

Happy Holidays to you, I kind of wrote mine off, left it ON and tuned to music, and.... it's been recording shows faithfully. Go figure.

The kicker is that I've no time to watch them before they will be recorded over. The box needs much more storage for those of us using it only for HD.

Videooooguy, how about a pre-Christmas update. Anything new on the mystery missed recording problem?

Thanks

I am in the market for a new HD TV. I live in a Cox area where we are supposed to get the Moto 6412 in January. I use PIP a lot and was wondering if I need to purchase a TV that has PIP or if the dual tuner 6412 splits the signal in such a way that I don't need to buy a TV with PIP. I have visited this site a lot over the past 4 months and I'm hoping that all the bugs will get resolved before being introduced to the Lubbock market.

The 6412 does not do PIP. You will need a TV with PIP built in. Motorola is supposed to come out with a newer model 6412 with built in PIP in the future. I don't if any cox markets will get it though.

Andrew Wees


Originally posted by Bossman111
I am in the market for a new HD TV. I live in a Cox area where we are supposed to get the Moto 6412 in January. I use PIP a lot and was wondering if I need to purchase a TV that has PIP or if the dual tuner 6412 splits the signal in such a way that I don't need to buy a TV with PIP. I have visited this site a lot over the past 4 months and I'm hoping that all the bugs will get resolved before being introduced to the Lubbock market.

Andrew,

Thanks for the quick reply. I really appreciate it.

John

Is anyone else having a problem with the DVR locking up / freezing? This has happened to me twice now in the last few days, and it has a wierd twist on it. I have not been able to get the box to do anything when this happens. Can't even power it off. Have to pull the plug.

Now here's the twist. I'm sure this is just coincedence but anyway: Both times it has happened, it has been watching the Sponge Bob Square Pants christmas show! I have a TIVO connected up to the cox dvr and do much of my tv watching using the tivo. I use the cox dvr mostly for recording pay channel movies in DD and recording HD. I had setup the tivo to capture this one Sponge Bob episode, and during both times, the box has locked up. I haven't noticed it till the next day, because I don't happen to be watching the tv when tivo tries to catch the show. I would really doubt that the show on at the time has anything to do with this, but it's really wierd that the box has locked up twice now attempting to watch the same show. The tivo is working fine, but in both cases, time stops on the cox dvr, and it is frozen. The same image just stays on the screen.

Originally posted by ajwees41
Motorola is supposed to come out with a newer model 6412 with built in PIP in the future. I don't if any cox markets will get it though.

Andrew Wees

Why do you doubt this? The local Cox affiliate in Tulsa has been quite willing to invest in the latest equipment available.

Oops, I read you're "don't as doubt. Did you mean doubt or don't know?

I don't know if our local cox would get them.

It seems like it took a long time to launch DVR in Omaha.

Andrew Wees


Originally posted by Jimbo Moran
Why do you doubt this? The local Cox affiliate in Tulsa has been quite willing to invest in the latest equipment available.

Oops, I read you're "don't as doubt. Did you mean doubt or don't know?

Originally posted by moyekj
First of all, 120GB is "false" advertising, just like DVDs are advertised as 4.7GB but are really 4.7e9Bytes/2^30=4.37GB.

Similarly for a "120GB" drive what you really get is: 120e9/2^30=111.76GB
(1KByte = 2^10 = 1024 Bytes)
(1MByte = 2^20 = 1024^2 Bytes)
(1GByte = 2^30 = 1024^3 Bytes)

Looking at allocation totals:
System=238MB
GPFS=2861MB
PVR Content=109944MB
PVR Index=1431MB
=>TOTAL allocation = 114474MB = 114474/1024 = 111.79GB

NOTE how total allocation matches true drive size.

Useage (with no recordings on the box):
System=1MB
GPFS=21MB
PVR Content =~ 19280MB
PVR Index =~ 96MB

So really these are the true numbers in GB:

Total drive space =~ 112 GB
Total recordings space =~ 109944/1024 =~ 107 GB
Buffer space (for 2 tuners) =~ 19280/1024 =~ 19GB (corresponds to just over 2 hours of HD)
Space available for recordings = 107-19= 88GB (corresponds to about 10 hours of HD)

I think this analysis explains why some 6412 users are surprised how quickly they run out of space - there is really about 32GB less space for recordings then most think they have.

That is about right. Here is the info I have.
Total Disk Space 120 GB
Reserved for System 5 GB
Reserved for 2 LOD Buffers 18 GB
Reserved for Push Content 6.4 GB
Reserved for Disk Overhead 0.9 GB
Available Disk Size 89.7 GB

Also, here in Omaha, this is what I show for the recording rates....I'd assume this is the same for everyone since it's based on the Passport Software.

Bit Rate (Mbps) - Storage Time (Hours) - Data Typ e
3 Mbps Digital
7 Mbps Analog
11 Mbps HDTV - Low
19 Mbps HDTV - High

I'm actually working on a DVR Calculator in HTML to calculate the amount of space remaining in each format depending on how much is used based on the info I posted above. Lemme know if you want to see it and I'll put it on my server.

i noticed a lot of bugs being reported in this thread, i have a really strange one that's driving my 6412 nuts right now.

last night i found a 0 minute recording from channel 0 dated 12/31/1989 (!)

i tried deleting it but quickly realized it was actually deleting other programs whenever i attempted this.....after archiving what i had left, i deleted everything but now when i try to delete the mystery recording, i get an error message to call comcast (they have no idea what is happening even when i reference the error code : NH).

it says 0 min. but it's taking up 3% on the dvr...and seems 100% undeletable even when i reset the box by unplugging it for a while. i also had comcast send a reset signal to it....nothing

when there are other recordings available, it seems to take on the program info from whatever is on top of it in the dvr listing. this is probably why hen i first tried deleting it, it was actually deleting the program on top of it in the list. i just wonder 1) why it's even there in the first place, and 2) why it lists 12/31/1989 !?!

(ps - i tried forcing it off by recording 7 hours of HD on 2 tuners at once last night and filling up the dvr, since i went back and set the mystery recording to "delete when space is needed"...but since i had the new recordings set to "save when i delete", it took on that priority as well and kept itself from being deleted.)

argh!

Has there been any word on when the following with be activated?

-External hard drive useage
-Front and rear A/V inputs for like a camera
-firewire ports?

Originally posted by gpttigers
Has there been any word on when the following with be activated?

-External hard drive useage
-Front and rear A/V inputs for like a camera
-firewire ports?

Don't know about an external drive or the A/V inputs but the firewire ports have been active since prior to the dual tuner firmware upgrade. I have been using it for input to my Mitz TV since I got the box a few months ago ... you don't get the menus but the TV video looks great.

I hooked up the firewire to my DVD recorder. I don't get anything. I'm able to use the recorder with my computer so I know that input works. Is there something I have to set up on the 6412?

The firewire port has to be connected to a 5C compliant device. There are unsupported drivers for hooking it up to a PC, but I don't know about your camcorder, maybe not 5C compatable?

DVD recorders are looking for Firewire DV (eg. from a camcorder). I tried it on a Philips Recorder as well and it didn't work.

So I too entered the code and ended up messing up my '7' key. How do I fix it so 7 works again?

Originally posted by cfjedimaster
So I too entered the code and ended up messing up my '7' key. How do I fix it so 7 works again?

Try this post How To Fix your 7 Key on an Atlas Remote (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4689687#post4689687)

I had a Cox tech out this morning about the mystery missing recording problem. He was actually able to see the problem for himself. NCIS (tonight 8PM) was highlighted in red in the guide but did not show in the "scheduled recordings" screen. He could not get NCIS to schedule recording but it stayed red in the guide. After reboot, NCIS and about 8 more shows appeared in the "scheduled recording" screen.

At least a Cox rep has seen it happen ... can't tell me I'm seeing things.

He said something from the head end was telling the box the channel was not recordable ... maybe this has something to do with the "subscription required" bug. Anyway, he said he would report it and they will work on it.

Another strange thing last night ... I was watching a show on time delay and fast forwarding through commercials. The box would not respond to the the remote ... it kept fast forwarding till the end of the recording then it rebooted itself. After it came back from the reboot, everything was fine. It even picked up with scheduled recordings. The whole thing happened right on the hour when it was ending the current recording, starting a new recording, and fast forwarding on playback. Guess it got confused.

Is there any way to use the external inputs as a regular dvr (so I can use the output of my dish) ? Seems like mine are there but the Input select on the remote does nothing to select the rear ports.

My Krell 7.01 pre-amp will not consistently lock in to the 6412 audio with the audio output set to AC-3. When this happens it also locks up the audio switching on the Krell.
When I set the 6412 audio output to Pulse Coded Modulated I have no problems...except I have no Dolby Digital!

Any ideas?

It is driving me crazy!

Thanks!

Rick

Anyone else having a problem with EOD? I am in omaha and when I tune to the eod channel I get network unavailable message also there is no ip address in the interactive menu on the diagnostic screen it INIT WAIT DC OR whatever that means.

Andrew Wees

Metrocast Cablevision (New Hampshire) now has a DVR! It's available in southern NH and southern Maine.

It's the Motorola DCT 6412 (two tuner) and it uses the Pioneer echo Passport DVR software version 1.6 I believe.

The instruction book they give with it is horrendous (ie no telling how to view Friday's guide when you're on Tuesday, etc)...I've done a few searches but I just wanted to throw in my issues:

1. The FF/REW "buffer" is horrid. I can hit play 30 seconds into the show back from commercial, and it goes back to the commercial. I can't figure it out -- i'm too addicted to tivo quickskip and I guess you can't program that in on the pioneer passport software. Gah!

2. Conflict resolution looked good in the manual, but on Monday, I had it set to tape Raymond and Full House (for my kids, really). Since I was watching the bowl game on a little delay, rather than prioritize the show to tape, it just didn't bother taping either. I can't figure out what happened here -- there's no recording history that I can see.

Recording LOST and Alias in HD tonight are worth the price of admission. Buh bye SA Tivo! Too bad TiVo didn't announce anything like a SA HD Tivo at CES...

anyway, I'm still trying to recoever from Tivo withdrawal. If I never had Tivo I think I'd really, REALLY like this thing. So far I only like it 1x. But it's growing on me.

If anyone knows any workaround for the passport software to edit the rew/ff buffer OR find the magic quickskip than I would love it!!

What should the signal levels be for the 6412 to work properly? We had the 6412 replaced twice already and the tech said there was a loose fitting somewere. My question is why does it work for about two weeks the go into rebbot mode.

Andrew Wees

I'm back after an extended vacation. Looks like the 6412 recorded most of what it was supposed to while I was gone surprisingly enough. I'm dissapointed this thread does not have much activity the last few weeks and no updates from Cox or VideoooooGuy.

There is another bug I have found but did not report yet and have not done detailed analysis. As was reported earlier, the stop button behaves like pause when trying to stop playback of a show you started to watch before the recording completed. As mentioned in order to stop playback one must go to the recording list and delete the program from there since there is no option to do so after pressing stop button. Problem is, it seems like the program is not properly deleted doing it this way when checking total available disk space available - for me total space available does not change when deleting shows this way - one must reboot the 6412 to recover the lost disk space. So, if you are not careful in rebooting the 6412 and you often playback shows before they complete recording you will eventually run out of disk space to record any show - I think this may partially explain some of the "mystery missed recordings". I'll have to examine this in more detail but wanted to share what I have found thus far to see if others agree or disagree with this observed behavior.

Looks like all that 24 hr. hard drive spinning may be a confirmed problem after all. I was watching the latest recorded O.C. tonight in HD and noticed the box had a red-light on. I hit list to find out what was recording and a message came on saying "there maybe a problem with your hard drive please call 1-800-XX if this problem occurs again" and then options to reboot, retry, or abort. I just hit cancel and then hit list again and it came up and everthings seems to be ok. Also, sometimes when I'm watching a recorded show, it will occasionally skip a few frames and sound, but when rewinding and watching the same scene again, it plays back fine. I'm guessing I've had the box since July because I've got a recording dated since July, but I don't remember COX releasing it so early into the summer. So you guys think these are signs of an early hard-drive death and think I should replace it?

