I've updated my web page with some of the information I've gathered about Phase 3 box and the newer 2.5.x Passport software. I can't completely update the information until I've had a chance to examine the new software in person.

Unfortunately for Orange County (and likely New England markets too) the 2.5.x software update won't happen until October time frame from what I heard from a CSR supervisor.

From what I've read here it seems the Subscription Bug (or perhaps a new variant of it) is still a problem for some with the 2.5.x software though apparently not as bad. So I'm presuming the new software helps solve that problem. Also from what I gather, the Subscription Bug is still present for those with Phase 3 box with older 1.6x software.

Unfortunately for Orange County (and likely New England markets too) the 2.5.x software update won't happen until October time frame from what I heard from a CSR supervisor.

From what I've read here it seems the Subscription Bug (or perhaps a new variant of it) is still a problem for some with the 2.5.x software though apparently not as bad. So I'm presuming the new software helps solve that problem. Also from what I gather, the Subscription Bug is still present for those with Phase 3 box with older 1.6x software.
Oy @ the October time frame. Wasn't there like a 2.0 version? Seems like a huge jump from 1.6 to 2.5 :-\

And as for the subscription bug, it's still here on the phase III boxes. I've only had one zero minute recording in four days but have gotten I'd say, about ten erroneous subscription overlays for a few seconds. But that's not that bad since I watch a lotttttttt of television.

And thanks for the update.

Also from what I gather, the Subscription Bug is still present for those with Phase 3 box with older 1.6x software.

Yes, it is still there, although plugging the box into my TV via component instead of HDMI and leaving the box on all the time seems to decrease the problem significantly.

Similar problem, no solution.
I am also in Baton Rouge and had a similar problem with my 6412. Late last week, the box started rebooting frequently (minutes apart) - turning off then on and showing the passport echo screen. Then, it quit for good. If I unplug it and then plug it back in, I would just get the 8888 on the front of the box. I called Cox, and they sent a hit to the box. No good. I don't even get 8888 any more. The screen then had a light going in a circle on the leftmost digit and "dl" in the last 2 digit spaces. Now circle stopped and just the "dl" remains. A tech is scheduled to come out tomorrow.


I've been noticing some problems with my 6412 lately. for about a week, maybe 2 now, it's been freezing up very often. Exactly like a computer freeze, nothing works and 10 sec later it reboots itself.

This has been happening VERY often, usually when stopping recorded video, switching to live video, or trying to play a recorded video. I'd say it's happening 1 out of 5 times i try to do one of those actions.

It's very annoying as i could be in the middle of recording a show and it freezes, reboots, and i've lost 5 minutes of recording waiting for it to sink back up once it reboots. it's just been acting really weird.

I have no idea what is causing it... Was there a firmware update (with even more crappy firmware) i didn't know about (Baton Rouge, LA)? Did a firmware update go bad? Is it a random f*ck up?

And what should i do about it? is there a way to fix things such as this? or do i need to make a trip to the cox building to get a new dvr unit?

I really appriciate any help anyone has to offer, and thanks ahead of time.

Looks like in Tulsa we (I) got a new firmware download early this morning. It wiped my HDD clean of saved recordings and cancelled all my series recordings. I didn't write down the exact firmware version (I think it was 55.63) but seems odd and the same as a past version before the most recent update. It is dated April 15th (or thereabouts). Anyone else have this happen to them recently?

Ink noise you have an older version of Passport Echo, but a newer firmware.

so the PIP functions could still be possible with the passport Echo update, but since you don't have it yet it's uncertain. The installer mighrt know nothing about PIP because of the older passport echo software.

Andrew Wees


Pioneer Passport Echo: 1.6.026
Motorola DVR Firmware: 12.15

Ink noise you have an older version of Passport Echo, but a newer firmware.

so the PIP functions could still be possible with the passport Echo update, but since you don't have it yet it's uncertain. The installer mighrt know nothing about PIP because of the older passport echo software.

Andrew Wees


I'm pretty sure the Phase I boxes do not have hardware that supports PIP no matter what firmware upgrade you may receive.

If you read my post again I said he has a newer firmware, but an older passport echo version with a phase 3 box though.

Andrew Wees



I'm pretty sure the Phase I boxes do not have hardware that supports PIP no matter what firmware upgrade you may receive.

Does anybody with the 6412 version III have the dolbly digital switching problem.
Bug: when using the HDMI port if you set the digital output to dolby digital and change the channel, it will switch back to PCM. This only occurs with HDMI. If you use component cables this does not occur. I called motorola and they were unaware of the problem. Cox in OC doesn't know either. Anybody else have this issue.

I have the same problem.

I have the same problem, and I use component cables. It's pretty annoying. Only started happening with the new box.

Random note: moyekj - you freaking rock; thanks for the DCT6412 info page, it's been so helpful.

That and all your other helpful posts :D

I second that. :)

Does anybody with the 6412 version III have the dolbly digital switching problem.
Bug: when using the HDMI port if you set the digital output to dolby digital and change the channel, it will switch back to PCM. This only occurs with HDMI. If you use component cables this does not occur. I called motorola and they were unaware of the problem. Cox in OC doesn't know either. Anybody else have this issue.

I have the same problem using HDMI.

Our 6412 in Omaha in keeps locking up and freezing the picture and it reboots sometimes also. Does anyone in Omaha know if they are trying to upgrade the firmware on a phase 1 6412?

Andrew Wees

They applied some kind of update to my (omaha) 6412 about a week ago. I lost my recordings and all my scheduled items. It rebooted a number of times for a few days after that and I'm still getting freezes.

I haven't called in yet but I need to... this is really annoying.

Big Al please post if you call cox about the 6412 reboots and freezing.

Andrew Wees



They applied some kind of update to my (omaha) 6412 about a week ago. I lost my recordings and all my scheduled items. It rebooted a number of times for a few days after that and I'm still getting freezes.

I haven't called in yet but I need to... this is really annoying.

Big Al please post if you call cox about the 6412 reboots and freezing.

Andrew Wees

They did the same for me yesterday about my Phase 3, with no luck. It continued to have the freeze reboot issue after being powered OFF. They suggested having a "technician" :rolleyes: come out and take a look at it, which will inevitably have a charge($) for the visit. I think I'm gonna just bring it back and swap it. Cox said it could be from a weak signal, which I don't understand because I never had any problems with the previous model(Phase 2).
To be continued...........

The freezing might be signal related, but the reboot might be software related it seems to reboot at the same each time it reboots at 5 A.M.

I also noticed the temp goes 129 to 145, but after awhile it changes to 131 to 145 maybe the fan is going bad.


Andrew Wees







They did the same for me yesterday about my Phase 3, with no luck. It continued to have the freeze reboot issue after being powered OFF. They suggested having a "technician" :rolleyes: come out and take a look at it, which will inevitably have a charge($) for the visit. I think I'm gonna just bring it back and swap it. Cox said it could be from a weak signal, which I don't understand because I never had any problems with the previous model(Phase 2).
To be continued...........

Has anyone resolved the DD5.1 switching when using HDMI problem? this is extrememly annoying. I am on my second Phase 3 and I did not notice the DD switching problem with the first one. I am still having issues with rebooting also. I allready swapped one box out maybe I'll have a tech come and look at it!!

Has anyone resolved the DD5.1 switching when using HDMI problem? this is extrememly annoying. I am on my second Phase 3 and I did not notice the DD switching problem with the first one. I am still having issues with rebooting also. I allready swapped one box out maybe I'll have a tech come and look at it!! I suggest you switch back to earlier model box for now. Looks like a couple of firmware updates are needed to stabilize the phase 3 box. Cox OC market has reportedly stopped giving out phase 3 boxes because of so many rebooting and audio switching problems reported.

I have had my Phase III box for several weeks now and have been generally pleased with it.

The notorious "Subscription Bug" has only occured once or twice in the many many recordings I have set up.

However, today I had a "Zero Minute Recording" problem that COULD have been a real nasty surprise for me.

I am a big NASCAR fan and was going to be out to an Anniversary dinner with friends this evening, which meant I had to record the Fontana race from 5:00PM until 9:30PM Sunday evening.

Using the guide WITH THE TUNER SET TO 704 (KNBC-HD),at about 4:30PM I set the recording up in the normal manner and the block with the race noted in it turned red and I was all set!

We were going to leave at 5:00PM and thank god my wife was a little late in getting ready, (as usual!). I went back into the den to get my cell phone and happened to glance over at the box( it was now about 5:05PM) and I was shocked to NOT see the red lite indicating a recording was in progress, which should have been the case.

I turned on the set, went to the Recording List and sure enough, there was the NASCAR race showing a start time AND end time of 4:59PM...the "Zero Minute" recording bug had almost cost me the chance to see this race which NBC never would show again!

Of course, I then manually started the recording and all turned out OK!

So, what happened here...? Is this problem being seen by other users of the Phase III box? Is it a software problem that will have to await the many times delayed firmware update we have been promised? How can this be prevented?
What is the "workaround" if any?

I was just lucky today....there is no way to know when this damn "Bug" is going to bite you!

Using the guide WITH THE TUNER SET TO 704 (KNBC-HD),at about 4:30PM I set the recording up in the normal manner and the block with the race noted in it turned red and I was all set! That was probably your problem if you left one of the tuners on that channel. You shouldn't leave either tuner on any of the HD channels since that seems to aggravate the subscription bug problem. Channel through the HD channels you have recordings setup for to make sure they are clear of subscription bug, then tune to any analog channel, hit swap, and tune to a different analog channel. I go through this routine every night before I go to bed and it minimizes subscription bug problems for me. Leaving either tuner on an HD channel will greatly increase chances of subscription bug. On nights when you have multiple HD recordings you just have to babysit the box if you happen to be around.

I'll have to call in again but last I heard the Orange County (and likely New England) markets 2.5.x Passport upgrade has been postponed indefinately. Previously there was some hope we'd get it October but last I heard even that doesn't seem likely.

Chuckip, yes, I have a phase III box, and I have the subscription bug problem intermittently too. Only, of course, on the HD channels. It's pretty infuriating as having to babysit the box kind of defeats much of the purpose of having a DVR.

Another wrinkle I've found is that the subscription bug seems to delete recordings from the Schedule Recording list if it thinks it can't receive that channel, but once you clear the bug, it doesn't always restore them. There isn't even black over the recording in the Guide, it just ignores it completely.

That was probably your problem if you left one of the tuners on that channel. You shouldn't leave either tuner on any of the HD channels since that seems to aggravate the subscription bug problem. Channel through the HD channels you have recordings setup for to make sure they are clear of subscription bug, then tune to any analog channel, hit swap, and tune to a different analog channel. I go through this routine every night before I go to bed and it minimizes subscription bug problems for me. Leaving either tuner on an HD channel will greatly increase chances of subscription bug.

I'm not questioning that this works for you, but it is so counterintuitive! You would really think that if you left the "background" tuner on the channel you wanted to record, so that it didn't have to change channels at all, that the subscription bug wouldn't occur.

I am going to email cox again today. I hope everyone will continue to pester them about this until it is fixed. We shouldn't have to be paying beta testers for equipment with such obvious flaws in its basic functions.

Yes it is counterintuitive. But note that the DVR will re-tune to the channel even if the tuner to be used is already on the right channel, so that may explain some of the problem. If you call try and find out when the next DVR software update to Passport Echo software is expected. We are still on 1.6.x while many other Cox markets are at 2.5.x

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I have a phase 3 box in New England. I had it hooked up using a HDMI to DVI cable to my Hitachi TV. I could watch TV no problem, but when the TV was off, the box would cycle power and reload constantly. I swapped the box and the same thing happened. Switching to componenet cables instead of the HDMI cable cleared the problem.

I did not and have not had any problems with the dolby digital. I am using the fiber optic to go directly to my reciever, and am not getting audio from the HDMI.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I have a phase 3 box in New England. I had it hooked up using a HDMI to DVI cable to my Hitachi TV. I could watch TV no problem, but when the TV was off, the box would cycle power and reload constantly. I swapped the box and the same thing happened. Switching to componenet cables instead of the HDMI cable cleared the problem.

I had the same problem with the phase 3 box and an HDMI to HDMI cable to my Sony. In addition to rebooting constantly, it was screwing up recordings (more tha usual). Switching to component fixed it for me, too. I think there is a flaw with the box, though it may only effect certain TV's? Others seem to be using HDMI from the 6412/III without problem.

I don't particularly care as far as image quality. We did a highly scientific test (um, my brother and I looking at the TV, switching between the HDMI and component to see if there were any PQ differences... if there is any difference, it's nearly imperceptible on my particular TV). I was hoping to free one of the two component inputs on my TV for another device, though, but oh well.

I can't really tell that much of a difference on my rear projection set, but have seen a very slight difference on fixed pixel displays like LCD and DLP. My problem is that I have two inputs and one DVD player, one OTA HD box for ABC Monday Night Football, which Cox in CT still does not have, and one Phase 3 DVR. Since it is now football season, no DVDs for me.

schmitter I had the same problem: too many components and not enough progressive/HD inputs on the TV. I ended up buying a Pioneer VSX1015TX receiver through which to route all my A/V components. It has 3 HDTV (100MHz) component inputs and also does up-conversion of S-video inputs to it's component output. It plays very nicely with macros for universal remotes since it powers up quickly and responds to remote control commands right away (for switching audio/video input selection as part of the macro for example). I also found discrete on/off codes to use as part of power on/off macros. It's a highly recommended A/V receiver in the AVS forums and very reasonably priced compared to other receivers in it's class.

Components I route through it:
DCT6412 via component
Samsung OTA HDTV receiver via component
DVD player via component
ReplayTV via S-video (up-converted to component output)
Of course there are plenty more S-video inputs on the receiver if needed for other devices.