Originally posted by quicksilver
Looks like all that 24 hr. hard drive spinning may be a confirmed problem after all. I was watching the latest recorded O.C. tonight in HD and noticed the box had a red-light on. I hit list to find out what was recording and a message came on saying "there maybe a problem with your hard drive please call 1-800-XX if this problem occurs again" and then options to reboot, retry, or abort. I just hit cancel and then hit list again and it came up and everthings seems to be ok. Also, sometimes when I'm watching a recorded show, it will occasionally skip a few frames and sound, but when rewinding and watching the same scene again, it plays back fine. I'm guessing I've had the box since July because I've got a recording dated since July, but I don't remember COX releasing it so early into the summer. So you guys think these are signs of an early hard-drive death and think I should replace it?

I had a similar issue but the hard drive would not work at all, just gave an error that the hard drive was not working and to reboot, retry or abort too...I ended up swapping for a new box and all is well....even a reboot and having the local office reset the box to factory settings and software versions didn't fix it.

Originally posted by moyekj
I'm back...... I'm dissapointed this thread does not have much activity the last few weeks and no updates from Cox or VideoooooGuy

I am too, I am concerned that once again 720p sports on ABC and Fox (Football) are having audio and video drop outs. They seem to dissapear for several weeks after the late October fix. It unfortunately is back. Hey VideooooGuy have you looked at this possible issue. I know that I am not the only one experienceing this.

niesman

We subscribe to Hbo, but when I tune to the HBO eod and try to watch a movie it says we need to subscribe to HBO.

Andrew Wees

I have my 6412 box connected to my Hitachi 51SWX20B rear projection TV with component cables and have a great HD picture (so-so on analog and digital). Would I actually see improvement from any or all of those video sources with a DVI connection? Will the DVI connection also pass thru non digital video? Thanks for any input.

I am using the DVI to HDMI at a cost of $99! I know you can get it cheaper on-line. I have the Toshiba 42HP84 hi-def 42' plasma. I can honestly say that I can't tell any difference vs. using component cables. One of the problems in trying to tell the difference is it takes a couple of seconds to switch between HDMI and component. If I use the POP split screen the HDMI picture and the component pictures aren't synced and the non-HDMI image is smaller then full size so it looks good. So in the end if it doesn't jump out at me it's probably the same.

Originally posted by dwcliff703
I have my 6412 box connected to my Hitachi 51SWX20B rear projection TV with component cables and have a great HD picture (so-so on analog and digital). Would I actually see improvement from any or all of those video sources with a DVI connection? Will the DVI connection also pass thru non digital video? Thanks for any input. I use DVI->DVI connection. All channels are digitally encoded and then buffered to hard drive before making it to the outputs, so DVI output gets all channels. Theoretically DVI is superior to component since signal remains digital all the way to the TV as opposed to component which is carried as analog (thus more susceptible to interference too). Via anecdotes and personal experience it appears like DVI and component are both equally as good in practice however. I use DVI primarily so as to save component inputs to TV for other sources.

My 6412 consistently will fail to record if there are overlapping recordings scheduled. Last night I had 24 scheduled to record from 8:00-10:00pm. Desperate Housewives showed up in red in the guide as if it were going to record at 9:00pm (and in Upcoming Recordings list), yet when 9:00pm rolled by nothing happened. I quickly tuned 2nd tuner to the channel and hit record at which point the unit happily recorded the show. At times the unit has been able to record overlapping recordings with no problem, so I don't understand why it only fails some of the time. Anyone else see this behavior?

Originally posted by moyekj
My 6412 consistently will fail to record if there are overlapping recordings scheduled. Last night I had 24 scheduled to record from 8:00-10:00pm. Desperate Housewives showed up in red in the guide as if it were going to record at 9:00pm (and in Upcoming Recordings list), yet when 9:00pm rolled by nothing happened. I quickly tuned 2nd tuner to the channel and hit record at which point the unit happily recorded the show. At times the unit has been able to record overlapping recordings with no problem, so I don't understand why it only fails some of the time. Anyone else see this behavior?

moyekj, when you tuned to Desperate Housewives did you get the "Subscription Required" message for a couple of seconds? I have not had a problem with overlapping recordings ... each week we record 2 1/2 men and Las Veges. My missed recordings seam to be related to the Subscription bug. Same symptoms ... guide entry is red but the show does not appear in the Scheduled Recording screen. If you select the guide entry, it says something about the channel is not recordable. Reboot the box and all is OK. Tonight, the coming weeks scheduled recording for CBS-HD are gone. ABC (SD, we don't have ABC-HD) and NBC-HD are still scheduled. Rebooted and all shows are now scheduled. Last time it was NBC-HD that disappeared. I think it has to do with where the tuners were set the previous day causing the subscription bug.

On another subject ... where is Videooooguy? Is he spending all his time solving our problems (I hope) or did the higher-ups at Cox put their foot down and squish his participation in this group (I hope not).

Originally posted by apaulct
moyekj, when you tuned to Desperate Housewives did you get the "Subscription Required" message for a couple of seconds? No, no subscription bug or message so that wasn't the problem. And I wasn't viewing the 2nd tuner at 9:00pm but rather was playing back the still-recording 24 an hour delayed or so. I have more overlapping recordings scheduled tonight, so will see what happens - I hate babysitting this thing though - for my RTVs I just "set it and forget it". However, with all my favorite shows now on the air and available in HD (24, Alias, Lost, not to mention NFL playoffs and several others) the 6412 is keeping very busy recently. I am also rebooting the unit every other day as safety measure.

moyekj, has it ever failed you recording two SD streams, or when the failed recording is an SD stream? I'm just curious because I've rarely gotten failed recordings, and like apaulct the only time it's happened has been subscription required issues.

-T

Originally posted by neyugnt
moyekj, has it ever failed you recording two SD streams, or when the failed recording is an SD stream? I'm just curious because I've rarely gotten failed recordings, and like apaulct the only time it's happened has been subscription required issues.

-T I never record any SD channels with the 6412, only HD - I use my RTVs for all SD recordings since picture quality is much better and RTV playback is far superior, including automatic commercial skip. Even all my 6412 HD recordings I have backup SD recordings on the RTVs seeing as the 6412 is not very reliable. Whenever the 6412 misses a recording, the first thing I check for is "subscription bug" by tuning to the channel that did not record, so I'm pretty confident these recent missed recordings are not related to subscription bug.

Anyone tried using Entertainment on Demand (EOD) with the 6412 yet? Looks like it is available and functional in my market (Orange County). Basically I tune to channel 1 and press select to bring up a master menu where I can select, preview, buy several movies. While I have viewed a few previews I haven't actually bought anything yet but was curious if someone has successfully bought and viewed a full movie via EOD with this box yet?

Got a notice in the mail from them giving me a free EOD movie. So I'll try it this weekend and let you know how it went..

Talking about issues... has anyone else notice that the record times have changed (i notice more on HD) for example, shows start 30 seconds in to the show instead of just before (maybe this is a way around the overlap bug).

Like tonight, I recorded las vegas, and instead of the normal 'now las vegas' intro, it was straight in to the show.. same with 24.

Anyone else seen this?

Originally posted by moyekj
Problem is, it seems like the program is not properly deleted doing it this way when checking total available disk space available - for me total space available does not change when deleting shows this way - one must reboot the 6412 to recover the lost disk space.

moyekj, thanks for reporting this. I have run into the problem of a program not stopping, only pausing if you chase play. I checked my free space yesterday, it was about 26G. I rebooted and now I have 45G free. :)

Hopefully this will get fixed soon, but at least we now have a work-around.

Any word on if Cox in RI will have Fox in HD so we have the Super Bowl in HD? WTF I'll be PISSED if the Super Bowl isn't in HD!
Tom

Originally posted by moyekj
My 6412 consistently will fail to record if there are overlapping recordings scheduled. Last night I had 24 scheduled to record from 8:00-10:00pm. Desperate Housewives showed up in red in the guide as if it were going to record at 9:00pm (and in Upcoming Recordings list), yet when 9:00pm rolled by nothing happened. I quickly tuned 2nd tuner to the channel and hit record at which point the unit happily recorded the show. At times the unit has been able to record overlapping recordings with no problem, so I don't understand why it only fails some of the time. Anyone else see this behavior?

I recorded 24 and Desperate Housewives overlapping Sunday night in Palos Verdes with no problem.

On another subject, I have noticed that a lot of the new ABC shows seem to be airing a minute or two over, which really messes up recordings on other channels which start on time. Why they have started doing this I have no idea but it is really annoying.

Damon

I had some overlapping recordings last night that all recorded just fine, so I can't explain why sometimes the 6412 chooses to not record. As it stands I just have to babysit all HD recordings I really care about to ensure they do get recorded, and in general I've found the 6412 records pretty reliably when you don't have overlapping recordings scheduled, a crap shoot otherwise. I think the strategy of rebooting the unit every other day has really helped alleviate some of the remaining problems.

BTW, for any of you extracting recordings via firewire I suggest you don't use any transport functions (FF, REW, etc) during the extraction as this messes up audio/video sync in the mpeg2 transport stream file. I found this out the hard way after going through all the trouble of making a DVD from an extracted HD mpeg.

I have pretty much given up on programming this unit to record any HD programming unattended as there is about 50/50 shot that the feared 'subscription bug - 0 minute recording" will occur. I have just resolved to set up the programming feature to record the shows I like in digital and if I am home and can monitor the box to record the shows in HD. I am like you guys and hoping that VideooooGuy continues to monitor this board is busily working with the Cox/Pioneer engineers to fix this problem....soon!!

I'm not on Cox Cable but I have a 6412 with Pioneer Passport. I had the same 'babysit' feeling with the box, but it recorded 24 in HD and Desperate Housewives in HD at the same time Sunday night, no problems.

The biggest problem I had is that I had 5 hours of HD unwatched programming to watch and you better make sure you save until you delete because otherwise it'll go fast!

I still hate the FF buffer, it seems like I can FF 2 minutes into a show, hit play and then still hit the commercial! Very annoying. I wish there was a jump or commercial skip feature.

Originally posted by IcedCornholio
I still hate the FF buffer, it seems like I can FF 2 minutes into a show, hit play and then still hit the commercial! Very annoying. I wish there was a jump or commercial skip feature.

ha
there is a proposed law in Congress (don't know the name) which would make it illegal to skip commercials

so you are going to sit there and WATCH those commercials, mister :mad:

Damon

While Passport is better than the other IPGs they have used, Cox needs to dump this passport junk and get MSFE. Microsoft's IPG stomps the crap out of Passport, even though Passport has been in use longer. I want real application uses...Passport covers the bare minimum IMO.

inteller, take a look at the 6412/MSTV thread and you will see that the MSFT solution is indeed in it's infancy and riddled with bugs/problems:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4971951
What exactly is better about the MSFT IPG over the Passport one? (other than only 6 days of guide data!).

Hey moyekj, how is the EOD going? I've tried to get it on both my 6412 and my other digi cable box but there's no channel 1 (pressing 1 then select has no effect other than it putting the ? ? ?). I'm in the Irvine area (Orange County) so I was wondering what part of OC you were in, and if you did anything special to get it.

Thanks!
-T

I have taken to burning my shows onto a DVD, then re authoring the DVD to eliminate the comercials. A typical hour long show is really only about 40 minutes long with 20 minutes of comercials.

Anyone in Orange County, CA have HBO and/or Showtime EOD? I only have movies on demand, even though I subscribe to both services. The Cox website shows HBO and Showtime in addition to Movies on Demand. Have these been implemented yet?

Originally posted by neyugnt
Hey moyekj, how is the EOD going? I've tried to get it on both my 6412 and my other digi cable box but there's no channel 1 (pressing 1 then select has no effect other than it putting the ? ? ?). I'm in the Irvine area (Orange County) so I was wondering what part of OC you were in, and if you did anything special to get it.

Thanks!
-T I'm in Mission Viejo. Didn't do anything to get it - perhaps you just need to reboot to see it? I haven't checked diagnostics page to see if there is an indication whether EOD is active or not, but my guess is there should be some indication somewhere. Upon reboot the active tuner of my 6412 is tuned to channel 1 where it shows previews of several EOD movies and has text on the screen prompting you to press Select to start EOD. As I mentioned before I was able to navigate through several EOD screens to find movies by genre and alphabetically. Once you find a movie you are interested when you select it you have several options, including preview and buy. I have watched a few previews but have not actually bought one yet... perhaps this weekend I will actually buy 1 to try it out. Supposedly each movie you buy is queued up and once it is available to play you have 24 hours before it is deleted. Most of the transport functions (FF, REW, PAUSE) are supposedly available while watching these movies and you can watch them as many times as you want within the 24 hour window. Can't comment on the extent of the selection as I haven't really estimated how many movies are available - obviously newest titles just making it to DVD are not available, and there were no HD or even widescreen selections available as far as I could tell, but I haven't browsed extensively enough to know for sure.

I'm a little concerned about the amount of bandwidth EOD will be consuming if it becomes popular... I would much rather have Cox dedicate bandwidth to new HD channels than a plethora of EOD movies. I subscribe to Netflix for short periods of time to get my fill of movies so EOD while interesting doesn't really have too much appeal for me. Now if they started offering a lot of HD movie selections then I definately would be much more interested.

EDIT: A few widescreen selections are available, no HD selections though.

Originally posted by moyekj

I'm a little concerned about the amount of bandwidth EOD will be consuming if it becomes popular... I would much rather have Cox dedicate bandwidth to new HD channels than a plethora of EOD movies.

I am more than just a little concerned with this issue. Cox is driven by the bottom line and if there is more profit in EOD, HDTV will suffer.

It looks like on my cable system that when you FF or REW and then hit play, the 'time pointer" will revert back to the top of the minute...so if the show comes back from commercial at 08:45:25, and you hit play at 08:45:47, it goes back to 08:45:00.

The Tivo ff/rew buffer seemed to work almost perfectly and I'm still having a tough time to adjust....

Can anyone else confirm that it goes back to the top of the minute you're on or does it just do a -30 seconds from the time you hit play? The buffer subtracts the seconds when you hit play (it's the same number of seconds I Think) whether you're on 2 arrows, 3 or 4 arrows....

Originally posted by TV2000
Anyone in Orange County, CA have HBO and/or Showtime EOD? I only have movies on demand, even though I subscribe to both services. The Cox website shows HBO and Showtime in addition to Movies on Demand. Have these been implemented yet?

I am in Mission Viejo and I don't get the HBO or Showtime EOD either. I think I will have to give them a call.


Edit: I just got off the phone with COX and they do not provide the HBO and SHO EOD in our area. Bummer.

the SEOD (Subscription EOD) HBO/Showtime was launched in CT yesterday, but there was some problem and they took it off untill further notice.

Originally posted by IcedCornholio
It looks like on my cable system that when you FF or REW and then hit play, the 'time pointer" will revert back to the top of the minute...so if the show comes back from commercial at 08:45:25, and you hit play at 08:45:47, it goes back to 08:45:00.

The Tivo ff/rew buffer seemed to work almost perfectly and I'm still having a tough time to adjust....

Can anyone else confirm that it goes back to the top of the minute you're on or does it just do a -30 seconds from the time you hit play? The buffer subtracts the seconds when you hit play (it's the same number of seconds I Think) whether you're on 2 arrows, 3 or 4 arrows....

This was a real problem when we first got our 6412 box, but an update in Nov 2004 fixed the problem. Now when you FF and Play you will get a small amount of backup, but usually only enough to make up for how much you overshot the programming. When we used to have the problem it was impractical to even use the combination of 'FF' then 'Play".....instead advise on this board helped which was to use 'FF' then "pause' 'pause'. I thought that Cox had updated the boxes in all their markets. Do you know what firmware version you box is? Turn off the box then hit the 'select' button two times fast and then choose option #8 for firmware version info.

Originally posted by moyekj
I'm in Mission Viejo. Didn't do anything to get it - perhaps you just need to reboot to see it?

Odd. I rebooted and unplugged/replugged both boxes and I still don't have EOD capability. I'll have to shoot them an email to find out what's up. Anyone in Irvine able to get EOD?

I'm a little concerned about the amount of bandwidth EOD will be consuming if it becomes popular... I would much rather have Cox dedicate bandwidth to new HD channels than a plethora of EOD movies.

Totally agree. But just as an example, my brother who lives in Garden Grove gets Time Warner Cable/HD... They have the same Motorola 6412 dual tuner HD DVR, tons of HD channels (locals, both inhd's, both hdnets, fsn-west-hd, tnt-hd, hbo/show, etc.), and regular EOD (movies and events), Free EOD (Food Network immediately comes to mind, and other science/nature channels), and subscription EOD (Showtime and HBO).

The EOD is pretty cool, he can queue up old Emeril live shows, movies like Pulp Fiction, etc. and not pay any extra. Anyway, I'd rather have 100 HD channels than any EOD but that's just me ;)

-T

I experienced my first major glitch with the 6412 last night. I set the new ESPN series Tilt to record at 9 PM CST. When I checked it this morning it had recorded 8 hours and 51 minutes of ESPN-HD and eliminated the only episode I had not already erased from th HDD. I also had the CSI episode that was recorded at the same 9 PM time slot for a total of 10 hours and 52 minutes recorded from HD channels.

The college BB game ran over several minutes last night into the scheduled beginning of Tilt. I'm wondering if that had anything to do with the 8 plus hours of continious recording.

Anyone else here record Tilt last night and experience any problems?

I'm frustrated w/ the DVI connection from Motorola to my Sammy DLP. The picture doesn't make use of all available real estate??

In playing with the 6412 setup I'v configured to 1080i (even though Sammy DLP is native 720p) because the picture looks best (guessing the conversion hardward in the TV is better than in the STB to converty 1080i to 720p), and picture looks OK, but would prefer the highest quality DVI.

Read about 10 pages of this thread, and 2 hours later, didn't see anyone bring this problem up...

Any Subject Matter Experts out there with DLP & 6412 using DVI?

Ol Dirty

Ol Dirty Wes I am using the DVI connection to my 30" Philips LCD HDTV and can get fullscreen for all channels (SD and HD). For SD channels (analog or digital SD) by default the 6412 is configured to display as is (no stretch) on a widescreen display. For HD channels you should already be getting fullscreen display right? I have set the 6412 4:3 Override to 480p (no stretch) which then allows me on my LCD HDTV to specify full zoom (or various other stretches) such that SD channels fill the screen.

In case you don't already know, you can change the 4:3 Override setting from the Advanced Settings Menus of the 6412:
ADVANCED SETTINGS PAGE
======================
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Press Menu (displays Quick Settings menu)
3. Select A - More Settings
Can control specific output settings of the 6412 here among other things.
This can be used as a better alternative to Power, Menu, Menu method.

Has anyone noticed a sudden change in the quality of the SD channels? I recorded enterprise and just watched it thinking that UPN looked crappy tonight and now that I flick through SD channels there seems to be more noise then normal??

I checked my dvi connection but it was fine, i rebooted the unit and it's still the same.

So anyone else see it? (Oh and i'm not talking about the quality difference between the dvr and old cox digital box)

Originally posted by moyekj
Anyone tried using Entertainment on Demand (EOD) with the 6412 yet? Looks like it is available and functional in my market (Orange County). Basically I tune to channel 1 and press select to bring up a master menu where I can select, preview, buy several movies. While I have viewed a few previews I haven't actually bought anything yet but was curious if someone has successfully bought and viewed a full movie via EOD with this box yet?


We have had it here in Omaha for several months and it has been working great. :D

Originally posted by dwcliff703
This was a real problem when we first got our 6412 box, but an update in Nov 2004 fixed the problem. Now when you FF and Play you will get a small amount of backup, but usually only enough to make up for how much you overshot the programming. When we used to have the problem it was impractical to even use the combination of 'FF' then 'Play".....instead advise on this board helped which was to use 'FF' then "pause' 'pause'. I thought that Cox had updated the boxes in all their markets. Do you know what firmware version you box is? Turn off the box then hit the 'select' button two times fast and then choose option #8 for firmware version info.

I don't have Cox, I have Metrocast. I booted up the menu like you said, it sasy:
Boot: 4.01
Firmware: 9.11

The passport manual I have says version 1.6...

I am doing the FF/Pause/Pause technique in order to do this...maybe I Have an older version of the firmware than you?

IcedCornholio, you have an older Firmware - the version with a fix for your problem is 9.12 which we have had for quite a while now in Cox markets.

I've been here searching and searching for weeks now. My picture isn't as good with this new DVR box, the 6412. I had the older box when I had digital. I have a Sony 32" HD ready TV and input via the components. I notice lots of pixelization around "edges" etc on most channels.

It's worse on football games!

Is there another thread discussing this topic? If so, point me to it, as I've yet to find it.

Originally posted by Sugrat
Has anyone noticed a sudden change in the quality of the SD channels? I recorded enterprise and just watched it thinking that UPN looked crappy tonight and now that I flick through SD channels there seems to be more noise then normal??

I checked my dvi connection but it was fine, i rebooted the unit and it's still the same.

So anyone else see it? (Oh and i'm not talking about the quality difference between the dvr and old cox digital box)

Anyone? I need an answer because if it's no, then there must be a problem with my box.

It doesn't look any crappier than normal to me.

Sugrat, I wouldn't know since I don't record any SD channels with 6412 since they have always been very crappy. However SD channels recorded via ReplayTVs are no worse lately than before as far as I can tell, and I'm in the same market as you (I'm in Mission Viejo). Suggest you check picture quality without going through the 6412 to see if it's worse than you remember.

Originally posted by moyekj
Sugrat, I wouldn't know since I don't record any SD channels with 6412 since they have always been very crappy. However SD channels recorded via ReplayTVs are no worse lately than before as far as I can tell, and I'm in the same market as you (I'm in Mission Viejo). Suggest you check picture quality without going through the 6412 to see if it's worse than you remember.

I split the cable at the wall so that I can had 'normal' tv when the box is recording two shows etc.

The picture quality looks ok there (still better then 6412), so that's why I was thinking something may have happened to my unit.

I haven't seen any posts in a while about zero length recordings. I thought the problem was pretty much gone, at least for me but over the last couple of weeks it has started happening again. Also, it used to be primarily on 702 but now it's 704. Was I just lucky for a while?

I'm in the Irvine area as well. I used to never (well almost never, maybe it happened once, twice max) get zero length recordings and over the past weekend I got 3. Football on CBS 702 and the Ice Skating on ABC 707.

Also, I haven't been able to get EOD working (channel 1?), though I've been too lazy to send the obligatory email to Cox tech support. Anyone in Irvine getting EOD?

-T

Yeah, the last week I ran into 2 zero-length recordings and verified they were due to subscription bug in both cases, each on a different channel (tuning to the channel that didn't record popped up the no subscription message for a few seconds). The good news we got before the break was this issue has been identified and fixed by Pioneer, but who knows when we will get the next update since VideoooooGuy is AWOL.

And although it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be, the occasional HD tiling bug seems to have creeped back in. I noticed it during the football games this past weekend.

I also saw the tiling problem and missed recordings reappear...

Same here. It was terrible during the FOX broadcasts.

niesman

I tried EOD in Corona Del Mar, I see the channel with the prompt, pressing select just blinks the screen, nothing happens. I have a 2nd Basic Digital Box, it doesn't have ch1 EOD in it's guide at all. Time to call Cox I guess.

Re Subscription Bug, seems they aren't moving too fast to finish off the bug fixes :(

[QUOTE]Originally posted by moyekj
[B]Yeah, the last week I ran into 2 zero-length recordings and verified they were due to subscription bug in both cases, each on a different channel (tuning to the channel that didn't record popped up the no subscription message for a few seconds). The good news we got before the break was this issue has been identified and fixed by Pioneer, but who knows when we will get the next update since VideoooooGuy is AWOL.


I too have not have got 2 zero-length recordings last week. I hope they fix this soon.

I have had 3 zero length recordings this week that are a direct result of the sub. bug, as I witnessed them live.
Havent seen the tiling bug, but the times that I have noticed tiling I would switch over to OTA and witness it there too, so conclude there is a signal issue and not a cable provider issue or box issue.

Originally posted by dresf

Havent seen the tiling bug, but the times that I have noticed tiling I would switch over to OTA and witness it there too, so conclude there is a signal issue and not a cable provider issue or box issue.