Everything is programmed with my MX-500 remote control (with discrete on/offs) such that pressing and holding a single device button turns all equipment and switches to the appropriate input on the receiver for that device and a single button can power all the equipment off. My wife and 6 year old are now able to use the equipment without being intimidated.

I wrote to Cox again. Here is the reply I received:

---------------

Hello Lynn,

Thank you for your email. I apologize for any frustration this has
caused you. This issue with recording in high definition is a
recognized software problem.

If you read other forums across the US, the same complaints and
frustrations about this are found. This is an issue within the software
for all users, not just Cox HD DVR users. Upgrades have been postponed
a number of times because new issues developed when the upgraded software
was tested, and it is no one's wish to provide a fix that only creates
more problems, so we are still waiting for a perfected resolution.

We can only suggest at this time that if the problem with this one
minute recording is so disruptive that our subscribers cannot accept
its current functionality, that they will need to return to another type of
equipment until this is resolved. Our hands are tied right now in
waiting for the new software, so although the whole situation is
frustrating for us too, we hope you can still enjoy the other features
of the DVR that make it convenient and fun to watch TV again.

Specifically on the HD channels, we believe the glitch appears because
there is a lag time of a blank screen for a short time before HD
programming appears onscreen, and the DVR bug sees this as no picture
and stops the command to record.

Your concerns are ours too. The last update given earlier this week was
of a 2-3 month period for the new software. I cannot say how reliable
this estimate is because it has changed in the past, but we can hope
this is THE ONE!

Sincerely,
Brenda
Cox Communications - Video/Telephony Tech Support
Online Support Team

---------------

I'm not pleased with the time frame but at least this seems to be a pretty honest response. I still wish they would spend the money on the TiVo software like Comcast. TiVo DVR's have been recording HD for quite awhile now without this nonsense.

I had to turn in my gen II 6412 because it would not permit recording via firewire to my JVC D-VHS( the 6200 works fine) The phase III box is now available in my area. Will this box allow me to archive to D-VHS? I hope so, because it is a royal PITA cludging about with my Radio Shack VCR controller.

I am DONE with the bug ridden 6412 III..how Moto could release a DVR box with so many problems is baffling to me! Don't they Beta test these new variations BEFORE putting them out in customers hands...Guess not, cuz WE are the "Beta Testers"!

After the GD box failed to record the F-1 race from Belgium at 4:30AM this morning, I was so POd!!! Luckily Speed Channel repeated at 9:30AM but this then presented ANOTHER bug...for who knows what reason, the box did not allow me to pause this ongoing show in real time so that I could then cut out the long commercial breaks in these broadcasts...I switched to some other channels and the pause worked fine but NOT on 318?

I had cleared the recording from the list of "recorded shows", which showed the recording had been copied on the HD with the correct 4:30AM start time and 7:00AM end time...but it would NOT play back, just jumping to the screen asking if you want to save or erase the recording....why ask when there was no way to make it play back anyway?

That was the "last straw"....I am calling COX tomorrow and asking for the "legacy" box back...at least the 6412 II seemed to have LESS bugs in it.

Who knows, maybe this is all caused by the Passport software and not the boxes and the version # makes no dif? Perhaps these bugs will not be resolved until we get an updated firmware..God only knows when that will be!

It is such a shame, cuz the DVR function with 2 tuner capabilities is very very slick and useful...but the very critical glitches make it completely untrustworthy as far as recording any certain show....BTW, as a test, I set up recordings in the GUIDE for 4 different programs..some HD, some anolog and others digital..ALL recorded perfectly...but NOT what I really wanted..my F-1 race this morning!

PS: I read somewhere (maybe in this thread) that COX wasn't even placing any more Phase III boxes in the field due to all the bugs and problems with them....!!

chuckip-
Do you have the HDMI connected? I pretty much think that the DVI on my phase II was the source of must my recording glitches.

I am DONE with the bug ridden 6412 III..how Moto could release a DVR box with so many problems is baffling to me! Don't they Beta test these new variations BEFORE putting them out in customers hands...Guess not, cuz WE are the "Beta Testers"!

After the GD box failed to record the F-1 race from Belgium at 4:30AM this morning, I was so POd!!! Luckily Speed Channel repeated at 9:30AM but this then presented ANOTHER bug...for who knows what reason, the box did not allow me to pause this ongoing show in real time so that I could then cut out the long commercial breaks in these broadcasts...I switched to some other channels and the pause worked fine but NOT on 318?

I had cleared the recording from the list of "recorded shows", which showed the recording had been copied on the HD with the correct 4:30AM start time and 7:00AM end time...but it would NOT play back, just jumping to the screen asking if you want to save or erase the recording....why ask when there was no way to make it play back anyway?

That was the "last straw"....I am calling COX tomorrow and asking for the "legacy" box back...at least the 6412 II seemed to have LESS bugs in it.

Who knows, maybe this is all caused by the Passport software and not the boxes and the version # makes no dif? Perhaps these bugs will not be resolved until we get an updated firmware..God only knows when that will be!

It is such a shame, cuz the DVR function with 2 tuner capabilities is very very slick and useful...but the very critical glitches make it completely untrustworthy as far as recording any certain show....BTW, as a test, I set up recordings in the GUIDE for 4 different programs..some HD, some anolog and others digital..ALL recorded perfectly...but NOT what I really wanted..my F-1 race this morning!

PS: I read somewhere (maybe in this thread) that COX wasn't even placing any more Phase III boxes in the field due to all the bugs and problems with them....!!


I had the same problem with speed channel a couple of months ago. It was a problem with the channel itself and was corrected locally. It was the only channel that would not allow trick plays.

schmitter I had the same problem: too many components and not enough progressive/HD inputs on the TV. I ended up buying a Pioneer VSX1015TX receiver through which to route all my A/V components. It has 3 HDTV (100MHz) component inputs and also does up-conversion of S-video inputs to it's component output. It plays very nicely with macros for universal remotes since it powers up quickly and responds to remote control commands right away (for switching audio/video input selection as part of the macro for example). I also found discrete on/off codes to use as part of power on/off macros. It's a highly recommended A/V receiver in the AVS forums and very reasonably priced compared to other receivers in it's class.

Components I route through it:
DCT6412 via component
Samsung OTA HDTV receiver via component
DVD player via component
ReplayTV via S-video (up-converted to component output)
Of course there are plenty more S-video inputs on the receiver if needed for other devices.

Everything is programmed with my MX-500 remote control (with discrete on/offs) such that pressing and holding a single device button turns all equipment and switches to the appropriate input on the receiver for that device and a single button can power all the equipment off. My wife and 6 year old are now able to use the equipment without being intimidated.

I have the previous version, the VSX1014. I love it. I do the same thing (2 vs your 3 component inputs) and it's works quite well for the family. And pumping that power through my JBL Studio's....Sweet! :D

I route through the component side the 6412 HD and my Toshiba p-scan DVD player. I run the SD from the 6412, a Sony VCR, a Sony PS, all through the S-video or Composite switching side and upconverted. Optical input switching from the 6412 and DVD player.

Next to my SVS sub, it is one of the best features in my Home Theater....


Chuck, I too live in MV. I have no problem pausing/ffw/rev/etc 318. (with a 6 member family and all car nuts, we live on Speed!) Good race too (love Spa) was bummed what happened to JPM!

I just recieved an email response in Omaha to a few questons I asked.

1. How many days is the guide supposed to hold?

There answer 6 days
Though manually refreshing the guide gets a full seven so I think the tech is giving false info.


2. What is the ideal internal temperature of the dvr it fluctuates between 116 to 132 Current Temp to a Max Temp of 145. My question is this normal operating temperature, or is there something wrong with the fan in the 6412?

There answer I am not quite certain of the temperature of the DVR box. If it is over heating, you can swap the box at our front counter or we can set up a time to send a technician out to the home.

If someone from omaha could comment about how many days there 6412 guide shows I would appreciate it. Also if anybody has any idea why the temps are changing so much and what the normal operating temps should be I would also appreciate it.

Andrew Wees

PS: I read somewhere (maybe in this thread) that COX wasn't even placing any more Phase III boxes in the field due to all the bugs and problems with them....!! I had an install done this weekend in Orange County, CA and it is a Phase III box (HDMI, SATA, etc.) The installer looked at me like I was insane when I started asking questions about new versions, different phases, etc.

Andrew,

If you check the temp when the fan is running my guess it will be lower than if you check when the fan is off. This thing isn't a digital oven, the temperature will vary. :)

Mine runs in the same range as yours FWIW.

I had an install done this weekend in Orange County, CA and it is a Phase III box (HDMI, SATA, etc.) The installer looked at me like I was insane when I started asking questions about new versions, different phases, etc.

Tungsten. How did you get the phase three. I just had a 'knowledgeable' cox guy come install my box for me in Laguna. Is not phase three and looks like it has been through a war. I do not have another open component video on my plasma, so can't hook up my dvd player. He told me they won't give out any new versions with HDMI. I need it.

Did you request this specifically?

Anyone else with experience trading up...and does HDMI work or do I need to use component?

Thanks

Thanks Jimbo

It seems like the dvr can handle a big tempature range. My 6412 has been constantly running a min temp of 131 and a max temp of 145, the two lower tempature readings I posted were taken after a power outage right after the 6412 restarted and than in the early morning before the sun came out. Do you think I should check to see if Omaha has a phase three 6412 to see it runs cooler?

Andrew Wees

Andrew,

If you check the temp when the fan is running my guess it will be lower than if you check when the fan is off. This thing isn't a digital oven, the temperature will vary. :)

Mine runs in the same range as yours FWIW.

My phase III runs currently at 107 degrees and has had a max temp of 117. Been a while since it has been rebooted.

As for the guide data... as of Friday night I wanted to go ahead and program the survivor season because my wife wants to watch the show, but I didn't get the guide data for Thursday until today (Monday) As of Friday I could get to Wednesday, but as the days went by over the weekend, it didn't keep adding data. It was almost like it had to get to late Sunday night. As of right now (monday night), I have guide data until Sunday at 4:00 a.m.

I have guide data until next Monday at 4 A.M. I wounder when different parts of Omaha have different amouns of guide data on the 6412?

Andrew Wees






My phase III runs currently at 107 degrees and has had a max temp of 117. Been a while since it has been rebooted.

As for the guide data... as of Friday night I wanted to go ahead and program the survivor season because my wife wants to watch the show, but I didn't get the guide data for Thursday until today (Monday) As of Friday I could get to Wednesday, but as the days went by over the weekend, it didn't keep adding data. It was almost like it had to get to late Sunday night. As of right now (monday night), I have guide data until Sunday at 4:00 a.m.

I have guide data until next Monday at 4 A.M. I wounder when different parts of Omaha have different amouns of guide data on the 6412?

Andrew Wees You can check the guide data downloads yourself as described here:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html#Guide_Update_Analysis
Scroll to the last page which will contain the most recent file info. It's likely someone with missing guide data is getting errors in the downloads which could indicate signal strength problems. In your case since you are getting all the data yours would show no errors.

I should of made my point better. I get the full seven days of data after manually refreshing the guide data.

Moyekj

There is a problem with your suggestion of checking the guide data downloaded info. The Passport Echo 2.6 update takes that info away.

Andrew Wees



You can check the guide data downloads yourself as described here:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html#Guide_Update_Analysis
Scroll to the last page which will contain the most recent file info. It's likely someone with missing guide data is getting errors in the downloads which could indicate signal strength problems. In your case since you are getting all the data yours would show no errors.

Sorry if this has been posted earlier, but how do you check the temperature on the 6412?

I should of made my point better. I get the full seven days of data after manually refreshing the guide data.

Moyekj

There is a problem with your suggestion of checking the guide data downloaded info. The Passport Echo 2.6 update takes that info away.

Andrew Wees Andrew, I only briefly got a chance to play with a box with Passport 2.5.x but I believe if you press A,B,C buttons after bringing up the info page (Menu,Down,B,Up,B) you will have access to other information as well as additional information such as tuner frequencies and PVR-specific logs. So actually there is more information provided compared to Passport 1.6.x it's just distributed in different screens now.

Anyone with Passport 2.5.x can perhaps fill us in with the details. i.e. describe the page associated with each of the buttons: A, B, C. From what I remember the default information you get is for B (includes tuner frequencies), A is like a PVR log of activity over the last 24 hours, and C is the guide data information.

Moyekj

You are correct thanks for the info. Here are the pages as I see them on my 6412

C is the default page with tuner frequencies
A looks like a page for guide data info
B looks like pvr log

Andrew Wees




QUOTE=moyekj]Andrew, I only briefly got a chance to play with a box with Passport 2.5.x but I believe if you press A,B,C buttons after bringing up the info page (Menu,Down,B,Up,B) you will have access to other information as well as additional information such as tuner frequencies and PVR-specific logs. So actually there is more information provided compared to Passport 1.6.x it's just distributed in different screens now.

Anyone with Passport 2.5.x can perhaps fill us in with the details. i.e. describe the page associated with each of the buttons: A, B, C. From what I remember the default information you get is for B (includes tuner frequencies), A is like a PVR log of activity over the last 24 hours, and C is the guide data information.[/QUOTE]

Tungsten. How did you get the phase three. I just had a 'knowledgeable' cox guy come install my box for me in Laguna. Is not phase three and looks like it has been through a war. I do not have another open component video on my plasma, so can't hook up my dvd player. He told me they won't give out any new versions with HDMI. I need it.

Did you request this specifically?No, I didn't request it specifically. I was surprised to see it after reading about "no more phase 3" on the forums here and elsewhere.