Thanks dresf,

I was hoping someone would say that the signal from OTA was bad as well. I think FOX still is a little green when it comes to live remote feeds.

niesman

I've seen the math that shows somewhere between 10 to 12 hours for HD recording time. Last night I got the message that I did not have enough space to record a one hour show. I went to the menu and it said only 8:39 of recorded programs. All the programs saved were HD. Time to reboot and see if there are lost sectors that can be recovered??
Also, I haven't seen any posts about the noise from the HDD. I had my first box changed because I thought it was very noisy. Cox replaced but it sounded the same. With the surround sound on I can't hear it but when I walk into the room and it's quiet it's quite noticeable. I also have a Pansonic E80 DVD/HDD recorder and it makes no sound.

marc1023, refer to this post I wrote a while ago explaining how you can be losing hard drive space unknowingly. Essentially a reboot can recover lost space, but if you know about the problem you can be careful to avoid it in the first place:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4946070#post4946070

As far as noisy hard drive yes there were some complaints early on about them but since there is no good workaround one just learns to live with it. Maxtor drives (which most of these units are using) tend to be pretty noisy.

Yes, it seems that cox's is sitting on their a$$ again, just happy to have all that money rolling in.

I've gone from a box (after the tiling fix) that worked wonderfully, no sub problems, no HD issues to a unit that is a big pile of crap.

So what do we have back that needs fixing now?

1. Tiling is back, not as bad as before but it's there now and again
2. No Subscription bug (i've gone from none to 3-4 since last Thursday)

What about the HD space, gee I can use the entire drive in one week with my shows in HD, so which noob thought that would be enough space.

Rant rant rant.... :rolleyes:

Wow, so far I've been very lucky I guess. My first unit would not Init (think it was head end problem), 2nd unit after much work and several days did Init. Both were/are totally silent. (I have a Fluid bearing Maxtor HD in my PC and its quiet also, but I don't hear a thing out of my DVR)

Maybe once everyother week I'll get scheduled recording blip...the 1 min recording thing. But overall its been very solid. I record daily SD & HD programs, both scheduled and spur of the moment. I have about 8 shows long term saved (both HD and SD) for later viewing, and a few not saved yet. Besides the Analog crap signal it works fine. (I do have cable running into the TV for Analog, but when I tried it during the Globe Awards, I had a sound sych problem between the picture on the tv and the sound from my reciever. (Optical from the 6412. I guess the always recording creates a delay) I guess I need to run from the TV sound out to the reciever, but not worth the effort to me yet.

I'm waiting to see someone mod thier unit and add one of those new 300Mb HD's. :D

3 Having to manually refresh the guide for a full seven days of data.

Andrew Wees


Originally posted by Sugrat
Yes, it seems that cox's is sitting on their a$$ again, just happy to have all that money rolling in.

I've gone from a box (after the tiling fix) that worked wonderfully, no sub problems, no HD issues to a unit that is a big pile of crap.

So what do we have back that needs fixing now?

1. Tiling is back, not as bad as before but it's there now and again
2. No Subscription bug (i've gone from none to 3-4 since last Thursday)

What about the HD space, gee I can use the entire drive in one week with my shows in HD, so which noob thought that would be enough space.

Rant rant rant.... :rolleyes:

Originally posted by JETninja

I'm waiting to see someone mod thier unit and add one of those new 300Mb HD's. :D My guess is it would be pretty easy for the experts to clone the file system and partitions (as was done for ReplayTV and Tivos), thus allowing a replacement drive to be made. The problem is since we don't own these boxes this poses a moral dilemma that I think prevents many/most from opening up the box and tinkering - otherwise I'm sure it would have been cracked by now.

Well I have joined many of you that have experienced 6412 problems. Tuesday night I recorded Amazing race from 9-10 then at 10 I scheduled to record 2 more shows. I started watching Race from the saved list about 30 minutes into the program. Everything was fine until the 2 other shows started. I got a 4 inch black line running about 2 inches from the bottom of the screen. Then in another 2 minutes I got the "You may be having a HDD problem" message. It asked if I wanted to try to reset. I agreed. It shut itself off. Nothing happened for 25 minutes. I just got the Pioneer Echo screen plus please wait one moment. I rebooted manually and the box reset itself in less then 1 minute.
I went to list. The 2 shows I was trying to record had 1 minute lengths, 10:00 to 10:01, but they also resumed recording after the reboot at 10:24PM.
I wonder if "chasing" a saved recording while recording new ones caused the problem. I checked and have the latest firmware.

Originally posted by moyekj
My guess is it would be pretty easy for the experts to clone the file system and partitions (as was done for ReplayTV and Tivos), thus allowing a replacement drive to be made. The problem is since we don't own these boxes this poses a moral dilemma that I think prevents many/most from opening up the box and tinkering - otherwise I'm sure it would have been cracked by now.

True....I remember when Genesis Home Theater opened up over there at the "Y" and they were selling the original Moto HD box we had (I think the 5100, or maybe the later 6208) I wonder if they're selling the 6412 these days......

Woke this morning to find my box turned off, anyone else? (Wednesday)

Mine was off as well...

Mine started rebooting itself like crazy late last night. After about the tenth reboot, I finally unplugged the power for 15 minutes and then plugged it back in. It booted successfully and seemed to be okay. That's the first time that's happened to me since I got the box in September.

Originally posted by Sugrat
Woke this morning to find my box turned off, anyone else? (Wednesday)

Me three.

When you say off, do you mean you see no clock? I turn mine off every night, and it turned on fine at 5:30am this morning, and the clock had been on IIRC.

For my box the clock is always on regardless if the unit is turned off or on. When unit is on and I change channels the display will briefly show the new channel number and then revert back to showing the clock. When I turn unit off it will always show the clock. You can control this via advanced settings:
ADVANCED SETTINGS PAGE
======================
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Press Menu (displays Quick Settings menu)
3. Select A - More Settings

However, I never changed it in advanced settings which means it was shipped to me that way and I assume most others would get it setup the same way.

I'm in Irivne and mine was off this morning also. I went to the boot menu and it showed the unit was rebooted at 2:08 AM

Hey all,

Been away from this thread for about a month. Partly because of holidays/work/travel & partly because the box has been working pretty well.

I decided to catch up today because in the past week I've had 4 missed recordings, all of them showed up in the list as zero-length recordings and I believe all of them were caused by "subscription channel" bug.

I'm REALLY sick of having to babysit this thing. My Tivo managed to catch 3 of the 4 missed recordings for me. The 4th was NCIS last night which the Tivo is not setup for. I caught it 15 minutes into the show and started it recording, but it really ticks me off to have missed 15 minutes.

It is simply not acceptable to have to still be scheduling stuff on my Tivo as "insurance" for when the 6412 craps out with a zero-length recording.

I also seem to be out of space when I shouldn't be, from my catchup reading, it looks like if I reboot the box it may find a bunch of free space it didn't know about. I do chase watching all the time where I start watching a show thats being recorded about 15 minutes after it starts.

Be nice to get some info on when to expect the next update and the end of the "subscription channel" missed recordings. It really has been a while since the last release.

Cheers,
Ray

Originally posted by Tiresius

I also seem to be out of space when I shouldn't be, from my catchup reading, it looks like if I reboot the box it may find a bunch of free space it didn't know about. I do chase watching all the time where I start watching a show thats being recorded about 15 minutes after it starts. The other workaround (other than regular reboots) is to be careful about the way you erase programs you started watching before they finished recording. Instead of the "normal" way of pressing stop (which actually behaves as pause) and then going to recordings list to erase, do the following:
- With playback still going on, tune to a channel, say channel 2 (or simply wait for playback to fully complete).
- This will take you out of playback mode. Now go to recordings list and erase the recording.

Doing it the above way will not "gobble up" hard drive space since hard drive space will be freed as expected.

A little birdie told me to expect next major firmware update around May/June timeframe (no promises on that date though) containing among several other things fixes to subscription and over-extended recordings bugs that VideooooGuy already told us are identified and fixed by Pioneer.

Originally posted by moyekj
My guess is it would be pretty easy for the experts to clone the file system and partitions (as was done for ReplayTV and Tivos), thus allowing a replacement drive to be made. The problem is since we don't own these boxes this poses a moral dilemma that I think prevents many/most from opening up the box and tinkering - otherwise I'm sure it would have been cracked by now. Thinking about this some more and for anyone so inclined to take it further my first attempt would be:

- Download Slackware Linux boot image and make a boot floppy using PC
- Pull out the 6412 IDE hard drive
- Pull out master hard drive from PC and replace with 6412 drive
- Insert another new higher capacity hard drive as a slave to the 6412 drive
- Boot up PC with Slackware Linux boot disk
- Clone 6412 drive to slave drive from command prompt as follows:
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=16K
- Pull cloned drive from PC and set it back to master and then insert in 6412 and check that 6412 can boot up.

NOTE: If things work then I would expect the available space for recordings to be identical to the original drive even though cloned drive is larger, but this would pave the way to the next challenge which would be to figure out how to make a larger partition for saved recordings on the larger cloned drive.

May/June for the next firmware update?? That far off?

I have 24 set up as a series recording and got Monday nights episode without a problem, however this coming Monday's episode is not in the scheduled recording list, nor does the guide show it as scheduled to record.

24 is still listed in my series manager list.

I've seen an earlier post by moyekj indicating a similar incident with a different show.

I guess it will be necessary to erase and redefine this series record.

Anyone else seeing a problem with 24??

Originally posted by greight
I have 24 set up as a series recording and got Monday nights episode without a problem, however this coming Monday's episode is not in the scheduled recording list, nor does the guide show it as scheduled to record.

24 is still listed in my series manager list.

I've seen an earlier post by moyekj indicating a similar incident with a different show.

I guess it will be necessary to erase and redefine this series record.

Anyone else seeing a problem with 24?? Tune to that channel - you may have the subscription bug on that channel right now which means it thinks it is an invalid channel and will not setup to record it. Once you eliminate the subscription bug error (by tuning to the channel and waiting a few seconds) it may show up as to be recorded. If you are not getting subscription bug then it could be the other bug which looks to see if this is a first-run episode or not when deciding to record. The only reliable way to make sure even new episodes get recorded is to setup series recording as First run and repeats instead of First run only - this is another bug I reported a while back and still run into all the time.

I don't think periodic reboots do all that much to prevent the zero length recordings. I have encountered the problem the same night when I've done this. This week's NCIS is an example. I rebooted it around 6 p.m. and still had the problem. Tonight, while i didn't reboot, I caught Alias a few minutes into the show, deleted the zero length recording and after the damned subscription message stopped displaying, started a manual recording of the show.

My wife is ready to shoot the box! For the last 3 weeks ER has not recorded. It is in the schedule to record section, it is highlighted in the guide, but the next day I get the subscription channel error. Last night I decided to stay up and watch what happened. At 9:59 when the Apprentice ended, the red light came on for a second, and then the subscription error screen appeared. I changed the channel and then changed back to channel 700, hit the record button and it recorded fine. Now I have 2 ER entries in the List section, one for 0 minutes, and one for an hour.

This seems to only happen on NBC. My other shows on FOX, CBS, and ABC now all seem to record fine. Just ER. Anyone else seem to have this problem? I called COX, and got a runaround answer about WVIT not allowing the recording of ER. With all the subsciption errors on this forum, that is not the case. I told her to read this tread! Oh well, looks like I have to stay up and record ER manually for a while.

Originally posted by rstang8691
My wife is ready to shoot the box! For the last 3 weeks ER has not recorded. It is in the schedule to record section, it is highlighted in the guide, but the next day I get the subscription channel error. Last night I decided to stay up and watch what happened. At 9:59 when the Apprentice ended, the red light came on for a second, and then the subscription error screen appeared. I changed the channel and then changed back to channel 700, hit the record button and it recorded fine. Now I have 2 ER entries in the List section, one for 0 minutes, and one for an hour.

This seems to only happen on NBC. My other shows on FOX, CBS, and ABC now all seem to record fine. Just ER. Anyone else seem to have this problem? I called COX, and got a runaround answer about WVIT not allowing the recording of ER. With all the subscription errors on this forum, that is not the case. I told her to read this tread! Oh well, looks like I have to stay up and record ER manually for a while.

I hate to say it, but one "work-around" is to record the SD version, channel 4, of WVIT in addition to the HD Channel, channel 700.. Since it has 2 tuners, as long as you've not already scheduled another show at the same time, you can record both

That way, even if the HD version doesn't record because of the subscription bug, you at least have the SD version to watch.

Yes, this is a stupid, bass ackwards way to do it (after all, why should you feel the need to have to record 2 copies of something just to make sure you get it?!?) but it's better than being divorced! ;) And being forced to stay up and babysit the box.. :rolleyes:

I've actually started doing virtually the same thing - for every time-slot that I have a ReplayTV not taping something else it also records the same show on a SD channel as the DVR in HD. That way even if the HD didn't record, I can watch it on the ReplayTV.

In fact, I had to do that last night for Joey - I got a 0 minute record on WVIT and ended up watching the Replay copy.

--Walburga

Heh, came back to see how this thing was doing since Voom is giving up the ghost and I'll be forced back to Cox. Disheartening that not much has changed in two months :(

Cox Tech just left. News is a new 6412 box out in spring with new BIOS chips which will allow external storage, and a software update.

Anyone else hear anything about a new version of the 6412?

Haven't heard anything in Omaha yet.

Did he say if the newer 6412 will do Picture in Picture?



Andrew Wees





Originally posted by rdenichilo
Cox Tech just left. News is a new 6412 box out in spring with new BIOS chips which will allow external storage, and a software update.

Anyone else hear anything about a new version of the 6412?

Nothing about PIP. External HD via USB 1.1 which is troubling if true. Hopefully the new BIOS chip means USB 2. But given what we have dealt with so far with this box, I can't say I would't put it past Motorola or Cox to go with USB 1.1.

I just have to reflect on my Tivo. In four years, I never had a missed recording, or a mysterious recording or ever felt like I had to baby sit the box . . .

I'll wait to see the spring update, but by that time Cox will have had a year to get this product right. If they don't get it by then, HD TIVO here I come.

Originally posted by ajwees41
Haven't heard anything in Omaha yet.

Did he say if the newer 6412 will do Picture in Picture?



Andrew Wees


I've not heard of new box coming here......if there is indeed one of the way, I'm sure it will probably do PIP, though the current should also...most likely just need the code written for it.

Personally I think PIP is way overrated and quite useless to me. Way back I spent more money on a TV that supported PIP (so I could keep 2 football games going at once), but soon found I never used it, especially once ReplayTVs were in the house and everything is time-shifted anyway. I would much rather have firewire or USB2.0 hard drive support or a handful of other features before PIP even comes to mind. So I must be missing something and have to ask, what's the fascination with PIP anyway?

Subscription bug returned last night. Missed 2 shows. Complained to Cox got 1 month credit. Told them I would prefer the box worked. Now I'm backing up all my 6412 recordings on my Panasonic E80 recorder. The E80 has NEVER missed a recording. Too bad it can't do HD

Took a lot of research and trial and error but I finally got a flow down packed for downconverting HD captures from 6412 to DVD-compatible mpeg using freely available tools. The resulting DVD preserves 16:9 aspect ratio and looks great. See the last link in my signature section below for details.

P.S. Prior to this flow I tried a few commercial and free DVD authoring tools using the original HD capture .ts file from 6412, but they all resulted in audio sync problems.

Awesome. Thanks a ton for the effort. I had gotton some down and over to MPG but was not successful with the audio. I was trying to get some seinfelds to dvd before they came out on dvd.

Here in Orange County I have conclusive evidence that the clock is 20 seconds behind or so. For back-to-back recordings (where the unit doesn't pad recordings automatically) I noticed it always started a little late. So I compared the time to my ReplayTV hooked up to the same TV which always starts on time and found the 6412 clock is 20 seconds behind or so and has been for at least a week. I felt for sure the 6412 would sync it's clock to the headend but either it's not or the clock it's syncing to is way off. Anyone else notice this?

Wife would have missed housewifes last night if I hadn't checked the channel for her... I'm getting to point of throwing this piece of sh1t in the bin and going over to sat and getting my own box.

I had a football disaster. I set the box to record both games Sunday. I came home at 3:00 and started to watch the Eagles. At 3:30 the box said I didn't have enough room to record the second game. I check the space used and there was only 4 hours saved. Then the box decided to erase the Eagles game so it could tape the Patriots game. I called Cox and the tech had the nerve to say 4 hours saved was average for HD. I said who would want it if it could only save 4 hours isn't 10-12 is bad enough. He also refused to send out a new box saying mine worked as designed. I erased everything and it said I had 68 Gigs free space, I know it used to have 86 Gigs. I am rebooting it now but I have lost complete faith in it. It's sad because I have had Cox for 10 years and I always thought their customer service and products were outstanding. I think I need to investigate satellite, this thing is never going to work

i think i have a workaround to the zero-length record (subscription) bug that
many of us have had. on my 6412 box, i noticed that if my inactive tuner is
tuned to 702, 704, or 707, i can't schedule a recording on those channels.
i tried all the HD channels that i have but these were the only offenders.
you can test this out for yourselves by selecting one of these channels and
then using the swap button to make the other tuner active. select the guide
and go to the channel that the inactive tuner is tuned to. advance in time
and hit select(you need to advance in time otherwise hitting select will just
tune to that channel). normally, you'd get a menu popping up with options
like "watch channel now", "record show", or "record series". on my box,
i instead get a message like "unrecordable channel". so something about the
inactive tuner being on that channel confuses the box. i've done some
experiments and if i have prescheduled recordings on that channel, i ALWAYS
get the zero-length recording. i tried this out several times on all the
channels above. i also tried this on other HD channels like 711 and 715 but
those channels recorded fine. i also tried this out with the active tuner
being on the same channel that you want to record, and that works fine too.
so the moral of the story is that i never leave my inactive tuner on
702, 704, and 707 and i haven't had a zero-length recording since i started
doing this. before this i used to get them intermittenly like everyone else.
one more word of caution, i don't want to get into details here and make
this post longer than it already is but if you are recording a show(on your
active tuner) and want to watch another channel, use the swap button and
change the channels, don't just press the channel in the keypad.

i hope this helps. if you decide to try this out, see if the problems are
limited to 702, 704, and 707 like my box or if it's different for your boxes.
i know that i have missed recordings on channels other than these but i
can't remember if they were also the zero-length bug or the mysterious don't
show up at all bug.

sjkim, thanks for the observations. These are in line with what we suspected before. To summarize what your suggestion is, before the unit is scheduled to record anything make sure you tune both channels to analog, say channels 2 and 4. Then the unit should tune properly to scheduled HD channels without the subscription bug on the inactive tuner. The problem is when you have multiple recordings scheduled on both tuners eventually the subscription bug is going to rear it's ugly head again, which is what is happening to me lately as I have more recordings setup than ever before with this box.

In any case, I was diligently trying what you suggest before but had sort of given up on it for a while. I'll try it again for a while and see if it makes a noticeable difference in reducing missed recordings. Thanks.

P.S. I found out that you can't record overlapping recordings on the same channel. i.e. The unit seems to have no way to tune both tuners to the same channel and record. I found this out because I had NFL game extended 1 hour beyond it's normal stop time and when I attempted to setup NUMBERS to record (right after football game) it refused with some error dialog box. I ended up going to record options on the NFL game and taking away the 1 hour extension so that I could schedule NUMBERS to record.

moyekj, i also have multiple recordings setup and i found that they are not a problem. it appears that for some reason, the box differentiates when you
tune manually versus the box doing it to record a scheduled show. so even
after a recording is done on one of the "bad" channels, as long as you don't
swap to that tuner manually, you can still record from that channel. i experimented a few times to make sure and each time, i found this to be true.

anyways, what i always do these days (with very good results, knock on wood) is to tune one tuner to an analog channel and swap to the other tuner. then, i start at 702 and simply use the channel up button to get to a "good" HD channel, usually 715 and leave it there when i'm ready to turn off the tv. i don't know why but using the channel up/down button seems to help clear the problematic channels but using the keypad doesn't.

sjkim, thanks for the clarification. So you leave the background tuner on analog channel and active tuner on 715 (non-problem HD channel) before walking away. Any reason why setting both tuners to analog channels before leaving is no good? Also, do you leave the 6412 turned on or off when you're done using it? I'm trying to minimize the number of missed recordings using your technique which is why all these questions. Thanks.

P.S. Now that I read your post again carefully, starting at 702 and channeling up to 715 I suppose is a way of having the unit clear up any subscription bug problems on those HD channels before walking away, so then I presume you would leave the 6412 on. Makes a lot of sense and I haven't tried that out yet.

moyekj, i don't really think it matters what channels you are tuned to as long as it's not the "bad" channels. i just keep the active tuner on 715 so that i can
use the live buffer on ESPN whenever i come home and turn the tv on. yes, you are correct, i simply use the channel up buttons to clear any problems that might exist on these channels. and i do leave the box on all the time.

I am in Omaha and we just had our 6412 replaced and now I am unable to view HBO on demand and free zone, but can view the local content and movie previews just fine we have an HBO Subscription and our other non dvr gets the two just fine. My question if I have the local office send a reset to the 6412 will that erase all the recorded programs?

Andrew Wees

"resets" from comcast will not erase any of your recordings. however, i had the same problem as you with BOTH of my 6412 installations....and resets never helped. had to call multiple times to have billing and customer service correct misinformation called into the office by two different installers.

best bet would be to call them and tell them your exact serial number of the 6412 and have them apply your subscriptions....gotta love comcast!

(PS - must have spent hours on the phone the first time trying to get my channels to show up!).

I forgot to mention I can view HBO, just not HBO on demand and Free zone.

Andrew Wees


Originally posted by oleus
"resets" from comcast will not erase any of your recordings. however, i had the same problem as you with BOTH of my 6412 installations....and resets never helped. had to call multiple times to have billing and customer service correct misinformation called into the office by two different installers.

best bet would be to call them and tell them your exact serial number of the 6412 and have them apply your subscriptions....gotta love comcast!

(PS - must have spent hours on the phone the first time trying to get my channels to show up!).

There is a new version of the 6412 that will be out by mid-year. It's based on a new Broadcom chip that has HD PIP capability.

The existing 6412s have that capability of supporting external storage. Once it has been tested and verified to work correctly, I would expect cable companies to enable it via a software download.

Originally posted by rdenichilo
Cox Tech just left. News is a new 6412 box out in spring with new BIOS chips which will allow external storage, and a software update.

Anyone else hear anything about a new version of the 6412?

Also prior to mid-year we expect to release a new version of the Passport-ECHO guide (perhaps called V2.0) which fixes a number of bugs and provides some feature enhancements.

Among the bugs we expect to be fixed:
* Misc. failed recording scenarios
* Invalid subscription block barkers are erroneously displayed.
* Recordings extend several hours past their end time.
* Can't watch purchased PPV event from buffer
* Slow tuning when time-shift buffer has over 30 seconds of content
* Video doesn't match trick mode after hitting end of buffer and rewinding
* Future PPV purchases fail if event has no free preview

I'll try to provide more detail on feature enhancements as the release date draws closer. I just wanted everyone to know that the engineers continue to be working very hard to find and fix the bugs you guys report.

(I don't read this forum regularly, so please forgive my slow responses)

Thanks for the update.

One suggestion if it can done. I would like to see a item maybe in the software for downloading guide info instead of doing it manuall.

Andrew Wees

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Also prior to mid-year we expect to release a new version of the Passport-ECHO guide (perhaps called V2.0) which fixes a number of bugs and provides some feature enhancements.

Among the bugs we expect to be fixed:
* Misc. failed recording scenarios
* Invalid subscription block barkers are erroneously displayed.
* Recordings extend several hours past their end time.
* Can't watch purchased PPV event from buffer
* Slow tuning when time-shift buffer has over 30 seconds of content
* Video doesn't match trick mode after hitting end of buffer and rewinding
* Future PPV purchases fail if event has no free preview

I'll try to provide more detail on feature enhancements as the release date draws closer. I just wanted everyone to know that the engineers continue to be working very hard to find and fix the bugs you guys report.

(I don't read this forum regularly, so please forgive my slow responses)

I have to assume the external storage capability is via firewire and not the USB1.x ports right VideoooooGuy? I was thinking of getting a hard drive enclosure which is why I ask - I suppose the best thing is to get an enclosure supporting both USB and firewire.