I can't tell you - yet - whether or not HDMI works for sound and video. I'd purchased DVI-HDMI cable thinking I'd get an older box! My understanding from Kevin Moye's excellent page on the DCT6412 is that it does function but suffers from a few bugs.

So far I'm in love. I expected to absolutely hate the software after worshiping my TiVo for 3 years now, but I'm finding most of my favorite features - save the Wishlist! - have equivalents.

I wrote to Cox again. Here is the reply I received:

---------------

I'm not pleased with the time frame but at least this seems to be a pretty honest response. I still wish they would spend the money on the TiVo software like Comcast. TiVo DVR's have been recording HD for quite awhile now without this nonsense.

The response may be folksy and honest, but the unspoken message is one that says nobody has to be accountable. Cox pays other companies to build & test the software. There should be incentives to make it work, and penalties when it doesn't.

Moyekj

I checked the files this per your webpage witch rocks by the way.

I didn't see any files with errors, but when I checked the guide I only 6 days of data, but after a reload I get 7 days of data.

Andrew Wees






You can check the guide data downloads yourself as described here:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html#Guide_Update_Analysis
Scroll to the last page which will contain the most recent file info. It's likely someone with missing guide data is getting errors in the downloads which could indicate signal strength problems. In your case since you are getting all the data yours would show no errors.

Moyekj

I checked the files this per your webpage witch rocks by the way.

I didn't see any files with errors, but when I checked the guide I only 6 days of data, but after a reload I get 7 days of data.

Andrew WeesI can't do the math on this until I get home and test a manual reload, but I'm certain that the answer has to do with the fact that the guide data is broken into 12-hour chunks that begin at 4am and 4pm. When you do a manual reload during the day, you're probably fetching the next X number of 12-hour chunks. (The "chunks" might begin at different times for you in Omaha. Just go to the end of your guide data and see when the last new programs show up.)

I notice that a lot of you have been having the exact same problem as me, but I would like to post in detail what has been happening with my DCT 6412 Phase III box, which I just got about a month ago. My television is a nice flat screen Toshiba with a DVI input, while the 6412 has the HDMI output, so logically I got a HDMI to DVI Cable and hooked up the Phase III to my TV that way. Almost immediately we noticed that the power to the box would just periodically go off and on, reset again and again. It would happen constantly, so finally we decided to change boxes and we got a new unit, which repeated the same thing again. So we changed to a third box and again the problem persisted, so we decided that it wasn't the boxes fault. What we did notice was that when the television was on the box was very cooperative and would stay on all of the time, without cycling power. If the box was on, but the TV was off, the box would work for a while, but would eventually start to cycle power again. At this point I had a feeling that the problem was because of the HDMI to DVI cable and so to test the theory, I tried Component Cables. Low and behold, everything SEEMED to be fixed. There was no more cycling of power and all of the analog/digital (non HD) channels seemed to work great with no problems. The problem came when I switched the HD channels and suddenly the picture on some of the became jumpy and would distort every now and again. This really made me upset because HD is so great if it works properly, as it does with HDMI to DVI. My question to you guys is whether you know about what could be causing the problem with the component cables. If anyone has any info on how to fix this HD problem with component cables, please respond.

PS: Where I work, we have a video engineer with about 30 years of experience in the field. I asked him about the HDMI cable and what kind of signals it carries and he told me that besides video, some of the HDMI cables also carry the power signal. So I'm wondering whether the HDMI to DVI that I have carries power because that might explain why the box didn't cycle when the TV was on and therefor, we could find a HDMI to DVI cable that doesn't carry power and it may fix the cycling power problem with the HDMI to DVI cable.

Sorry for the long rant, but I hope someone can give me a pointer or some kind of information about my issue. Thanks a head of time.

Moyekj

I checked the files this per your webpage witch rocks by the way.

I didn't see any files with errors, but when I checked the guide I only 6 days of data, but after a reload I get 7 days of data.

Andrew Wees Ever since I've had the DCT6412 I've never had more than 6 days of data under normal conditions. The only way to get 7 is manual guide update at a certain time of day (I believe after 4:00am in Orange County market which seems to be when our guide updates start). So the Cox official line that we should get 6 days of data I believe is correct. I suppose individual Cox markets could choose to have more or less than that if desired. What's amazing is the guide updates for only 6 days take around 2 hours to complete - so plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong and for us to end up with incomplete data. In the early days we used to get holes in the guide data but since then looks like the Passport software was updated to not overwrite previous data in case it failed to download new data for a period of time.

Note that the guide updates are in chunks of 12 hours at a time.

I notice that a lot of you have been having the exact same problem as me, but I would like to post in detail what has been happening with my DCT 6412 Phase III box, which I just got about a month ago. My television is a nice flat screen Toshiba with a DVI input, while the 6412 has the HDMI output, so logically I got a HDMI to DVI Cable and hooked up the Phase III to my TV that way. Almost immediately we noticed that the power to the box would just periodically go off and on, reset again and again. It would happen constantly, so finally we decided to change boxes and we got a new unit, which repeated the same thing again. So we changed to a third box and again the problem persisted, so we decided that it wasn't the boxes fault. What we did notice was that when the television was on the box was very cooperative and would stay on all of the time, without cycling power. If the box was on, but the TV was off, the box would work for a while, but would eventually start to cycle power again. At this point I had a feeling that the problem was because of the HDMI to DVI cable and so to test the theory, I tried Component Cables. Low and behold, everything SEEMED to be fixed. There was no more cycling of power and all of the analog/digital (non HD) channels seemed to work great with no problems. The problem came when I switched the HD channels and suddenly the picture on some of the became jumpy and would distort every now and again. This really made me upset because HD is so great if it works properly, as it does with HDMI to DVI. My question to you guys is whether you know about what could be causing the problem with the component cables. If anyone has any info on how to fix this HD problem with component cables, please respond.

I have a Sony with an HDMI input, and I had the same problem you describe using an HDMI to HDMI cable. (Actually, it was the HDMI cable that's shipped with the DirecTivo -- I borrowed it from my brother.) The power cycling, rebooting, etc. when the TV Is off seems to be a problem with either DVI to HDMI or HDMI to HDMI.

Using component, I haven't had the problem you describe, except on rare occasions when the picture gets pixely for a second or two.

Occasionally, when using "swap" to change between tuners, the channel I'm swapping to displays a blank screen, even though you can hear audio. If I hit the FF button for a second, the picture returns.

Overall, I am happy enough with the component cables, and as much as I'd like to free up a set of component inputs to use with another device, I can live with it. If it weren't for the fracking subscription bug making recording HD totally unreliable, I'd be happy with this box. I really thought when I stopped using TiVo with the IR blaster and cable box I wouldn't have any more channel-change screw ups, and the subscription bug shows up a lot more often than an incorrect channel change with the IR blaster.

---snip--- If it weren't for the fracking subscription bug making recording HD totally unreliable, I'd be happy with this box. ---snip--- You've been watching too much Battlestar Galactica. :D

You've been watching too much Battlestar Galactica. :D

Hee! Guilty as charged.

Thanks for the input Whitearrow.. Has anyone else experienced a problem similar to mine?

Bayern82-
I just got the HDMI/HDMI cables last night and experienced the exact same thing you and Whitearrow describe. If you go back through this thread you'll see others reporting similar behavior. I have a friend that has the phase 2 unit (DVI output) and he doesn't ever experience this problem. Perhaps you could request that?

I've been forced to disconnect my Xbox to get the HD channels... Since the 360 is no longer going to support HDMI looks like I'll be buying a switch box if I want to keep using the 6412. Sigh...

I'm not sure if COX over here has a DVI Output box... I think it only has HDMI or Firewire for "true" digital, but my TV doesn't have Firewire input, so HDMI is the only choice for "true" digital. But like i've said before, there may be a way to fix the problem, by finding an HDMI cable that doesn't carry power, only the video signal... It could be a fix, but it's a helluva job trying to find one, though I heard Belkin might make it... I'll have to check up on it.

I have a 6412 motorola, live in South Orange County CA, have a plasma with HDMI inputs and can't get the 6412 to show up on the plasma unless I use components.

I do not have the 6412 phase III just the 6412 with DVI out. So I have a DVI -> HDMI end on the DVI cable.

I can't get it going. I need the component inputs for DVD and xbox

ANY HELP?

tpavs, it is possible that those ports aren't activated on your box. You should double check with your cable company to make sure that they support DVI Output and such stuff.

The DVI should work.

Andrew



I have a 6412 motorola, live in South Orange County CA, have a plasma with HDMI inputs and can't get the 6412 to show up on the plasma unless I use components.

I do not have the 6412 phase III just the 6412 with DVI out. So I have a DVI -> HDMI end on the DVI cable.

I can't get it going. I need the component inputs for DVD and xbox

ANY HELP?

I have used the DVI output to the HDMI to my plasma for 9 months without a problem. Wish I could say the same about the rest of the box's performance

I have a 6412 motorola, live in South Orange County CA, have a plasma with HDMI inputs and can't get the 6412 to show up on the plasma unless I use components.

I do not have the 6412 phase III just the 6412 with DVI out. So I have a DVI -> HDMI end on the DVI cable.

I can't get it going. I need the component inputs for DVD and xbox

ANY HELP?

Have you tried making sure the TV is powered on before the box powers on? With 5C that handshake needs to happen before the box will spit out video.

Just wanted to tell you guys that I figured out the problem with my component cables. Apparently, they don't run 1080i too well, while 720p is just great. So if any of you experience a similar component cable problem, just switch your box's mode to 720p and it should fix it. :p

Just wanted to tell you guys that I figured out the problem with my component cables. Apparently, they don't run 1080i too well, while 720p is just great. So if any of you experience a similar component cable problem, just switch your box's mode to 720p and it should fix it. :p


Now that is odd. Are your sure it is the cables and not the displays input processing circuitry? Or the output from the STB? Just wondering because your cure sounds unusual.

Very odd indeed. My LCD HDTV only accepts 1080i and I have been using component cables without problem. Perhaps you should replace the component cables you are using with some better ones.

Have you tried making sure the TV is powered on before the box powers on? With 5C that handshake needs to happen before the box will spit out video.

Yeah, tried that. No luck.

I swapped it for the 6412 III. Still using components and it looks better than previously. Will try HDMI possibly this weekend. People still having issues with HDMI and reboot? Any other issues?

I've had a 6412 in my living room for a long time and Saturday decided it was time to get rid of my ReplayTV in the bedroom and replace it with a 6412. When I went down to swap the old HD cable box for the 6412, they gave me a 6412 III. So, since it doesn't have a DVI output, I'm having to use component out to my Sony 42" Grand Wega.

I agree with the comments that the non-HD channels picture quality is greatly improved. My biggest disappointment at this point is that the subscription bug seems to be much more frequent on this box than the one in my living room.

The strange thing I noticed is that I had set up series recordings for Surface and NCIS tonight on 704. The series were configured to record First Run Only, be they weren't scheduled to be recorded even though both show as New in the Info. Both had the No Record symbol. I changed them to record First Run and Repeats and now they are scheduled to record.

Now that is odd. Are your sure it is the cables and not the displays input processing circuitry? Or the output from the STB? Just wondering because your cure sounds unusual.

Well, I suppose it could be that, but I wouldn't have any idea on how to check it. And yes, I use good component cables and i've tried several sets. 720p just seems to work very well with HD channels... Now I'm not saying that 1080i wasn't showing up at all, but many of the sports channels would get very jumpy and distorted when watching in 1080i w/ component cables. Just to clarify, I switched the STB setting to 720p, not the TV setting or anything.

I've had a 6412 in my living room for a long time and Saturday decided it was time to get rid of my ReplayTV in the bedroom and replace it with a 6412. When I went down to swap the old HD cable box for the 6412, they gave me a 6412 III. So, since it doesn't have a DVI output, I'm having to use component out to my Sony 42" Grand Wega.

I agree with the comments that the non-HD channels picture quality is greatly improved. My biggest disappointment at this point is that the subscription bug seems to be much more frequent on this box than the one in my living room.

The strange thing I noticed is that I had set up series recordings for Surface and NCIS tonight on 704. The series were configured to record First Run Only, be they weren't scheduled to be recorded even though both show as New in the Info. Both had the No Record symbol. I changed them to record First Run and Repeats and now they are scheduled to record.

There is supposed to be a flag that the network puts on a show to determine first run or repeat. Often this is missing or incorrect. Soap operas are often mislabled so if you try to do first run only, it won't record them.

Anyone got an update when New England is getting new software? It was april, then may..september.. so on..

Anyone got an update when New England is getting new software? It was april, then may..september.. so on.. Your guess/estimate is as good as Cox's or any of ours. Latest estimate I heard was 2nd week of October again for OC but before that I heard more like November/December. It depends who you ask. Cox employees that really seem to know what's going on will tell you they don't know and I think that's the most honest/correct answer but it's one we don't like to hear.

There is supposed to be a flag that the network puts on a show to determine first run or repeat. Often this is missing or incorrect. Soap operas are often mislabled so if you try to do first run only, it won't record them.

I don't think that's the problem here because when I programmed my original 6412 to record only new episodes of Surface, it worked fine. I think the original 6412 and the 6412 III are responding differently.

Blah...was watching Medium on my Cox HD PVR, and the damn thing stops with 10 minutes left!! It pops up the dialog that asks if you want to delete or save the show...what the hell? I've only seen that once before...but I don't know what causes it. Its not the subscription bug,...why would it record 50 minutes of a show and then think its over....??

I lost the last 10 min of medium as well. I believe it was the NBC HD feed and not the box. The screen just went black. :eek:

I don't think that's the problem here because when I programmed my original 6412 to record only new episodes of Surface, it worked fine. I think the original 6412 and the 6412 III are responding differently.

I might agree with you on that. I setup my recording for Las Vegas on NBC on my Phase III Sunday night and originally set it up as First Run only, but it kept blocking out the new episode for Monday that it was not going to record it. I ended up just hitting the record now button when it started Monday night to get it to actually record, but might have worked automatically if I had the series set to First Run and Repeats. Las Vegas definitely did not have the flag as a new episode.

I lost the last 10 min of medium as well. I believe it was the NBC HD feed and not the box. The screen just went black. :eek:

I lost the last 10 minutes of Medium on my box, too. Fortunately, I do not trust the damn thing and had TiVO recording the SD feed at the same time. If someone shows me how to do a spoiler tag here, I will write up a quick summary of the last 10 minutes, if it would be helpful.

My 6412 does not seem to want to put NBC shows on the "scheduled recordings" list. It wasn't listing Medium or Surface for next Monday even though they were in the guide already -- they just weren't in red (or black, even though they are series recordings). I had the channel on so it wasn't the subscription bug. The amount of time I spend bird-dogging this box to get it to record things is really annoying.

Ok I decided to bypass cox and go directly to Motorola tech support about the problems with the version III box. I just received a call from the escalation dept at motorola and they are aware of the dolby digital switching to pcm problem. They wanted to know if my TV is HDCP capable and the tv model #. They are working on a fix and will inform me if and when the work something out. So hopefully its a firmware fix and this can be resolved.

I lost the last 10 min of medium as well. I believe it was the NBC HD feed and not the box. The screen just went black. :eek:

This happened to me Monday night when I recorded King of Queens and Two and a Half Men on CBS. Lost 10 minutes on both of those programs. Not just an NBC problem.

Update!
After the second visit from the Cox tech, I am now on my 4th Phase 3 unit. All have had the on/off power cycling problem and subscription bug. Tech checked the signal and its fine, so I know its the box for sure! The only resolution for now, is to demand a Phase 2 box until the firmware and software upgrades have been issued. From what I've gathered, these upgrades are likely 2-3 months away maybe longer! Its nice to see that someone has contacted Motorola directly regarding these issues. Hopefully we can bother the hell out of both Moto and Cox and get this resolved quicker.

Is it possible that these phase III boxes may not be compatible with some TVs and thus cause the power cycle problem. My tv is a sony 36XBR800 and has a DVI port so I have the HDMI adapter on a DVI cable to interface with my phase III box. I don't suffer from the power cycle problem. Or is it just luck of the draw with getting a box that actually works.

I do suffer from the Dolby digital switching problem :rolleyes:

We were watching Medium Monday night as well, but were watching it live. At about 10 minutes before the end, they went to commercial and the screen went black. After a minute or so of this we switch over to the SD feed, which was fine. It's like someone at the network just forgot to queue the commericals on the HD feed. We stayed with the SD channel until the commercial break was over and then checked back to the HD program. It was back, so we watched the rest of the program in HD.

Sounds like if we had not been there, the box would have stopped recording at that "black" commerical break and we would have lost the last 10 minutes.

I have had a few of the common problems mentioned on this board, although less problems since our last firmware update, but this week I have had a new problem that I haven't seen mentioned here and that I've never experienced. I set up several shows this week to record on HD and my DVR guide shows both shows completely recorded, but when I attempt to replay the programming the screen either stays on the live programming that is tuned in or I get a black screen. When I try to FF or attempt any control over the recording it is just frozen. I get the bar across the bottom showing the full hour of recording, but the timeline won't move past '0'. I have other programming in SD and HD that have recorded without incident, but not these two programs from this week. Anyone else had this issue? Is a new box in order?

Is it possible that these phase III boxes may not be compatible with some TVs and thus cause the power cycle problem. My tv is a sony 36XBR800 and has a DVI port so I have the HDMI adapter on a DVI cable to interface with my phase III box. I don't suffer from the power cycle problem. Or is it just luck of the draw with getting a box that actually works.

I do suffer from the Dolby digital switching problem :rolleyes:

So let me get this straight. You have a HDMI output from the Phase III box into a DVI-D Input on the TV and you have no problems with the cycling of power? Can you be a little more specific about what kind of HDMI to DVI cable you have, whether or not you keep your box on all the time, or if you turn it off along with the TV, etc... I'm really interested in finding out.

As for the Dolby Digital switching problem, I read that for some reason HDMI disables the optical output of the box, unless you switch manually everytime you go to a new channel. It sucks, but it's something you gotta deal with, at least for now, or else switch to component and then Dolby Digital is always on. :)

I have the monster DVI cable with DVI on both ends and the monster DVI/ HDMI adapter on the end of the cable that goes into the box. I have never had the phase III box turn off by itself with that monster cable setup. That's why I propose that it could be the tv not communitcating with the box properly causing the power cycle. Who knows I could be way off. I just feel lucky that I don't have the power cycle problem. When the cable installer dropped of the phase III box he said he also had the power cycle problem with HDMI and it was luck of the draw if my box would do it. I guess I got lucky.

I have recently started using the stretch mode on this box and I really think it is pretty good (1080i Wide Stretch 4:3 Pic).

I have had my MITS 525 with the 6412 since last year and have never used the stretch mode from the 6412, I tried various modes on the tv and have alway left it as narrow, since I didn't like any of the stretching expanding or zooming modes. But the stretch mode on this box really doesn't look that bad, and I has the added benifit of not causing the flicker as i change from HD to SD since it is always sending 1080i to my tv.
The only problem is watching wide screen formated SD, i have to turn off the stretch mode of the box and use the expand from my tv to get it right.

Does anybody know anything on how they do the stretch? It sure seems superior to my various tv modes. It does still seem wrong to me, but it is hard to say how its wrong now.And I think it makes my family happier, they don't like the bars on the side.

A new bug

I taped from 7 P.M. to 9 P.M. on ABC and after I checked it in the 6412 dvr list is listed the recording from 7:30 to 9:30, but it had the right program taped on the dvr the time was the only difference.

Andrew Wees

I have a Sony 34XBR960 set using the 6412 w/Pioneer Passport Review with my local cable company (Massillon Cable TV). I have it hooked up using a dvi-hdmi cable. It has been working fine for 10 months, then all of a sudden I started getting white static on the hdmi port. I thought it was cable related though I wasn't getting the static on regular cable (i have the cable line running into a splitter; one for the 6412 and one directly into back of the set). I setup a service call with the cable company to come out and take a look at it. Over the time it took them to get there, the white static on the hdmi port, went to green static.

When the cable company finally got there, the tech saw the static and immediately replaced the 6412. Once he hooked it up, it went bad to worst on the hdmi port. So he thought we should swap out the cable. We swapped the cable and hooked up the original 6412 and the same thing occurred. He figured it was something with that individual port on the set and instructed me to contact my tv manufacturer.

Fast forward 1 week, I now have the dvr hooked up to the components and having no issues. Then one evening my lower channels started freezing up. Great! I called MCTV out once again and he said that this was a sign that the box was failing and it would need to be replaced. Once he replaced the box, everything was working just great. Being curious I switched to the hdmi port and discovered no more green static! Everything was back to normal.

Two days later the DVR was now manually switching on and off. Called MCTV and they reset my box remotely. Next day I checked the tv and now my hdmi port is no longer working. I get the Video 7(hdmi port) on the screen, though no picture from the box. I switched it to the component port and everything is working fine

I went ahead and setup another service call with my local cable company and see if a new replacement will fix my issues.

Has anyone else run into any of these issues?

Is there a software/firmware version that these issues are occurring on?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I have recently started using the stretch mode on this box and I really think it is pretty good (1080i Wide Stretch 4:3 Pic).

I have had my MITS 525 with the 6412 since last year and have never used the stretch mode from the 6412, I tried various modes on the tv and have alway left it as narrow, since I didn't like any of the stretching expanding or zooming modes. But the stretch mode on this box really doesn't look that bad, and I has the added benifit of not causing the flicker as i change from HD to SD since it is always sending 1080i to my tv.
The only problem is watching wide screen formated SD, i have to turn off the stretch mode of the box and use the expand from my tv to get it right.
Thanks for the tip with this. Up until recently I was using 1080i/480p mode and letting the TV stretch 480p to fill the screen for SD under the assumption the HDTV would perform stretches and up-scaling better than the 6412. After reading this I decided to try 1080i/1080i from the 6412 and I have to agree with you it looks better than what my HDTV does with my previous settings. As you say another very nice side benefit is no more flickering on the TV when swapping between SD and HD channels since the signal is always 1080i. The result may vary for different TVs but it works for me. Thanks for the tip!

The 6412 stretching works better for me as well on a new Toshiba DLP... I never would have thought that, I just assumed the tv would do a better job stretching 4:3 material and had never bothered to try it until tonite... not bad at all. Thanks for the tip!

jedly01,

I'm on Cox Orange County and had a Series 2 box. It was hooked up since January to my TV via HDMI. It worked fine for a long time, then I started getting the white/green static. I switched to component, and it went away. A few weeks later, channels 1-100 started freezing up. I called Cox, and they came out and gave me a series 3 box.

The tech said that they are "not supporting" the HDMI port now due to problems with it. I have not tried hooking it up (since I don't have an HDMI-DVI cable) but the new box is running fine off component, and it sounds like a lot of others have issues with the HDMI on the series 3 box. So I'm staying with component for now.

Testing a theory. I think the HDMI power cycling/reloading issue is due to using a HDMI to DVI cable instead of HDMI - HDMI cable. Can anyone test this? I know that my HDMI to DVI on my Hitachi has the problem.

Thanks

Actually, if you go back 2 or 3 pages, there are a few people posting on here who are using an HDMI-HDMI connection, so I don't think it's an HDMI-DVI problem.

Nope. I have HDMI on my TV and it was a total mess.

I have a DVI to DVI cable with a HDMI adapter and I have no powercycle problem, i'm the lucky one ;)

I'm using component output from my Cox HD PVR to an LCD tv. Tonight, I went to check on my recordings. I had smallville and the OC set up to tape at 8pm..I turned on the box and tv at 8:33pm..and guess what, both recordings were going but had a start time of 8:33!! What the heck...so I missed half of each show. What kind of bug is that?

thanks

I'm using component output from my Cox HD PVR to an LCD tv. Tonight, I went to check on my recordings. I had smallville and the OC set up to tape at 8pm..I turned on the box and tv at 8:33pm..and guess what, both recordings were going but had a start time of 8:33!! What the heck...so I missed half of each show. What kind of bug is that?

Erf. Sorry. That sucks.

Let me ask this -- is there any advantage to powering off the box? I got into the habit of never doing that as a TiVo user using the IR blaster, and I don't do it now because I don't see any advantage (theoretically it keeps caching anyway, right?) but maybe I'm missing something.

Another problem I've noticed -- the "Scheduled Recordings" list has items disappearing from it, usually a bunch from the same HD channel. Sometimes they are blacked out in the guide as "unrecordable channel" -- e.g., the subscription bug. (Sometimes the show is still red, but you can't get into Recording Options or use cancel, either.) So that means the box -- without even trying to tune the channel -- is somehow deciding its unrecordable and won't even try each time a show is scheduled. This would be great if you are gone for an entire week -- you'd miss everything on that channel, not just one show.

Tuning the channel and clearing the bug does not put the shows back onto Scheduled Recordings automatically -- the easiest way I've found to do this is to go to the Series Recordings list and move one of the effected shows up or down a notch -- that seems to restore them to Scheduled Recordings.

The amount of babysitting this box requires just blows. When I go away for any length of time I will be doing back up recordings on TiVo and even VCR's. Bleh.

.

Let me ask this -- is there any advantage to powering off the box?

There is no advantage that I know of. I actually think mine works better if I leave it on all the time.

Chris

I have had the box almost 10 months. One of the tips I learned from this board was to reboot the box at least once a week to regain disk space. Usualy I check memory allocation and then reboot there is always more memory available after rebooting then before the reboot. In fact the days left indcator for saved shows always increases.

Reminds me of Windows 98 when you had to reboot several times a day just to keep things working ok.

marc1023, That kind of sounds like a memory leak. Makes me wonder how good the quality control testing is on the software.

egore, it was widely reported on this board that if you stopped recording before the programming end time that almost always caused hard disk space problems problems. It was better to let the program finish recording then delete then deleting during recording. I think the problem is the hard disk software and how it handles available space after programs are deleted. This morning I did a reboot I had 38 gig before and 61 gig after. This was my 3rd box and they all performed the same. Just a reminder to see memory left there are 2 ways Menu down arrow B Up arrow B, or with box off and tv on hit select twice

egore, it was widely reported on this board that if you stopped recording before the programming end time that almost always caused hard disk space problems problems. It was better to let the program finish recording then delete then deleting during recording. I think the problem is the hard disk software and how it handles available space after programs are deleted. This morning I did a reboot I had 38 gig before and 61 gig after. This was my 3rd box and they all performed the same. Just a reminder to see memory left there are 2 ways Menu down arrow B Up arrow B, or with box off and tv on hit select twice The workaround to this disk space loss problem is simply channel up while the show is still playing back, then go to the recordings list and delete it. If you hit the stop button (which acts like pause) and then delete from recordings list the disk space will not be freed up. This problem is fixed in Echo 2.5.x which we are still waiting for here in OC (and New England).

1. HDMI AC3 to PCM switch, very frustrating.
2. Occasionaly when I go to FF and REW it lags behind and will get very bad until I restart
3. Unrecordable on this channel, due to a black screen

Thanks for telling me how to find my software and rom versions...
Menu Down B Up B

I am in Irvine, Cox OC, with Echo 1.6.026 TC 12.15 on a 6412iii
I assume this isnt a very current version.