Originally posted by marc1023
I think I need to investigate satellite, this thing is never going to work


Try VOOM, I hear their subscription model is successful beyond imagination. :)

Personally I plan on staying with cable, even with the faults.

Sorry - I don't understand your request. Can you be more specific?

Originally posted by ajwees41
Thanks for the update.

One suggestion if it can done. I would like to see a item maybe in the software for downloading guide info instead of doing it manuall.

Andrew Wees

Easy question - hard answer!

The new version of 6412 hardware (called Phase 3) will have an external S-ATA port that can be used for external storage.

The earlier versions of hardware have 1394/Fireware and USB only - no S-ATA connector. So, they would need the appropriate drivers and copy protection software before they could be used for external storage.

Since this is all future stuff, there is no definitive answer. If you want to ensure an external hard drive works with the 6412, you need to wait until you know a) which port will be enabled first and b) which drives have been verified to work and are supported by the cable co. Keep in mind there are copy protection issues that cable companies must adhere to, so it could well be that only specific external hard drives work correctly.

Originally posted by moyekj
I have to assume the external storage capability is via firewire and not the USB1.x ports right VideoooooGuy? I was thinking of getting a hard drive enclosure which is why I ask - I suppose the best thing is to get an enclosure supporting both USB and firewire.

You stated earlier that by pressing and holding the guide button on the box it will refresh the guide data. I was sugesting maybe a future update could include a way of refreshing the data using the remote or maybe a menu option.


Andrew Wees


Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Sorry - I don't understand your request. Can you be more specific?

Hmmm,

S-ATA connector, I hope its connected to regular priced external hard-drive.

Yesterday I had a strange occurence, it was a SD recording of Stargate SG1,;
at the 17minute mark it jumped to the 27minute mark and when I tried to back it up, it just jumped back to the 17 minute mark. For some reason it skips the 18-26 minutes of the episode. I 've read a lot of this thread but didn't see this mentioned yet, but could have missed it.

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
* Slow tuning when time-shift buffer has over 30 seconds of content
[/B]

Thanks again for the updates! We all appreciate it! Does the above refer to changing channels, or what? I've noticed that sometimes the guide seems slow when I'm browsing it, almost like there's not enough memory. I'll press an up/down button, and there's quite a pause before any movement occurs. Often I'll go past something I want because the machine hasn't caught up to my button presses. It seems to happen when I'm tuned to an HD channel. Anyone else notice this? Also, I don't ever use the "reminder" function, but I accidently set one the other day. I couldn't find any way to cancel it. Anyone?

Originally posted by Brett Miles
Also, I don't ever use the "reminder" function, but I accidently set one the other day. I couldn't find any way to cancel it. Anyone? Good question, I've accidently set a couple of these in the past and never found a way to cancel the darn things. Don't think they are useful for a DVR. If you are interested wouldn't you just set it to record in case you might watch it?

To cancel a reminder timer press menu then A for more settings and look for Reminder Timers.

Andrew Wees

Originally posted by moyekj
Good question, I've accidently set a couple of these in the past and never found a way to cancel the darn things. Don't think they are useful for a DVR. If you are interested wouldn't you just set it to record in case you might watch it?

If you placed an external hard drive would there be any evidence of a swap? Is there a seal on the case, etc... It would be nice to buy an updated HD and put in here. Would solve alot of our Wants.

There is a seal on the case, so Cox WILL know if you tampered with it. I wouldn't recommend trying it. Just wait patiently like the rest of us for external storage to be enabled.

I can't wait for the Passport Echo 2.0 update. It would be great to be able to completely trust my 6412 to record shows.


Videooooguy: Do you know if the Phase 3 hardware will contain a larger internal hard drive than the 120GB drive in the current model?

Apologies if this has been covered here (I searched this thread for the word "multiple" and didn't find anything that looked similar):

Is it possible to have multiple 6412 boxes operate in the same room, in a similar way that it's possible to have multiple Tivos do so? (With the Tivos, you can assign each Tivo and corresponding remote to a specific remote address code - there are 9 available I think, except for the Sony Tivos).

Also, on a related note (and I'll do some more searching for this topic too), any previous Tivo (DirecTivo too) owners who have switched to this box here? If so, what are your thoughts at this point? I have not yet had a chance to thoroughly read this thread.

We're going to be jumping onto the HD bandwagon soon, and we currently have 3 DirecTivos. We looking at all of our options here inthe New Orleans market, which includes Cox cable with this 6412 box from Motorola.

Originally posted by paudemge
Yesterday I had a strange occurence, it was a SD recording of Stargate SG1,;
at the 17minute mark it jumped to the 27minute mark and when I tried to back it up, it just jumped back to the 17 minute mark. For some reason it skips the 18-26 minutes of the episode. I 've read a lot of this thread but didn't see this mentioned yet, but could have missed it.

This has also just recently started to happen to me. Over the last couple of weeks this problem occurred on at least 6 different shows that I recorded. I think I know at least partially what is happening.

Two weeks ago I had the TV on, watching live, while my Cox DVR was recording an episode of Joey on NBCHD. I noticed that there was a lot of video tiling (pixilation) and sound cut-outs, more then normal when I usually see the tiling issue, and it got really bad at one point and then the screen went black for a few minutes. When I played back the recording the DVR skipped those minutes where the tiling started to occur and when screen went black. This occurred several times during that show. According the “Now Playing” list (sorry, a TiVo fan here) Joey was a 30 minute recording but due to the skips it was only about 15 minutes.

A friend of mine in the same area (Omaha) that also has the Cox DVR and who also recorded Joey noticed the exact same problem at the exact same times. So it seems like some sort of signal issue.

That was the first time I noticed this happening but like I said it has occurred several times since then on different shows and on different channels. And this last Sunday I turned on my TV about 15 minutes after the DVR was supposed to have recorded an hour long show and the active tuner was still tuned to the show’s channel but the screen was black. The “Now Playing” section showed the show as an hour long show, but during playback the “Do you want to delete” message appeard at the 4-minute mark.

Originally posted by BrettStah
Apologies if this has been covered here (I searched this thread for the word "multiple" and didn't find anything that looked similar):

Is it possible to have multiple 6412 boxes operate in the same room, in a similar way that it's possible to have multiple Tivos do so? (With the Tivos, you can assign each Tivo and corresponding remote to a specific remote address code - there are 9 available I think, except for the Sony Tivos).



The 6412's all use the same codes so the answer to your question is unfortunately no.

Oh well, thanks for the answer, even though it wasn't the one I was hoping for.

I have also been experiencing more than the normal amount of audio drop-outs on recorded programs. Not sure why...

Same here....also more video blips (minor pause) for lack of better description. Noticed it last night watching Alias in HD. Same thing Monday with 24. Wonder if Cox is messing with something on the Headend....

Originally posted by VideooooGuy
Also prior to mid-year we expect to release a new version of the Passport-ECHO guide (perhaps called V2.0) which fixes a number of bugs and provides some feature enhancements.

Among the bugs we expect to be fixed:
* Misc. failed recording scenarios
* Invalid subscription block barkers are erroneously displayed.
* Recordings extend several hours past their end time.
* Can't watch purchased PPV event from buffer
* Slow tuning when time-shift buffer has over 30 seconds of content
* Video doesn't match trick mode after hitting end of buffer and rewinding
* Future PPV purchases fail if event has no free preview

I'll try to provide more detail on feature enhancements as the release date draws closer. I just wanted everyone to know that the engineers continue to be working very hard to find and fix the bugs you guys report.

(I don't read this forum regularly, so please forgive my slow responses)

I didn't see any mention of the problem that exists when you "stop" a recorded program that you have chase played. The fact that it pauses rather than stops is minor, the non-recovery of disk space when you erase it is a significant issue.

Originally posted by joeracerx
I didn't see any mention of the problem that exists when you "stop" a recorded program that you have chase played. The fact that it pauses rather than stops is minor, the non-recovery of disk space when you erase it is a significant issue. Supposedly this disk space loss issue (which I reported in detail to Cox) is also apparently fixed with Passport Echo 2.0 according to Cox. I should say reportedly fixed by Pioneer in 2.0 but yet to be verified by Cox.

RE: Audio Dropouts for Rich4AV

Rich:

I have been getting alot of audio dropouts recently, but they are live as well as recorded content FWIW

dresf, you are correct. The audio dropouts are also on live broadcasts. I experience them on a number of channels...

I thought I had posted this, I guess I didn't hit submit.

Are there 2 firewire ports on the back of this 6412? Is one for input? If so, can you use this as an interface to view through external firewire devices such as a PC?

Also, how do you view your remaining HD space and how do you do a reset to see if you were able to free some up?

Bruehaha, there are 2 OUTPUT firewire ports which output an mpeg2 transport stream. You can capture that stream with a PC if you wish or if you have a monitor that has firewire input you can view audio/video (no menu overlays though, just audio and video).

You can view HD space remaining by hitting menu button, then once menu is up quickly hit the following sequence of buttons: Down, B, Up, B. An information screen will come up. Hit Exit to dismiss.

Reset box by holding down the power button for a few secs.

Another option for accessing the information menu which includes the 'used PVR space' and the the firmware version....simply power off the unit then immediately hit the select button twice and the poof....the menu appears.

Yes, just be careful with the power off method - you don't want to do it if unit is recording something as it kills all ongoing recordings.

What if you put the box on one of those $5 Light Timers and set it to be Off from lets say 3am to 4 am?

Would that make it more stable?

Any one know if the new MAC MINI for $499 can be used to capture the Wirewire stream?

It has the built in DVI port for the play back?

Originally posted by ScottChez
Any one know if the new MAC MINI for $499 can be used to capture the Wirewire stream? Don't see why not since iMAC running OSX can capture with no problems, as can a WinXP PC/laptop w/ firewire port.

How can you view programming real time with a pc? The instructions I have found just let you capture.

Originally posted by Bruehaha
How can you view programming real time with a pc? The instructions I have found just let you capture. In my instructions I briefly mention one of the players you can use:
If this is the first time you are capturing you should record a short clip only and check the resulting .ts file with appropriate playback software such as zoomplayer.

You can download Zoom Player Standard (the free version) from here:
http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml#download
The good thing about Zoomplayer is it does not demand excessive CPU to decode the Transport Stream to playback on your PC.

Media Player Classic is another that works pretty well (not excessive demands on CPU). WinXP version can be downloaded from:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/guliverkli/mpc2kxp6482.zip?download

VideoLan VLC and WinDVD I found cannot handle playback on my 2.8GHZ P4 laptop while the 2 above generally work OK.

Note that I usually end up down-converting to DVD-compatible mpeg2 (as described in my guide) anything I want to keep at which point any player can handle playback.

OK, a few more questions...

It seems like this 6412 box runs at least two different GUIs, and that Cox using the Pioneer Passport one, right? So it's safe to just ignore the big Comcast thread?

There's been a bunch of issues, but software updates have happened, and are expected to continue, right?

Do you guys find them, at this point in time, reliable enough to really depend on for all of your shows that you watch? Or do you still try to be home in time to watch things live?

Do any of you have a lot of previous experience with DirecTivos (HD or not), and if so how would you compare them at this point?

BrettStah, the 6412 has at least 3 different GUIs I'm aware of:
Passport Echo used in Cox markets and the subject of this thread.
IGuide used in some Comcast markets.
MSFT used in some Comcast markets.

Yes there were many issues that have already been resolved and obviously some outstanding issues that are being worked on - VideooooGuy works for Cox in Atlanta and keeps us informed once in a while of upcoming fixes/releases. Looks like next major update is due out sometime in Spring that should fix the major outstanding bugs.

Some have more luck than others with regards to having to babysit the unit. The biggest reason for missed recordings currently is the "Subscription Bug" problem. However, using the workaround described here seems to be a good way of avoiding the problem for now:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5052301#post5052301

I never used DirecTivo or any other Satellite PVR before but still heavily use ReplayTVs for all SD recordings leaving the 6412 to handle all HD recordings. Compared to ReplayTVs or even Tivos/DirecTivos the 6412 feature set is nowhere near as good, but compared to most cable/satellite solutions I'd say it is pretty good. If you glance at some of the other PVR threads you will see many of them have lots of problems and are missing basic capabilities such as functioning DVI and firewire outputs. All in all I'm now pretty happy with 6412 as a dedicated HD recording device, especially when/if the remaining issues get resolved.