I do not have the power cycling problem.

Well...at least you can download episodes of the OC and LOST in HD for free right now...but its a real pain..I'd rather watch the stuff live or on my Cox PVR...but if this silly box keeps messing up...I'll have to find alternate means.
Oh to make matters worse, my media pc broke too...lol...so I didn't get the SD version of the show either. I had recently set up a media center pc and was using it as a backup.

Well...at least you can download episodes of the OC and LOST in HD for free right now...but its a real pain..

Omarh, are you saying that there is a(legal) way to download LOST episodes?
If so, please post details as I'm not aware of this. I just know the day is coming that we will miss LOST because of the subscription bug.(it's only a matter of time, especially since Cox still can't give us a date for the fraking fix in OC)

I'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to any legal way...

Omarh, are you saying that there is a(legal) way to download LOST episodes?
If so, please post details as I'm not aware of this. I just know the day is coming that we will miss LOST because of the subscription bug.(it's only a matter of time, especially since Cox still can't give us a date for the fraking fix in OC)

I think he meant using the firewire output of the 6412 to feed a PC. I've tried that, and it does work. This should be as legal as using the 6412 to view, as long as you aren't posting it on the internet, or giving it away. It may not work forever though. The stations may put copy protection in place at some point in time.

Chris

I think he meant using the firewire output of the 6412 to feed a PC. I've tried that, and it does work. This should be as legal as using the 6412 to view, as long as you aren't posting it on the internet, or giving it away. It may not work forever though. The stations may put copy protection in place at some point in time.

Chris

I didn't think it was in reference to fireware capture because he just reffered a few posts up to having missed 33 minutes of LOST and The OC due to bugs in the box and his later post about downloading seemed to be referencing a way to get them elsewhere.

I guess we'll wait to see omarh's response to be sure.

I have also done captures from the 6412 via firewire, but it was such a pain I never went beyond the 2-3 minute test clips that I tried to see if it worked.

The other assumtion that I made was that it might be some legal venue for getting those specific shows, since there are many other(not-necessarily-legal) means for downloading ANY show.

That's a lot of assumptions on my part, hence the request for more info about it. <g>

Cheers,
Ray

you can download most TV series and shows. People tape them and compress them whether it is via firewire or direct PC copy, they remove the commercials and post them on the internet as torrent files.

Technically by removing the commercials you are stealing property without paying, but right now there doesn't seem to be any consequence to doing this. It is like this late 1990s when MP3s may not have been legal but the RIAA hadnt figured out how to make pirating their next cash cow.

I download episodes when i forgot to tape so on... or to catch up on a past season.

In some cases the content providers restrict access to their content so much that there really is no other way to obtain the telecast than torrent files. NFL is a good example where they limit what games are shown in each market according to region. So if you live in California and want to catch all the Miami Dolphins games there is no other "legal" way of doing it other than signing up for DirecTV and buying the NFL package. It's simply not available via PPV, VOD or any other "legal" means via cable and now even over radio. For this case there really is no choice but to obtain the torrent files (or some other P2P means) in order to watch the games you want (and would otherwise gladly pay for if available).

I think we are on a dangerous road here. I’d say away for torrent files. They are going after the down loaders without mercy or understanding. The RIAA is a law firm with a bottomless cash flow and it only purpose is to destroy anyone who downloads these Hollywood made files.

The only way we will get what we want is to rip apart content and distributor information monopolies and support demand competition (choice). Don't let Cox off the hook on this and let’s not get our selves in a jam before then.

From personal experience, it depends on the network or studio of the shows you download. Some studios/network do go after individual downloaders, but at this point they only send out warnings (this isn't the RIAA, so there are no lawsuits involved at this point). In general, there's more danger of the site that hosts the torrents going down than of you getting targeted. But it's definitely something to do at your own risk - I only grab some shows if I was stupid and missed it or forgot to record it.

The RIAA has no involvement here and if they do, then the system is seriously $%#ed up. Recording Industry Association of America vs Television downloads, which one could contend are freely avaliable to the public domain. Anyway.... Don't fret it if all you get is TV episodes, just dont get the movies or music or software. Right now this is nothing to be concerned about maybe in a year we will see some change.

I have the same problem in Ches. VA Cox cable

Anyway.... Don't fret it if all you get is TV episodes, just dont get the movies or music or software. Right now this is nothing to be concerned about maybe in a year we will see some change. That's what I would have thought too, but I got my Internet connection suspended for downloading TV shows (from a broadcast network that were NOT available on DVD) awhile back. Like I said, it's pretty selectively enforced, but it has been enforced.

The DVD rights on these TV program are very profitable. In the case of Fox’s Family Guy, it was brought back because of DVD sales. The way Hollywood operates and goes after people, I just wouldn’t take that risk.

I just think it’s a much safer to keep Cox’s feet to the fire with Motorola when it comes to their DVR. We should not have to put a target on our backs for the RIAA because Cox and Motorola can’t get it together. The Box is not as reliable as advertised and needs more storage space. Cox has us paying for this DVR.

Cox and Motorola should have a target on their backs not their customer!

New Passport Echo 2.7

I found this info will looking at Pioneer's website


Upgrades to the Passport Echo IPG include a redesigned settings menu now with high-resolution graphics, settings organized in expandable folders for improved navigation and a ¼ screen video inset displaying the current channel. New sorting and filtering options along with a variety of new features ensures a more engaging TV experience.

Passport Echo 2.7 includes:


DVR Saved Shows List has expanded informational and usability features. One new option, "View Disk Info," displays a summary of DVR disk space usage (like a gas gauge) including the amount of hours of "Estimated Free Space", "Saved Until Manually Erased", "Automatically Erased as Needed" content. Sorting and grouping options have also been added. The Saved Shows List allows viewers to arrange the DVR recorded programs alphabetically or by erasure date. Unseen shows are displayed with bolded titles while viewed shows are in standard font. Episodes of a series can be grouped into expandable and collapsible folders. When a grouped folder is selected, pressing the info button will display summary information such as the number of new recordings and play and erase options for episodes in the group, including: "Play All", "Play All New", "Erase All", and "Erase All Viewed"
Upcoming episodes List option is a new option when selecting a future program in the IPG. Currently when selecting a future title in the Guide, users have the options of recording the show, setting up a series recording, tuning to that channel, or setting up a reminder timer. This new option, when selected, will open up the Title/Keyword search page automatically displaying all the episode titles of the selected program for the week
New sorts and filter options in the Time View of the guide simplifies the user experience allowing the viewer to browse a more targeted set of listings. Passport Echo's IPG has been enhanced to include advanced sorting and filtering functions allowing the viewer to sort by channel number (standard view) or call letters. The Time View can also be filtered to display or hide any combination of Favorite Channels, Music Channels, On Demand Channels, PPV Channels, or HDTV Channels
Parental Control lock by Content Advisory is the latest addition for discerning parents. Locking by the new Content Advisory system has been added to the ability to lock by rating, channel, time and title. Content advisories are broken down into categories and then more specific warnings within those categories. For example, parents can choose the 'Violence' category and then block by 'Intense Violence'. Additionally, from the MSO's headend, certain channels can be automatically parental control locked as a default configuration on all set-tops. Users will have the ability to change these settings with a PIN
Automatic Favorites will set a channel as a favorite based on how often a channel is viewed. The viewer can easily turn off this feature from the settings menu
QuickTips interface is automatically displayed to provide the viewer with information about, and instructions on the use of new features. QuickTips can also be accessed directly in the Guide or DVR list, and can be turned off by the viewer from the settings menu
DAC Messaging support, a feature present in Passport DCT since version 2.5, has been added to Passport Echo in this latest version to support messaging from the headend to all set-tops in the field

I hope cox does the upgrade, but we probally not see it untill next year.



Andrew Wees

wow the upgrade we have been waiting for, and since it is by pioneer it wont have the problems motorola does.

I quite like the capability to see the breakdown of storage space. I am quickly finding out however 90GB of usable space is not quite sufficient if taping a lot of HD content since 2 hours is used by the buffer leaving ~9 for HD recording. If in a given week I tape 2 hours a night, of Law and Order or Baseball tonight, or an inHD special, i am full after 3-4 days.

Estimated rollout date: Nov 2005 for all Cox Markets, except OC: Expected to reach Orange County October 2007.

Where are you getting the rollout date from? I didn't see any in the post I just posted.

Andrew Wees


wow the upgrade we have been waiting for, and since it is by pioneer it wont have the problems motorola does.

I quite like the capability to see the breakdown of storage space. I am quickly finding out however 90GB of usable space is not quite sufficient if taping a lot of HD content since 2 hours is used by the buffer leaving ~9 for HD recording. If in a given week I tape 2 hours a night, of Law and Order or Baseball tonight, or an inHD special, i am full after 3-4 days.

Estimated rollout date: Nov 2005 for all Cox Markets, except OC: Expected to reach Orange County October 2007.

I was being sarcastic... Just pointing out the inability of COX to rollout new software to their largest Market in OC, yet they happily update their Kansas Market.

AMRivlin, if OC is 2007 then New England will follow in 2010 :cool:

AMRivlin, if OC is 2007 then New England will follow in 2010 :cool:
And we should have it shortly after that in 2019!

wow the upgrade we have been waiting for, and since it is by pioneer it wont have the problems motorola does. I don't understand this statement. The underlying firmware on top of which Passport Echo is developed is and always will be Motorola code for this hardware. Some of the problems we have and continue to suffer are due to the Motorola code but many of them are due to Passport Echo - most notably the subscription bug error. As an example, Iguide software built on same Motorola firmware never had the subscription bug - they have a bunch of other problems but not that particular one. To make matters worse then the EOD software is yet another provider which can vary from one market to another - this is the main reason I was given for the delay in OC and New England markets. Finally there is some local customization required for each market also. So one can easily see when trying to put all this code developed by different vendors together there is bound to be a lot of time devoted to combining them together and testing and still having problems once released.

Here's a link to the Passport Echo 2.7.x press release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/hollywoodreporter/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20051003006086&ndmHsc=v2*A1127905200000*B1128571250000*DgroupByDate*G5*J2*N 1000042&newsLang=en&beanID=1436034355&viewID=news_view

Passport Echo 2.7.x seems to have some cool features as well as some we have been asking for. I was dissapointed about no mention of networking capability (over coax) with other thin clients in the house that Scientific Atlanta boxes already are capable of.

I hope Cox starts to use the built in messaging Dac when Passport Echo gets updated.

Andrew Wees



I don't understand this statement. The underlying firmware on top of which Passport Echo is developed is and always will be Motorola code for this hardware. Some of the problems we have and continue to suffer are due to the Motorola code but many of them are due to Passport Echo - most notably the subscription bug error. As an example, Iguide software built on same Motorola firmware never had the subscription bug - they have a bunch of other problems but not that particular one. To make matters worse then the EOD software is yet another provider which can vary from one market to another - this is the main reason I was given for the delay in OC and New England markets. Finally there is some local customization required for each market also. So one can easily see when trying to put all this code developed by different vendors together there is bound to be a lot of time devoted to combining them together and testing and still having problems once released.

Here's a link to the Passport Echo 2.7.x press release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/hollywoodreporter/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20051003006086&ndmHsc=v2*A1127905200000*B1128571250000*DgroupByDate*G5*J2*N 1000042&newsLang=en&beanID=1436034355&viewID=news_view

Passport Echo 2.7.x seems to have some cool features as well as some we have been asking for. I was dissapointed about no mention of networking capability (over coax) with other thin clients in the house that Scientific Atlanta boxes already are capable of.

Here is the response I recieved from the local cox office.



Dear Valued Cox Customer:

Thank you for your inquiry.

We are in a partnership with both Motorola and Pioneer regarding the software loaded on the digital boxes. We continually evaluate the software that Pioneer puts out and if both Cox and Motorola feel that it will be beneficial to our customer then we will add it to our boxes.
Unfortunately right now we have no information on whether we will or will not be upgrading anytime soon.

Andrew Wees

The Passport Echo 2.7 should be released by November 2005 accroding to the website posted below.

Andrew Wees


http://www.cedmagazine.com/ced/2005/1005/10f.htm

New features are great ... once you have a system that works.

IMHO, from the consumer's point of view, Motorola and Pioneer / Aptiv have their priorities screwed up. At this point, we have been struggling for more than a year with a box that does not do the basics. You can't schedule a recording and have confidence it will record.

Instead of concentrating on fixing the existing bugs, they are adding new features. Based on their track record, I seriously doubt that the new features will work anyway. I can wait a year for enhancements but a year to fix reported bugs, come on Aptiv, be real.

Please fix our current problems. Produce a product that works as advertised and does the basics. Once the platform is stable, then go ahead and add new features. Cox, if you are listening, please put pressure on your suppliers get this thing working once and for all.

End of rant ... thanks for letting me vent.

Unfortunately right now we have no information on whether we will or will not be upgrading anytime soon.


I think all Cox customer service reps are contractually obligated to append this to all their communications regarding equipment/software upgrades. It's eerily similar to the closing sentiment to my "when are the phase 3 boxes coming in?" question.

New features are great ... once you have a system that works.

... At this point, we have been struggling for more than a year with a box that does not do the basics. You can't schedule a recording and have confidence it will record. ...



Agreed, these new features sound fantastic, but the most basic of all DVR functions is pretty simple.

-You schedule a program to record, you come home that night and it recorded, period.

With the subscription bug this is simply not the case. I know most markets have the fix for this, but we in OC still can't rely on the d@%ned thing to record a scheduled recording. This bug is over a year old for crying out loud.

When it comes to this DVR, NOTHING should take precedence over fixing this bug for us.

After that, as nice as the new interface features sound, I REALLY need more storage space. 15-20 hours just doesn't cut it.

Being able to organize recordings in folders by show and all that jazz really means nothing when the box only holds 15-20 shows total. -What's to organize?

When it comes to this DVR, NOTHING should take precedence over fixing this bug for us.

After that, as nice as the new interface features sound, I REALLY need more storage space. 15-20 hours just doesn't cut it.

Yeah, I totally agree with both of these sentiments. I love HD, but it definitely requires giving up a lot of the flexibility I had with TiVo -- I used to be able to save up 5 or 6 episodes of a show like 24 and watch them at once -- you certainly can't do that with the 6412 unless you don't record anything else.

And between the subscription bug and the disappearing recordings, the box is just not reliable. I spend more time checking and doublechecking this box in a day or two than I used to with TiVo in a month.

Yeah, I totally agree with both of these sentiments. I love HD, but it definitely requires giving up a lot of the flexibility I had with TiVo -- I used to be able to save up 5 or 6 episodes of a show like 24 and watch them at once -- you certainly can't do that with the 6412 unless you don't record anything else.

And between the subscription bug and the disappearing recordings, the box is just not reliable. I spend more time checking and doublechecking this box in a day or two than I used to with TiVo in a month.
A-freaking-men.

I miss my TiVo so much. Every day I come home from work or when I wake up in the morning, I see that my HD DVR on my bedroom television has a zero-minute recording. I mean, there needs to be a freaking feature that say "I subscribe to everything" and who cares if I accidently have an hour of squiggly lines. I mean, I have the HD package and nearly every premium, leave me alone already :(

I can't wait until TiVo makes a mainstream HD TiVo. Even if it costs $1299.00, I don't freaking care. I want something better than a box that never records when I need it to, stops responding to rewind and forward commands, and randomly starts making the video on HD channels look choppy and below-proper frame rate pace if I don't restart it nearly every day.

Freaking blah.

I really don't care if downloading tv episodes from the web is technically legal or not at this point. I only downloaded stuff that I missed because of screwups on the part of the cox box. I feel that I'm paying over 80 bucks a month for this damn cable, and I should have permission to download the damn show or borrow a tape from a friend or whatever I have to do in order to see it because Cox can't give us a PVR that actually works most of the time.
Its sad, might as well go back to the old days of using my VCR to tape shows I didn't want to miss.

Isn't TIVO in trouble? I heard that the sattelites were all dropping TIVO for their own guide. If this is the case, I would be reluctant to jump $1200 in on that device.

On the other hand if they come out with a cable card HD tivo, I might be inclined to drop $1200 on that, provided it had a high quality analog to digital converter and lacked the subscription bug, and had the flexibility to add additional hard drives so could get a decent amount of shows recorded.

So you guys that miss Tivo, did your Tivos break or what?

I still have both of mine and use them regulary, initially just to pick up SD programming to save space on the 6412. Now that almost every show we watch is in HD we use them as "backups" for when the 6412 fails or when we have 3 conflicting shows.(Survivor/Smallville/Alias) Since one of the Tivos is a DVD burner, I use it to "rescue" friends who missed shows a lot. Also use the burner one to archive the SciFi Friday night triad.(quad if we hadn't bought Firefly on DVD)

In 5 years with my Tivo's I've NEVER missed a recording because of a Tivo problem.

Problem is, we can't stand to watch our shows in SD anymore, we never use our 32" tv in the bedroom anymore. I mean once you've watched LOST or CSI in 57" HD you just can't go back.

TiVo is not in trouble. Not long ago, it made a deal to license its software to Comcast on -- wait for it -- the Motorola 6412, among other hardware. Why won't we ever see that on Cox? Because they are too cheap to license decent software, so we are stuck with the buggy as hell Pioneer junk. Maybe it's worth lobbying for, but I don't know if we could muster enough people to seriously influence Cox.

(Last night at 10 pm the box crashed when changing channels. If I hadn't been there to restart the recordings, I'd have missed the show.)

The standalone TiVo's have generally had fairly easily exapandable hard drive capacity. I'm not sure if the HD TiVo is as easy to upgrade, but my brother has always gotten at least 20 hours of HD space on his, and often more, depending on the bandwidth the channels he's recording from actually use. He's never had anything like the subscription bug or any problem changing from analog to digital/HD channels.

TiVo has said to be in development of a cable card TiVo for a while now, though it would only have one tuner (two tuners would require two cable cards). I am not sure if they are waiting until the specs for the two-way cards are finalized.

So you guys that miss Tivo, did your Tivos break or what?

I still have both of mine and use them regulary, initially just to pick up SD programming to save space on the 6412. Now that almost every show we watch is in HD we use them as "backups" for when the 6412 fails or when we have 3 conflicting shows.(Survivor/Smallville/Alias) Since one of the Tivos is a DVD burner, I use it to "rescue" friends who missed shows a lot. Also use the burner one to archive the SciFi Friday night triad.(quad if we hadn't bought Firefly on DVD)

In 5 years with my Tivo's I've NEVER missed a recording because of a Tivo problem.

Problem is, we can't stand to watch our shows in SD anymore, we never use our 32" tv in the bedroom anymore. I mean once you've watched LOST or CSI in 57" HD you just can't go back.

I still have my TiVo, but I don't have a second cable box, so it only receives analog channels. Like you, I use it for three-way conflicts and also to record stuff like The Daily Show.

But you hit the nail on the head -- it doesn't record HD, and to get SD looking anywhere near decent, you need to use "Best" mode. (On my old 32" SD TV, things really looked fine in "Medium" which gave me 50+ hours of space.)

The only problems I ever had with my old setup was the occasional missed channel change using the IR blaster setup -- I had a circa 1999 General Instruments box. Maybe 1 in 250 recordings would be screwed up. Way better success percentage than the 6412.

I haven't had any problems with my 6412 for a long time. Is this related to only a certain region or version of the box? I'm in the Tulsa,OK region

I haven't had any problems with my 6412 for a long time. Is this related to only a certain region or version of the box? I'm in the Tulsa,OK region

My understanding is that the subscription bug is fixed in v2.5 of the Passport software, which every Cox market but the OC and one other location now has. OC doesn't have the new version yet because there is some incompatibility between it and the EOD(Entertainment On Demand) software used here. In addition, the subscription bug generally only happens on HD channels so SD users are OK. Given the choice between making their high-end HD users happy and making extra money off the huddled masses who "might" watch EOD movies, Cox has chosen the $$$. Surprise.

Meanwhile we have a critical bug which is over a year old and still no firm date on the upgrade to fix it.

Another week and another failed recording of the OC.....
the wife is not pleased...

Um, the OC wasn't on this week due to baseball. Don't blame Cox for them putting baseball on FOX!

Another week and another failed recording of the OC.....
the wife is not pleased...

Um, the OC wasn't on this week due to baseball. Don't blame Cox for them putting baseball on FOX!
Hah. Owned :cool:

I've got Cox in Omaha and I just swapped my 6412 for a phase III unit. My old unit was locking up constantly, recordings wouldn't play back and I had random reboots where recordings and scheduled recordings dissappeared. When I couldn't watch the Husker game last week the box almost went out the window.

When I took the box in the Cox lady said they have been having a lot of problems with the original boxes and were only issueing the new boxes. It does have HDMI... but I'm not using it because I can't tell the difference between component and the built-in OTA tuner on my Mits. I don't see how the picture is going to get any bettter.

So far the new box has been working great. I haven't had any missed recordings yet (but it's only been a week). I don't expect that to be a problem though since we did get the firmware upgrade that fixed that issue even on the old box.

The biggest improvement though is the analog picture quality... before I couldn't stand watching analog channels... with the new box the analog channels and digital channels are very close in quality. There is a lot less video noise and there is less moire. It appears they have a much better quality comb filter in this unit.

Are there any other benefits to the Phase III boxes that I should know about?

The phase 3 6412's have two fans as opposed the the first and second versions which only had one fan.

What kind of remote do you have for the 6412? Is it the black remote that originally came with the 6412 or the new silver remote?

Andrew Wees






I've got Cox in Omaha and I just swapped my 6412 for a phase III unit. My old unit was locking up constantly, recordings wouldn't play back and I had random reboots where recordings and scheduled recordings dissappeared. When I couldn't watch the Husker game last week the box almost went out the window.

When I took the box in the Cox lady said they have been having a lot of problems with the original boxes and were only issueing the new boxes. It does have HDMI... but I'm not using it because I can't tell the difference between component and the built-in OTA tuner on my Mits. I don't see how the picture is going to get any bettter.

So far the new box has been working great. I haven't had any missed recordings yet (but it's only been a week). I don't expect that to be a problem though since we did get the firmware upgrade that fixed that issue even on the old box.

The biggest improvement though is the analog picture quality... before I couldn't stand watching analog channels... with the new box the analog channels and digital channels are very close in quality. There is a lot less video noise and there is less moire. It appears they have a much better quality comb filter in this unit.

Are there any other benefits to the Phase III boxes that I should know about?

Silver Remote. Although I use my Harmony 676. The remote codes I have programmed into the harmony work just fine on the new box... as I would have expected.

If you press the picture in picture button on the cox remote does it do anything?

Andrew Wees

Silver Remote. Although I use my Harmony 676. The remote codes I have programmed into the harmony work just fine on the new box... as I would have expected.

PIP on/off does nothing. Swap toggles between tuners.

I had similar problems with random reboots with my phase II box over the last week or two. I returned it for a phase III box and I'm still having issues. A Cox technician came out yesterday and replaced some of my cables and my signal amplifier and I still have reboots. The new box still seemed to run pretty hot so I set up a small fan to blow air across the box and it seems to have settled down. The box has 4-6 inches of clearance above and is open on the front and righthand sides so I don't understand why it has heat problems.

Anyone else seeing problems with random resets in Omaha?

I think heat build up is a real issue with these boxes as others have found.
Although they say 2" of clearance above I think you need 12" with active cooling.

Like others I bought a laptop cooler and placed it upside down in the front left corner of my box.

Targus Chillpad (http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=PA248U)

You do need a cooler that exhaust the air out the rear like this one as it also helps airflow over the back of the unit.

Whilst unit was turned on I did the Power-Menu-Menu buttons in sequence and went down the list to the HDD/PVR status (2nd to bottom I think) and looked at the 2nd page and it showed temp of 129 F before installing cooler. I installed cooler and next day checked the temp and it was 111 F

I have also been having random reboots with a phase 2 6412 in Omaha. I had the first one replaced because it kept rebooting if any buttons on the 6412 or remote were pressed. The 2nd one I got replaced did the same thing. I am on my 3rd 6412 and it is doing the same thing the only difference with 6412 when it reboots it's fine until it reboots again. The tech who replaced the 2nd 6412 with this current 6412 said there is a connection loose somewhere in the house, but the cable was just redone with new cable and a three way spliter after the original spliter went bad and all the conections were tight. I still think the 6412's fans don't do much to cool it down. I have seen tempatures range from 112-132 with a max of 145.

Andrew Wees



I had similar problems with random reboots with my phase II box over the last week or two. I returned it for a phase III box and I'm still having issues. A Cox technician came out yesterday and replaced some of my cables and my signal amplifier and I still have reboots. The new box still seemed to run pretty hot so I set up a small fan to blow air across the box and it seems to have settled down. The box has 4-6 inches of clearance above and is open on the front and righthand sides so I don't understand why it has heat problems.

Anyone else seeing problems with random resets in Omaha?

This may seem offtopic, but since we were talking about downloading shows you missed because the Cox PVR messed up, what do you all think of apple offering $2 downloads of various shows on ABC? I think its great...and look forward to the future. Forget commercials, just pay for what shows you like. Sure would be more accurate than nielsen ratings...

In concept it is a neat idea.

In reality it sucks... The video comes in 320x240... un watchable on an LCD or large screen. And after 20 episodes, what does 40 dollars give you, nothing more than ipod videos, on a device that can only show 3-4 hours without a recharge.

This is the begining and a nice stab at it, but it isnt ready... when the video comes in HD, or they give you 1/2 off the DVD at the end of the season, then maybe I will consider it.

I did actually order the ipod, but more for its photo and music options.

Tonight, when I turned on the box, it was set to channel 1, not the last channel we watched. I thought Cox caused a reboot ... not so ... the last reboot was 10/10.

First, checked my scheduled recordings, everything is gone, nada.

Next, tried to tune to CBSHD (channel 701) ... it has disappeared from the program guide. The guide goes from 700 (NBCHD) to 703 (PBSHD), no more CBSHD. Channel up button does the same.

Lastly, I checked my series recording schedule. Somehow, 700 has changed to 329 and 701 to 330. I don't even subscribe to those digital channels.

I did a hard reboot (unplug, wait a min., restore power) and Cox tech sent a hit to the box. Neither reboot helped.

There goes the weeks recordings since most of our series recordings are on CBS and NBC HD. Have to wait until Cox can get a tech out to swap the box. Unless, of course, it is a communications problem with the headend and it gets fixed. I did notice errors downloading the .ipg files during the two reboots. Reported it to tech support but, as we know, they know two things ... send a signal / schedule a tech visit.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?????

Tonight, when I turned on the box, it was set to channel 1, not the last channel we watched. I thought Cox caused a reboot ... not so ... the last reboot was 10/10.

First, checked my scheduled recordings, everything is gone, nada.

Next, tried to tune to CBSHD (channel 701) ... it has disappeared from the program guide. The guide goes from 700 (NBCHD) to 703 (PBSHD), no more CBSHD. Channel up button does the same.

Lastly, I checked my series recording schedule. Somehow, 700 has changed to 329 and 701 to 330. I don't even subscribe to those digital channels.