CAn you then point the capdvhs to a player instead of a .ts file?

Originally posted by Bruehaha
CAn you then point the capdvhs to a player instead of a .ts file? Oh I see what you mean by "live capture" now. If you look at the first post in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695

There's a section in there about how to do what you want using VideoLAN VLC, but be warned that you need a pretty powerful PC for this to work flawlessly.

I fail to see the value of doing this though - why not just watch on your HDTV?


**New** 5/26/04
To watch live HD without capturing first.
Open VLC v7.2 *might work with other versions.
Choose "File" > "Open Capture Device"

To the right of "Video device name" click "Refresh List" Then choose "Panasonic MPEG2TS Tape Sub" from the drop down.
Click "OK"

Just a word of advice if I hit "Configure" or "Advanced Options" It blue screens my computer.
This seems to be much more resource intensive than watching a captured file. My AMD 2600 works at ~83% if I don't resize or any other effect. Any effect drives it to 100%.

You can also setup a shortcut to run VLC with the parms for picking up the stream automatically.

Target:

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" "dshow:// :dshow-vdev="Panasonic MPEG2TS Tape Subunit Device" :dshow-adev="" :dshow-size="" :no-dshow-config "

Start In:

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC"
*Thanks to E Jackson*

when you do a reset how long does it take to reinitialize?

just so I can run the tv in a window while I am on the computer without having a tv in that room. I have a long firewire cable run to my computer room.

Originally posted by ajwees41
I am in Omaha and we just had our 6412 replaced and now I am unable to view HBO on demand and free zone, but can view the local content and movie previews just fine we have an HBO Subscription and our other non dvr gets the two just fine. My question if I have the local office send a reset to the 6412 will that erase all the recorded programs?

Andrew Wees

I realize that my reply is somewhat late, but the signals sent to your box for EOD not working would not delete the content of your box.

Originally posted by gb61
There is a seal on the case, so Cox WILL know if you tampered with it. I wouldn't recommend trying it. Just wait patiently like the rest of us for external storage to be enabled.

I can't wait for the Passport Echo 2.0 update. It would be great to be able to completely trust my 6412 to record shows.


Videooooguy: Do you know if the Phase 3 hardware will contain a larger internal hard drive than the 120GB drive in the current model?

I would personally guess that the answer would be no as the last digits of the model denote the hard drive space..... 6412 = 120GB Drive, 6208 = 80GB HD, 6206 = 60GB HD, etc. I've gathered the 6xxx denotes the model series if you will, and the second digit (the 4 in the 6412) denotes that it's a dual tuner, whereas a 6208 is a single tuner.

They started working on the 25th. I question if I call in or email with box Serial can they check to see why the vod didn't work for a couple of days?

Andrew Wees

Originally posted by dloseke
I realize that my reply is somewhat late, but the signals sent to your box for EOD not working would not delete the content of your box.

Originally posted by moyekj
BrettStah, the 6412 has at least 3 different GUIs I'm aware of:
Passport Echo used in Cox markets and the subject of this thread.
IGuide used in some Comcast markets.
MSFT used in some Comcast markets.

Yes there were many issues that have already been resolved and obviously some outstanding issues that are being worked on - VideooooGuy works for Cox in Atlanta and keeps us informed once in a while of upcoming fixes/releases. Looks like next major update is due out sometime in Spring that should fix the major outstanding bugs.

Some have more luck than others with regards to having to babysit the unit. The biggest reason for missed recordings currently is the "Subscription Bug" problem. However, using the workaround described here seems to be a good way of avoiding the problem for now:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5052301#post5052301

I never used DirecTivo or any other Satellite PVR before but still heavily use ReplayTVs for all SD recordings leaving the 6412 to handle all HD recordings. Compared to ReplayTVs or even Tivos/DirecTivos the 6412 feature set is nowhere near as good, but compared to most cable/satellite solutions I'd say it is pretty good. If you glance at some of the other PVR threads you will see many of them have lots of problems and are missing basic capabilities such as functioning DVI and firewire outputs. All in all I'm now pretty happy with 6412 as a dedicated HD recording device, especially when/if the remaining issues get resolved.
Thanks for the reply! I've also been following a lot of the other PVR threads, and it seems that there is no perfect solution out there yet. We're at the early stages of HD recording via these types of devices, and even the normally stable Tivos that I'm used to seem to have issues in the HD realm. Lots of issues with hardware with them, specifically the HDMI output, from what I can tell. I'm still probably a month or so away before I get an HD set anyway, so what I plan on doing is to initially just get an antenna that can pull in all of my locals here in New Orleans, and then seeing what the latest "buzz" is in terms of the 6412 and the DirecTivo. I already have phone and Internet through Cox, and I think I can sign up for cable TV with no long-term contract, so it'd be pretty painless to try out the 6412, I guess. I really wish it was possible to have two 6412s work on different IR codesets though - we're really used to having multiple DirecTivos in our main TV viewing room.

The other big negative right now with Cox in New Orleans is this... they only have the NBC, ABC, and PBS HD local channels! So no FOX, CBS, WB, UPN. And the 6412 does not have the ability to record via an antenna input, right? That right there is a show-stopper for us. The big negatives with the DirecTV/HD-Tivos is the purchase price (best price seems to be $850 or so, and supposedly long-time customers can get some sort of rebate, but we're still talking about >$600 upfront costs), and the hardware problems that seem prevalent.

Originally posted by BrettStah
The other big negative right now with Cox in New Orleans is this... they only have the NBC, ABC, and PBS HD local channels! So no FOX, CBS, WB, UPN. And the 6412 does not have the ability to record via an antenna input, right? Wow, that is a pitiful HD lineup. 6412 doesn't have antenna input as you suspected - doesn't sound like the right HD solution for you right now. If you can get OTA reception I would probably lean towards a PC-based solution, though most HD HTPC solutions are also in their infancy and a PC solution is usually just not very elegant. I think perhaps you're best bet is wait another year or so for DirecTV to get the new satellites up and get spot HD locals going. By then perhaps their new PVR they are working on may also be released and half way decent and not cost an arm and a leg up front.

FYI, for anyone wondering if they have EOD/VOD you can tell from diagnostic menus. Power off, select, select and scroll to d14 and right arrow. If the listed IP is something other than 0.0.0.0 that means the unit is capable of downloading material on demand and thus EOD is enabled.

crap! I hit A instead of B.. is there a way to UNdelete a saved show??? :(

Cox Motorola 6412 box

yes, I searched

Kraw, never heard a way to undelete with this or any other DVR. It's these situations that ReplayTV and IVS become very useful - you can request the show you want from a peer RTV owner via Poopli website.

interesting.. guess I'll read up on this replayTV service :) thanks!

We used to have DirecTIVO and switched to Cox HD PVR a couple of months ago...
well, I'm not sure how often its been, but it seems like every week or so, my wife curses the Cox PVR and wishes we had the TIVO back. I have to agree with her sometimes. I absolutely love the HD and the ability to record high def....but the software is really stupid compared to TIVO.
Lost track how many times, it fails to record something, and I have no idea why though I'm starting to suspect its because sometimes it thinks I'm not really subscribed to some of the local channels (high def ones). I noticed sometimes if I'm looking through the guide and try to schedule a future recording it will sometimes say I can't record it, even though its on channel 704!! So then if I go to that channel, wait for the stupid "you aren't subscribed" popup to go away, I will then be able to go back to the guide and schedule the future recording on 704.

Another thing it does that is really brainless, is it has no idea that its already recorded the identical episode. TIVO has the intelligence to know that it already recorded the same episode before. So some nights, i'll get two copies of the same show!! What's worse is sometimes it will record both the HD and SD version of the same show, which had a higher priority than something else, so it won't record that other show it should have!

Reading about how DircecTV is dumping tivo really depressed me...I was hoping in the future I could switch back to DirecTV and get their hd TIVO...but now it looks like they will go with some no-name vendor I never heard of...ugh...obviously making a decent pvr and writing software for it is something that everyone can't do very well. This passport software is one example, and Dish network's PVR's are another prime example.

omarh, look back a few pages and you will find the solution to most of the missed recordings due to "unsubscribed channel" error (until the release of the updated software later this year). It involves having a handle on what channels both of your tuners are tuned to prior to leaving the PVR alone prior to a scheduled recording.

I second the motion regarding not recording an episode you already have (whether you've set to record duplicates or not). I've been whining about that since day 1 actually. The software has gotten a touch better in regards to scheduled recording preferences, but that's the key "scenario" I wish it would address. What I'm talking about is like I don't mind it recording a re-run of something, I just don't want 3 copies of that particular re-run episode.

-T

Originally posted by omarh
Reading about how DircecTV is dumping tivo really depressed me...I was hoping in the future I could switch back to DirecTV and get their hd TIVO...but now it looks like they will go with some no-name vendor I never heard of...ugh...obviously making a decent pvr and writing software for it is something that everyone can't do very well. This passport software is one example, and Dish network's PVR's are another prime example.

omarh, there is some hope for the future, in that Tivo is working on a 2-tuner CableCard HD Tivo which should (hopefully) work with the Cox HD service. Unfortunately, it won't be out for another year and will probably cost the same or more than a HD DirecTivo.

Since using sjkim workaround to the "subscription bug" problem I haven't had any missed recordings, so it really appears to work. The workaround is not that bad - after I'm done with the box for the night I simply make sure the background tuner is tuned to channel 1, swap to the other tuner and channel through the HD channels I record off to make sure subscription bug is not there, then turn the box off and it's ready for the next night of recordings. Still looking forwards to the day I don't have to babysit the box as much, but really quite happy with the box now.

On another topic I did end up getting an enclosure with 2 firewire ports and 1 USB2.0 port to expand storage space on my laptop. Hopefully this spring or summer it can be put to use as external storage for the 6412 (perhaps 6412 hardware phase III). Reading up about SATA drives the 1st generation of such drives are about 150Mb/sec versus PATA/IDE drives topping out at 133Mb/sec, so really not much difference there to justify the higher price. 2nd generation SATA drives supposedly will be much faster but are not yet released.

Originally posted by moyekj
Since using sjkim workaround to the "subscription bug" problem I haven't had any missed recordings, so it really appears to work. The workaround is not that bad - after I'm done with the box for the night I simply make sure the background tuner is tuned to channel 1, swap to the other tuner and channel through the HD channels I record off to make sure subscription bug is not there, then turn the box off and it's ready for the next night of recordings. Still looking forwards to the day I don't have to babysit the box as much, but really quite happy with the box now.



I want to understand this workaround and some logic for why it works. Please explain again as I must have missed an earlier thread. I consistently get 0 minute recordings on HD programming and have just given up trying until a fix.

Read this post carefully by sjkim a couple of pages back - I had to read it a few times to really capture what was being said:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5052301#post5052301
One important thing to note is that whenever possible the 6412 will use the BACKGROUND tuner for recordings. For some reason the subscription bug seems to be aggravated if the background tuner is already tuned into one of the "trouble" channels - that you have had subscription bugs with before. So the important thing is to keep the background tuner on a channel that you have NEVER had the subscription bug with. So in my case:
1) I tune to channel 1 and then hit swap to set channel 1 for my background tuner - I never have seen subscription bug on that channel.
2) Then use foreground tuner to channel through all the "problem" channels that you have had problems with before to clear up any subscription bugs the box may be hung up on for those channels.

I do the 2 steps above and then turn the box off and so far have avoided problems with subscription bug even on nights with overlapping recordings (taking both tuners). It's important to reset the box to the above good known state before the next set of recordings kicks in. In my case I only record HD channels during primetime shows, so it makes it easy to just reset the box to a good state after I'm done watching for the night. If you record many shows throughout the day on many different channels it may be a lot harder if not impossible to implement a workaround such as above.

I haven't had time to test this theory, but I am wondering if setting a reminder for the show before the one you want to record would help. My logic is that if the box is already on the channel, it has already gotten the subscription notice, but since it wasn't trying to record it it didn't matter and would still tune to it. If this works it would be the easiest workaround yet.