I did a hard reboot (unplug, wait a min., restore power) and Cox tech sent a hit to the box. Neither reboot helped.

There goes the weeks recordings since most of our series recordings are on CBS and NBC HD. Have to wait until Cox can get a tech out to swap the box. Unless, of course, it is a communications problem with the headend and it gets fixed. I did notice errors downloading the .ipg files during the two reboots. Reported it to tech support but, as we know, they know two things ... send a signal / schedule a tech visit.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?????

I don't think it's your box. I have 2 types of boxes from Cox and CBS-HD is gone on both. Through my QAM Tuner, I can still get CBS-HD so Cox is sending out a signal. But as you mentioned, it's gone from the guide and there's no way to get to it through the box. Have you called Cox?

Just called Cox. They have not heard of any problems. They wanted to send someone out to look at my equipment but I denied. There's nothing wrong with my boxes. They obviously have a problem in their network. I encourage people in CT with Cox to call them.

Have you called Cox?

Yes caeguy, I spent a half hour on the phone with Cox last night. Like you, they have not heard of the problem and want to schedule a tech visit.

Do you have any series recordings set up for the HD channels? If so, have they been moved to 330 or 329? This is what has happened on my 6412 pIII.

Just a tip, not sure if it has been mentioned before.

We were leaving for Europe, and I knew I would end up with some 0-minute recordings. I tried something out, and it worked. No 0-minute recordings for the entire 2 weeks we were gone. It did miss some shows, but I think that's mainly due to the baseball games on Fox. I set both tuners to record on analog channels at 6pm every week day(Seinfeld on TBS and Simpsons on Fox). It takes the tuners off the HD channels for you daily, and the shows are deleted as needed(I set all other series for manual erase only). Try it out.....

CBSHD is back.

Tonight, the program guide is back to normal. CBSHD (701) shows up. The guide is fixed but the series recording schedule is not. It was still looking for CBSHD on 330 and NBCHD on 329. A reboot did not help.

I was able to get the series schedule back by deleting and rescheduling everything. It was a PITA but the box is working again. It did start recording Cold Case at 8PM. Everything had to be reentered, even Alias on channel 7 did not schedule until I reentered it.

Saved recordings still show the 329 / 330 channels but it does not seam to effect playback.

All my HD scheduled recordings were WACKED on my PII box.. also CH 329 and 330. I bitched to Cox, and they wanna send someone over.. They have no idea whats wrong.. Commin thurs, i don't know what they'll do, prolly nothin.. if i can show a history of problems, perhaps they'll give me some acct credit..

That's right, Mgalin, all they will do is offer to replace the box ... if you let them. If they do, you loose anything you have saved on the old box and must enter your recording schedule on the new box.

I have deleted and reentered all scheduled recordings on my old box and it seams to be working. After a reboot for the subscription bug, all 6 scheduled shows recorded last night. I am also able to play back previously recorded shows even though the channel says 329 or 330.

Had both boxes replaced with newer 6412 Phase III yesterday as was getting tired of some issues.
Only took 1 hour to reload the 30 or so season passes into the boxes !!

They now run at 100F rather than 115F. Must be the alleged 2nd fan

Last night, I had both Commander in Chief at Boston Legal set to record (as well as other stuff in the same time slots.)

CiC has recently changed to the stupid ABC 9-10:01 time slot, with BL 10:01-11. For some odd reason, my box stopped recording at 10:00 even though it had the correct guide data to go to 10:01. Then it started recording Boston Legal at 10:01. So I missed the last minute of CiC, which is annoying.

I don't usually have this problem with Desparate Housewives/Grey's Anatomy, but I also don't have anything else recording at the same time.

Any suggestions?

I am suffering random reboots in Omaha, very frustrating when they happen during a recording period.

I am going to contact Cox, I don't expect any resolution but I will let you know if they surprise me.

They told me my only option is to come out and swap it out for a new box, or live with the rebooting. If they sent someone out to my house to take a look at it they would have to charge me a service fee. Plus there is no way the guy would do anything but swap in a new box.

I hate to lose my saved Lost episodes, especially when the second box could do the exact same things the first is doing. What do you guys think?

Do you have Cox phone and internet also? If you do I would check and see if you can get the service plan free. That's what we did.


The internal fan could have quit working.

What's the temp on the diagnostic menu? Did you try manual rebooting the 6412?

It could be a heat issue or a signal issue.

Andrew Wees


They told me my only option is to come out and swap it out for a new box, or live with the rebooting. If they sent someone out to my house to take a look at it they would have to charge me a service fee. Plus there is no way the guy would do anything but swap in a new box.

I hate to lose my saved Lost episodes, especially when the second box could do the exact same things the first is doing. What do you guys think?

They told me my only option is to come out and swap it out for a new box, or live with the rebooting. If they sent someone out to my house to take a look at it they would have to charge me a service fee. Plus there is no way the guy would do anything but swap in a new box.

I hate to lose my saved Lost episodes, especially when the second box could do the exact same things the first is doing. What do you guys think?


You neglected to mention how you have it connected. If it's a Phase 3 box connected via HDMI, try switching to component. It seems to be a common problem when using the HDMI port.

We have the whole package, phone, internet, cable. Monthly bill is around an eye popping (to me at least) $150. If the local prisons ever run out of room we can store some of the inmates with the execs at Cox.

It's a phase III box connected via HDMI. I would hate to downgrade to the component input but it might be worth a try.

I was watching it late at night the other day and had the sound turned very low so I wouldn't bother anybody who was sleeping. While the sound was down I noticed that the fan was really going crazy. I checked the bottom of the box and it seemed pretty hot so I elevated the box to get more air flow underneath. I left it that way, maybe it will help with the reboot issues.

We have the whole package, phone, internet, cable. Monthly bill is around an eye popping (to me at least) $150. If the local prisons ever run out of room we can store some of the inmates with the execs at Cox.

It's a phase III box connected via HDMI. I would hate to downgrade to the component input but it might be worth a try.

I was watching it late at night the other day and had the sound turned very low so I wouldn't bother anybody who was sleeping. While the sound was down I noticed that the fan was really going crazy. I checked the bottom of the box and it seemed pretty hot so I elevated the box to get more air flow underneath. I left it that way, maybe it will help with the reboot issues.


I can pretty much guarantee it's the HDMI port causing the reboots. If you go back a couple of pages in this thread, several people reported the problem and everyone who switched back to component stopped having the issue. I don't think any of them noticed much difference in picture quality between the 2 either. Anyone who did was probably noticing differences that weren't really there.

So.. Had the COx guy over the house today.. let them have it about the ch 329/330 guide data bug and subscription bug..

He said, they now acknowledge both.. As well as problems with HDMI.. He said, workaround for subscription bug is, set a scheduled recording for the program before the one you want so the subscription screen goes away.. I don't see this acceptable, but he said, they're still working on a fix.

The guide data bug was a 1 time thing, shouldn't happen again..

As far as HDMI issues, he said, they know about them also.. Do not use Hdmi, use component and you won't get reboots.

I HAD a P2 box, now P3, analog encoding DOES appear to be better..

However, i now have the issue where, i the box won't stay in AC3 mode.. I swtich it to AC3.. change the channel and it goes back to PCM.. Anyone got any ideas? i'm assuming PCM is no longer dolby digital and dolby surround now.. help!

The HDMI causing reboots and AC3 to PCM issues are both well known and reported issues if you search back in this thread. Reboot problem can be worked around by using component instead of HDMI (as you also mentioned). Don't know of any workaround for AC3->PCM. For these reasons I have chosen not to "upgrade" to the P3 box.

The current remaining advantages of P3 box are that it runs cooler and analog channels are better. I don't care about analog channels since I use ReplayTVs for all SD recordings, plus the analog channel quality won't be an issue much longer once digital simulcast is available which at least for OC market is supposed to happen before the end of the year. Heat issue is not really much of a problem unless you get reboots because of excessive heat.

The USB2 and SATA ports are not enabled via software so don't consider those an advantage over the old box.

Bottom line: I'd say stick with older models until the issues with the P3 boxes are solved, which may take a few firmware upgrades.

Just wanted to let you guys know, that when using a component connection on the PIII box, you get Dolby Digital on every channel instead of PCM... at least on my connection. The component just works better any way you look at it. It automatically detects which channels broadcast in Stereo or in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and switches accordingly. HDMI connection, as reported earlier was a pain in the ass concerning the audio as well as the reboots of course.

Agreed, component cables are the only choice at this time with the pIII box. I am using component video into my Mitz RPTV and a TOSLINK cable for audio into my AVR. I have not had either the reboot or audio switch to PCM problem with this setup. HDMI cause both these problems and FIREWIRE, while it does work, does not display the menus. FIREWIRE is great for capturing from the box but n/g for normal viewing.

Mgalin, played voicemail tag with my Cox tech yesterday about the 329/330 problem. Hopefully we will talk today and he will confirm that it was a 1x system problem. My box has been working normally since reentering the schedule.

I just wanted to add, as I was saying earlier... The only way to have no reboots with the HDMI connection is if you actually keep the television on 24/7... and of course we all know that can't be healthy for the TV. So component is the only solution for the time being, unless we try what one other guy did earlier in these posts, and that was to use a DVI Cable and then use another DVI-to-HDMI converter cable to go from teh DVI Cable into the DVR. Sounds like a possible solution, but I don't know if I'm really dedicated enough to go that route, since the component and HDMI connections don't appear that different.

I have an HDMI-DVI cable,which is how I had the box configured.

(P3) HDMI to Samsung RPTV (DVI) - That's how I noticed the audio problems - AC3 - PCM.

I never had reboot issues, so i can't speak to those.

APaulCT, let me know what the guy says. While he was there, I tried to beat some information outta the guy relevant to the timeframes for digitial simulcast.. All he said was, that they were required by law to have it done by 12/31/06.. He didn't know poop about the WTNH/ABC contract...

I Did notice this tho.. the P3 Box outputs OSD on the Compostite outputs while the box is in 720P/1080I mode.. THe P2 Box Does NOT do this.. VERY NICE since i'm using a channelmaster RF modulator to distribute the DVR to the rest of my house.. THe tech even gave me a spare remote. .Shweet!

Mgalin, no news about any of our issues from Cox. He did say the next firmware version, whenever that may be released, will address our ongoing problems. No promise dates. Also, the new 6416 box with a larger hard drive will be out very soon. Another 4 hours of HD recording :) yes

The 329/330 problem was due to a router going south in the local office. He said it screwed up the program guide ... that must have totaly confused the box. One time problem so I am cancelling the visit scheduled for tomorrow AM.

I don't watch the analog channels to much so the digital simulcast won't really effect us. The analog output of the pIII box is almost as good as the sd digital channels anyway.

I would love ABC-HD!! Now, we have to watch it OTA or record the SD feed. Guess when it happens we will know. Cox is not one for releasing info before hand.

For the CONNECTICUT guys...

fyi, there was another thread created a couple weeks ago for Cox users in CT. Hopefully there are enough people to keep it viable and your posts would be good info to have there as well... I've had the same problems with the channel numbers getting screwed up because of guide problems.

Its under Local HDTV Info and Reception, name of the thread is "Hartford, CT - Cox".

I use component cables, and I get the reboots.

I was speaking with a cable guy the other day, who told me he was able to achive what I consider the holy grail!

On his DCT6412, he ran a patch cord from the ethernet port to his router.

His WinXP machines recognized the cable box as external storage, and he can simply drag and drop files to his PC's hard drive for storage or replay. He said that AC3 codec was needed to play the files on the XP machine. He said that he is able to copy a recording from the cable box to his hard drive, delete it from the cable box, and at a later point in time copy the file back to the cable box and play it there.

I had no such luck with my ability to re-create his scenario - has anyone successfully done this? :cool:

Sounds like a pipe dream. Connecting a Cat5 cable would do nothing, especially not show up as external storage, that isn't how networking works with windows or any OS. You would have to know IP addresses and, the box's ethernet is off anyway.

His concept was that it DHCP'ed an IP address and showed up (I assume) as a UPnP device....

Ethernet shows installed on my box in the service menu - what would validate it being "Disabled"?

I was speaking with a cable guy the other day, who told me he was able to achive what I consider the holy grail!

On his DCT6412, he ran a patch cord from the ethernet port to his router.

His WinXP machines recognized the cable box as external storage, and he can simply drag and drop files to his PC's hard drive for storage or replay. He said that AC3 codec was needed to play the files on the XP machine. He said that he is able to copy a recording from the cable box to his hard drive, delete it from the cable box, and at a later point in time copy the file back to the cable box and play it there.

I had no such luck with my ability to re-create his scenario - has anyone successfully done this? :cool: He's pulling your leg or on crack or you have a good imagination.

My Ethernet port is active and will show active when connected to a switch.

It is, however, not DHCP otherwise it would have got an IP on my network (I know my stuff as I do it for a living - IT Technician)

OK guys, I get it. You dont believe him...

If anyone else was indeed able to get this type of scenario working, please chime in.

I was also unable to get the box to DHCP, so perhaps he was indeed "full of it".

I will see if I can get more information, and if successful, will report back...

Note: I am also a network engineer and project manager - in IT for 20+ years, so understand I am not a novice...

Does anyone know what the intention is for the ethernet port? I found it plausible that the device could be used as a Network Storage Device...

This is an interesting article:

http://www.convergedigest.com/Bandwidth/newnetworksarticle.asp?ID=15084

I have heard several cox cable people talk about plans regarding the ability for shows stored on one DVR in the home with other set top boxes....

... and another very interesting article:

http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,,4149_3504_23,00.html

... These articles look to me as though the ethernet connection is indeed intended for NAS (Network Attached Storage) related activities...