Originally posted by moyekj
1) I tune to channel 1 and then hit swap to set channel 1 for my background tuner - I never have seen subscription bug on that channel.
2) Then use foreground tuner to channel through all the "problem" channels that you have had problems with before to clear up any subscription bugs the box may be hung up on for those channels.



I'm willing to give this a shot because I miss recordings several times a week to this bug.

Does it matter what channel the foreground tuner is left on once you've cycled through the channels? i.e. do I also need to set the foreground tuner to a non buggy channel or do I want to leave it on and HD station?

Cheers,
Ray

Originally posted by Tiresius
I'm willing to give this a shot because I miss recordings several times a week to this bug.

Does it matter what channel the foreground tuner is left on once you've cycled through the channels? i.e. do I also need to set the foreground tuner to a non buggy channel or do I want to leave it on and HD station?

Cheers,
Ray I leave foreground tuner on INHD1 - a channel I never record anything from. Not sure if it matters what channel you leave it on but I'm sticking to a workaround recipe that seems to work. It may be prudent to leave it on a channel you never record from or one that you know hasn't suffered from subscription bug before.

I have been leaving both tuners on analog channels over night. I was getting the missed recording / subscription bug 4 to 5 times a week prior to using sjkim's workaround. Since using the workaround and selecting analog channels, I have not missed a single recording. I agree moyekj, it would be great not to have to baby sit the machine but this workaround seams to help while we wait.

Originally posted by moyekj
I leave foreground tuner on INHD1 - a channel I never record anything from. Not sure if it matters what channel you leave it on but I'm sticking to a workaround recipe that seems to work. It may be prudent to leave it on a channel you never record from or one that you know hasn't suffered from subscription bug before.


OK, can someone clear it up for me..

The way I read it was that if you are planning to record HD channels then you need to place both channels on analog before leaving the box alone?

But you mention about leaving it on INHD1 which is a HD channel?? also how do you tell which tunner you are on? ie. foreground etc..

Now going back to my first question about the HD and analog channels, what happens when you are recording multiple HD channels on the same night? will you get the bug?

Also, some nights to save space, i record some channels in HD and some SD, now that the tunner is switching back and fore, will I get the problem?

Sorry for the noob questions!!

Originally posted by Sugrat
The way I read it was that if you are planning to record HD channels then you need to place both channels on analog before leaving the box alone?
Yes, I think that would work fine - assuming you have never had subscription problems on analog channels which I think is true for everyone.

But you mention about leaving it on INHD1 which is a HD channel?? also how do you tell which tunner you are on? ie. foreground etc..
I don't care about/record INHD1 and it just happens to land after all the HD channels I do record, so when channeling through the HD channels to clear up potential subscription bugs (my step 2) I just happen to stop on INHD1. After channeling through you could then tune to analog channel if you wish. Foreground tuner is the one you are currently watching. You have to use the "swap" button on the remote to switch the other tuner to the foreground.

Now going back to my first question about the HD and analog channels, what happens when you are recording multiple HD channels on the same night? will you get the bug?
Good question and I thought this would be a problem, but so far after implementing the workaround I have had several nights with multiple and overlapping recordings (i.e. recordings using both tuners) and haven't seen the problem - may just be luck/coincidence and time will tell if the workaround really helps for this situation.

I leave my foreground tuner (the one displayed on the front panel LED's) on digital music. Mine has been faithfully recording ever since. Just wish I had the time to WATCH TV. With the limited HD storage, the shows are just passing thru without being seen. My Replays are also faithfully collecting the seasons shows which I'll hopefully get to watch some day!

Leaving the box off does not make it download guide data like it was mentioned before. The only way now is pressing the guide butto on the front of the box.

Andrew Wees

New to this thread.....

Thinking for Switch from DBS to Cox. Does the 6412 do Caller ID on Cox Cable systems? Im in Omaha.

If not, will it be in the Spring release?

Originally posted by ajwees41
They started working on the 25th. I question if I call in or email with box Serial can they check to see why the vod didn't work for a couple of days?

Andrew Wees

possibly....they can see if it's something obvious anyway

Originally posted by ScottChez
New to this thread.....

Thinking for Switch from DBS to Cox. Does the 6412 do Caller ID on Cox Cable systems? Im in Omaha.

If not, will it be in the Spring release?

Not at this time, though it may be a feature of the future...don't have any idea when that will be though....VOIP markets will probably get that first if I had to guess as I believe it would be easier to deploy then.

Hi,

I am a longtime ReplayTV user, and just got the 6412 DVR this week...and have been going thru this very informative thread.

My question is - has anyone collected all of the tips and tricks from this thread and made a FAQ?

If so, could somebody please let me know where it is?

Thanks!
Mike

No FAQ AFAIK, but here's a list to get started from. Also check my sig links for firewire extraction and HD downconversion.

REBOOTING MACHINE
=================
Hold Power button down for 5 seconds

GUIDE DATA
==========
Hold Guide button down for 5 seconds
NOTE: This will purge guide data from DRAM & hard drive forcing re-download

NOTE: FF/REW and Play/Stop buttons now function as Day+/Day- in guide browser

QUICK SETTINGS HIDDEN PAGE
======================
(A quick way to view available disk space and total time of all recordings and firmware version info)
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Press Menu (displays Quick Settings menu)
3. Press Down,B,Up,B (within 5 seconds)
4. Use Page- and Page+ to scroll pages
5. Press Exit to dismiss

DIAGNOSTICS PAGE
==============
(View all kinds of info about the box)
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Power off, Select, Select
d03 = OOB status = oob frequency, snr, agc
d04 = In-band status = tuner1/2 info
d06 = tuner 1/2 channel status
d08 = Code Modules = firmware info
d09 = memory info
d11 = interface status (what's enabled/disabled in box)
d13 = show disk space remaining + hard drive details + partition info
NOTE: This kills any recordings currently recording.

GENERAL SETTINGS PAGE
==================
(Control various aspects of the box including video output format to use - better alternative to User Settings Page)
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Press Menu (displays Quick Settings menu)
3. Select A - More Settings

USER SETTINGS PAGE
==================
(Can change video output format to use and CC settings)
1. DCT6412 should be on
2. Power off, Menu, Menu

Some sample measurements from firewire captures:
6412 HD STREAM INFO
===================
Channel = NBC-HD
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=*18.29Mbps, Peak=19.2Mpbs
Resolution 1920x1088i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 16:9 (1920x1080)
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 6 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 384 Kbps
1 hour show size 8,400 MBytes
(18.29+384/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 8,400 MBytes/hr
=>Total recordings = 88*1024/8400 =~ 11 hours

6412 SD DIGITAL STREAM INFO
===========================
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=*3.7Mbps, Peak=15Mbps
Resolution 528x480i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 128 Kbps
1 hour show size 1,721 MBytes
(3.7+128/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 1,721 MBytes/hr
=>Total recordings = 88*1024/1721 =~ 52 hours

6412 SD ENCODED FROM ANALOG STREAM INFO
=======================================
System Stream Type Transport
Video Standard NTSC
Video Compression MPEG-2
Video Bitrate VBR: Average=6.2Mbps, Peak=7.5Mbps
Resolution 720x480i
Frame Rate 29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Audio Compression Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream 2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate 320 Kbps
1 hour show size 2,981 MBytes
(6.2+320/1024Mbits/sec)*(3600sec/hr)*(1Byte/8bits) = 2,930 MBytes/hr
=>Total recordings = 88*1024/2930 =~ 31 hours

*NOTE: Average bit-rates may vary depending on program + Cox headend

6412/PASSPORT SPACE ANALYSIS
========================
120GB drive => 120e9/2^30 = 111.76GB
Looking at allocation totals:
System=238MB
GPFS=2861MB
PVR Content=109944MB
PVR Index=1431MB
=>TOTAL allocation = 114474MB = 114474/1024 = 111.79GB

Useage (with no recordings on the box):
System=1MB
GPFS=21MB
PVR Content =~ 19280MB (=> Total buffer space)
PVR Index =~ 96MB

So really these are the true numbers in GB:
Total drive space =~ 112 GB
Total recordings space =~ 109944/1024 =~ 107 GB
Buffer space (for 2 tuners) =~ 19280/1024 =~ 19GB
Space available for recordings = 107-19= 88GB

NOTE:
1 Byte = 8 bits
1KByte = 2^10 = 1024 Bytes
1MByte = 2^20 = 1024^2 = 1,048,576 Bytes
1GByte = 2^30 = 1024^3 = 1,073,741,824 Bytes

Thanks for posting that moyekj!

In the past few minutes I realized that I was experiencing something kind of weird with my unit. It is kind of hard for me to explain, so please bear with me.

My cable company has Starz as channel 24, Encore 25, HBO 26, MAX 27 and Showtime 28....but those channels are also in the digital space (i.e. above channel 100)- Encore is 212, HBO is 300 etc.

So I get Encore on both 25 and 212. Starz is 24 and 361. HBO is on both 26 and 300. Cinemax is on 27 and 320. Showtime is on 28 and 345.

And for HD I get HBO-HD (720) and Showtime-HD (725).

Obviosuly if I am going to watch or record something on HBO or Showtime, I would probably watch or record HBO-HD or Showtime-HD.

However, for Starz, Encore and Cinemax, I would prefer to record the digital versions (and not the analog versions on channels 24,25 and 27). That way I would get the 5.1 audio when it is offered.

Unfortunately, the PAssport DVR doesnt seem to know how to deal with 2 channels that have the same name.

For example, tonite I wanted to record "Starsky and Hutch" on Encore (channel 212, because it had 5.1 audio). I wasnt paying attention, and when I went to watch it after it had finished recording, I noticed it had recorded "Starsky and Hutch" on channel 25.

So I went and tried to make a manual recording of something on channel 212 (Encore digital), but it always recorded Encore on channel 25.

Same with HBO. Carnival was on tonite. Even when I changed to channel 300 (HBO digital), and hit the record button, what ended up being recorded was channel 26 (HBO analog). What sucks is that HBO on channel 300 had 5.1 sound, while HBO on channel 26 didnt.

I also noticed this phenomenon when I set up some favorite channels. I set 212 (Encore) as a favorite....yet the cable box also set channel 25 as a favorite..)

Does anyone elses cable lineup have Starz, Encore, HBO, MAX and Showtime in both the analog area and digital area? If so is there a way to force the DVR to record an identically named channel in the digital area?

I hope I made sense explaining this.

Fortunately, when I set it to record something on HBO or Showtime HD, it does without problem.

It looks to me like Cox needs to rename those digital versions of HBO STARZ Encore Cinemax and Showtime so they dont have an identical name as the analog versions.

OR does anyone know if it is possible to edit a channels name on the DVR? Or even erase channels not used? If that was possible I could erase the analog versions, and then hopefully the correct channels would be recorded.

Thanks,
Mike

Mike, I don't have this problem in my market - perhaps we do but since I don't subscribe to premium channels there are no duplications in analog/digital lineup that I subscribe to. However, several in Comcast with Iguide markets are seeing the same problem you are - especially since Comcast is starting digital simulcast of analog channels. See:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5124437#post5124437
Obviously the solution to the problem is for call signs to be different on those channels - however that probably has implications to guide data/provider that Cox will have to sort out. I think you should report the problem to Cox.

Thanks for the link moyekj.

Hopefully Cox in my area will do something about this and just rename the channels - like add a "-D" to all digital versions of a channel. Like you said, there are probably implications for this, and it really only effects 3 of my channels right now, but it is still pretty annoying.

I will call them on Monday and report this to them....since the DVR and HD are brand new here, I am sure it will be a long time before this is fixed. Hopefully someone will figure out a way to edit the channels or something in the DVR itself.

I did read that locking out the analog versions of the channels via parental controls doesnt work because it also locks the digital versions.

Anyway, thanks again for your help!

Mike...In the Tulsa market we have a similar setup with Cox. But in cases where we have analog, digital, and HD duplicates (for example with our local channels) all I've had to do is indicate when setting up a scheduled recording the specific channel I wish to use (not 'any' channel) and it has always limited the recordings to that channel only. Are you having the problem when choosing a specific program on the program guide to record or when setting up a repeat recording? I know on the repeat programming setup you specify 'all' channels the show appears or you limit the setup to 'only' a specific channel. If you are setting up the recording on an individual basis from the program guide is only that specific channel turning red or os the analog channel red too?