That second press release is old plus it's IP over coax not ethernet. Scientific Atlanta has had such a solution for a while and I think even deployed in Vegas as a test market but I haven't heard much since. Not trying to bust your bubble here but ethernet port on these DCT6412 boxes are not activated for anything useful as much as we'd like to hope otherwise.

Network storage is a thought, however, I wonder if it could act as a cable modem... and then the port is ethernet out to a pc/ps2/xbox or switch/router

Network storage is a thought, however, I wonder if it could act as a cable modem... and then the port is ethernet out to a pc/ps2/xbox or switch/router

From what I recall of Motorola's Product brochures for this box, that's excactly what it is. Simply the option to act as a cable modem so the cable company doesn't have to deploy a seprate one. I'm pretty sure we've discussed this previously.(but this thread is now approaching 2,000 posts)

Can someone post the various 'service' or special menus available on this box.
I know about menu - Down - B - UP - B and power-menu-menu.
But was wondering if there were any others and how to navigate them.
Or probably better than posting here would be if there was a manual that listed them and was available.

I am sure most of the various menus have been listed somewhere in this vast thread but it is sometimes hard to find the information you are looking for.

Oh God! After searching for answers to the problems I am having with my Motorola DCT6412 Phase 3 box I seem to have come across an open can of worms with this DVR/Cable box combo. I have only had the box a couple of weeks and have not had any issues with power cycling (when using HDMI to HDMI connections) or with the issues when it comes to recording (yet!!)

My problems are with connecting HDMI through my AV Receiver. I can pass both audio and video through an HDMI connection from my DVD player through the receiver and on to the TV with HDMI output from the receiver without issue. I can run both audio and video through a direct HDMI connection from my 6412 to my TV without issue, but when I connect the 6412 HDMI to the receiver, it only passes the audio signal and I just get a blank screen.

I have tried two HDMI switching receivers (JVC RX-D702B and Denon AVR-3806) and both have had the same result of passing audio but not video when connecting the 6412 to the receiver.

I am going to try one more receiver, the new Yamaha RX-V2600. The techs at Ultimate Electronics for some reason think this unit may work because it provides upscaling as well as upconverting. Personally I think the problem is with the crappy 6412, but I welcome anyone else's thoughts on this matter. The TV I am using is a Mitsubishi 52628.

Might it be a compatibility problem between two different versions of the HDMI capability of the V1.0 vs V1.1 ?

Can someone post the various 'service' or special menus available on this box.
I know about menu - Down - B - UP - B and power-menu-menu.
But was wondering if there were any others and how to navigate them.
Or probably better than posting here would be if there was a manual that listed them and was available.

This contains most of the known ones (and a lot more info):
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html#Tips_and_Tricks

This contains most of the known ones (and a lot more info):
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html#Tips_and_Tricks

Thanks that page contains great information. Too bad it didn't have a 30 second skip forward.

Passport Echo doesn't have a 30 second skip.

Andrew Wees



Thanks that page contains great information. Too bad it didn't have a 30 second skip forward.

Oh God! After searching for answers to the problems I am having with my Motorola DCT6412 Phase 3 box I seem to have come across an open can of worms with this DVR/Cable box combo. I have only had the box a couple of weeks and have not had any issues with power cycling (when using HDMI to HDMI connections) or with the issues when it comes to recording (yet!!)

My problems are with connecting HDMI through my AV Receiver. I can pass both audio and video through an HDMI connection from my DVD player through the receiver and on to the TV with HDMI output from the receiver without issue. I can run both audio and video through a direct HDMI connection from my 6412 to my TV without issue, but when I connect the 6412 HDMI to the receiver, it only passes the audio signal and I just get a blank screen.

I have tried two HDMI switching receivers (JVC RX-D702B and Denon AVR-3806) and both have had the same result of passing audio but not video when connecting the 6412 to the receiver.

I am going to try one more receiver, the new Yamaha RX-V2600. The techs at Ultimate Electronics for some reason think this unit may work because it provides upscaling as well as upconverting. Personally I think the problem is with the crappy 6412, but I welcome anyone else's thoughts on this matter. The TV I am using is a Mitsubishi 52628.


Your reciever may not be 5C copy protection compliant, so it would black screen on you.

Your reciever may not be 5C copy protection compliant, so it would black screen on you.

I don't think this could be at all relevant. After all receivers don't copy anything.

That's the thing you said he works for a cable company and might have access to newer features before they are released to the general public.

Andrew Wees


I was speaking with a cable guy the other day, who told me he was able to achive what I consider the holy grail!

On his DCT6412, he ran a patch cord from the ethernet port to his router.

His WinXP machines recognized the cable box as external storage, and he can simply drag and drop files to his PC's hard drive for storage or replay. He said that AC3 codec was needed to play the files on the XP machine. He said that he is able to copy a recording from the cable box to his hard drive, delete it from the cable box, and at a later point in time copy the file back to the cable box and play it there.

I had no such luck with my ability to re-create his scenario - has anyone successfully done this? :cool:

Did the cable guy say if he was using a Phase II or Phase III 6412?

Might it be a compatibility problem between two different versions of the HDMI capability of the V1.0 vs V1.1 ?

I am not sure what the HDMI compatibility of the Motorola DCT6412 is but the receivers to the best of my knowledge have all been compliant with V1.1.

I have been leaning towards the fact that maybe the different receivers were recognizing the signal from the 6412 as being copyright protected and was filtering out the video based on this. I would think someone at Comcast could verify this but they seem to be clueless as to why the video is not being passed as well.

One thing wrong with your comment about Comcast. This a Cox forum not a Comcast fourm.

Andrew Wees


I am not sure what the HDMI compatibility of the Motorola DCT6412 is but the receivers to the best of my knowledge have all been compliant with V1.1.

I have been leaning towards the fact that maybe the different receivers were recognizing the signal from the 6412 as being copyright protected and was filtering out the video based on this. I would think someone at Comcast could verify this but they seem to be clueless as to why the video is not being passed as well.

According to this post + thread those with Phase III box really need to wait to get 12.22 firmware for fixes to HDMI + DD/PCM switching:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6419665&&#post6419665

I've been meaning to ask this, but does anyone know why On-Demand is so seriously lacking in content? Also the normal PPV seems rather rediculous too...most times it only has two choices or three...what kind of choice is that? I thought On-Demand was going to make blockbuster obsolete...but with such a limited selection that's not going to happen any time soon.
Every time my wife and I get a chance late at night when the kids are asleep to watch a movie, there's nothing good on On-Demand....and the one time we did pick something, it kept stalling and restarting....the interface is horrible if you have to restart one of them...the fastforward speed is way too slow.

Netflix is a much better (and cheaper) option then VOD or PPV IMO. Not only is the choice MUCH better but the video quality is MUCH better too. I was extremely dissapointed the only time I ever ordered a movie via VOD. I typically will subscribe for 3-4 months out of the year to Netflix to get my fill of movies for the year.

If VOD offered some of the latest movie releases in HD then that would get me interested but otherwise my only use for VOD is for watching extended NFL highlights in the Free Zone Sports (you can choose any matchup you wish of the prior weekend).

We did have 6 days of guide data at any time. Now we have only 5. The 6th day (Friday as of this writing) shows "Loading new data... one moment please" on the line where the time displays and "No Data" in the schedule blocks. Tomorrow, this day will fill in and Saturday will show "Loading ....". This has been happening all week. Has anyone else seen this? I don't want to call Cox ... they will just want to swap out the box ... if it a New England system wide problem.

Did you try manually refreshing the guide data?

Andrew Wees

We did have 6 days of guide data at any time. Now we have only 5. The 6th day (Friday as of this writing) shows "Loading new data... one moment please" on the line where the time displays and "No Data" in the schedule blocks. Tomorrow, this day will fill in and Saturday will show "Loading ....". This has been happening all week. Has anyone else seen this? I don't want to call Cox ... they will just want to swap out the box ... if it a New England system wide problem.

We did have 6 days of guide data at any time. Now we have only 5. The 6th day (Friday as of this writing) shows "Loading new data... one moment please" on the line where the time displays and "No Data" in the schedule blocks. Tomorrow, this day will fill in and Saturday will show "Loading ....". This has been happening all week. Has anyone else seen this? I don't want to call Cox ... they will just want to swap out the box ... if it a New England system wide problem.

No problems here in Glastonbury.

Couple of updates:
Although this is a 'cox' thread, most everyone that uses the Echo Passport software and 6412 cable box have been posting here. I have a different cable company myself.

Of course today, the @#$@#%ing Daylight Savings Time bug showed up again. All of my recordings now are trying to record an hour early.

I just fired off yet another email to my cable company. Fingers crossed....

Of course today, the @#$@#%ing Daylight Savings Time bug showed up again. All of my recordings now are trying to record an hour early. Not the case for me. Unless you have 1-time or time-specific recordings setup it shouldn't be an issue. All my recordings are setup as series (first-run & repeat) and are scheduled to record in the normal time slots. I didn't have to do anything this time - not even a reboot.

Has anyone experienced problems with the Fast Forward/Rewind function on the 6412? I frequently cannot do either on the unit and must do a reboot to be able to fast forward to the goals on Fox Soccer Channel.

Couple of updates:
Of course today, the @#$@#%ing Daylight Savings Time bug showed up again. All of my recordings now are trying to record an hour early.


No DST problems here in Cox CT. I have my recordings set up, like moyekj, as series recordings. The box took right off and recorded last night's shows on time with out so much as a reboot. :D Also, the full 6 days of guide data are back. Don't know why, but it is working again.

shugazer9, I use the fast forward to skip through commercials and have not had any problem.

I probably should change them, but most of the shows I record (ie Daily Show) repeat 23 times a day, so I just wanted the 11pm Eastern. With the bug, it now records at 10pm Eastern. So I had to delete and redo. I tried editing the series recording, but it gives me 10 pm only or all. Ugh.

WARNING: "Commander in Chief" changed names to slightly to "Commander In Chief". Took me a while to figure out why this wasn't scheduled to record anymore on the DCT6412. When I also saw the ReplayTV wasn't going to record it I knew something had changed. As a result I had to re-setup the series recording on the DCT6412 & Replay.

Has anyone ever had any luck with the Cox website in regards to getting easy to understand pricing for services. It could be my area, but they only tell you the prices for the first couple of months, which is a promotional period.

I would like to play around with different channels and stuff to see what the actual costs would be. I hate their website.

Has anyone ever had any luck with the Cox website in regards to getting easy to understand pricing for services. It could be my area, but they only tell you the prices for the first couple of months, which is a promotional period.

I would like to play around with different channels and stuff to see what the actual costs would be. I hate their website.


Well, since you don't tell us your location, I can't provide your area's price guide. Here is the one from Hampton Roads. I'm sure they have one for each city...

http://www.cox.com/hr/docs/generic_lineup.pdf

Well, since you don't tell us your location, I can't provide your area's price guide. Here is the one from Hampton Roads. I'm sure they have one for each city...

http://www.cox.com/hr/docs/generic_lineup.pdf

I'm in Fayetteville, AR.

I'm in Fayetteville, AR.

Well, the cox site for Arkansas is not like the one for Hampton Roads. It wants me to put in an address before it will let me get any further into the pricing... Sorry!

Well, the cox site for Arkansas is not like the one for Hampton Roads. It wants me to put in an address before it will let me get any further into the pricing... Sorry!


Yeah, It's pretty bad. I think I've figured out most things now. I talked to a couple of Cox reps. Thanks.

Omaha went to 6 days of guide data even with manually refreshing the guide data. I wounder why the can't keep it at 7 days of data for everbody even the dct 2000's had 7 full days of data even though it would only show 2 days of data and you would have press select for more data.

Andrew Wees




We did have 6 days of guide data at any time. Now we have only 5. The 6th day (Friday as of this writing) shows "Loading new data... one moment please" on the line where the time displays and "No Data" in the schedule blocks. Tomorrow, this day will fill in and Saturday will show "Loading ....". This has been happening all week. Has anyone else seen this? I don't want to call Cox ... they will just want to swap out the box ... if it a New England system wide problem.

If I leave the TV off, say over night the DVR will reboot like mad, turn the TV on and it stops. This has happened with 2 different Motorola 6412 phase III cable boxes and 3 different brand TVs.
CT. Cox cable has no fix for me so far. PS this only happens if I use the HDMI to HDMI.

Is anybody else having this problem and did you find a fix?

Fix is to use component connection instead of HDMI as discussed many times in this thread.

My DCT6412 has finally broken itself. It's reset itself and rebooted so many times over the last few months, MUCH TO MY ANNOYMENT, and now it can't turn itself back on successfully. It's stuck eternally on One Moment Please. So i called COX, can't come out til the 23rd... RIGHT. ANYWAYS, i'm gonna go switch out the box at their office, but i want to get the shows off the DVR's HDD, so what's the best and easiest way to get them? Firewire? How do i do that?

The Cox lady said there have been problems with box's doing what i am describing, anyone else out there have this problem? will getting a new box fix the problem? at least back to where i can turn it on once and a while?

...but i want to get the shows off the DVR's HDD, so what's the best and easiest way to get them? Firewire? How do i do that?

The firewire port requires a completed boot of the box. If you can't successfully boot the box, I don't think there is a way of getting the shows off the harddrive. You would have to open the box and connect the drive to another system to copy the files ... I have not seen any postings of somebody actually doing this. Since it is Cox's box, that is out of the question anyway. Sorry but the best thing is to start over with a new box ... we all have done that.

Gawd D*mn it!
are u 100.... well 99% sure? It has to boot up completely?? like in order to get the firewire port active i'd have to have it connected to cable anyway so it could boot all the way to TV viewing in order to access the HDD?


Should i request a phase III box when i give this one back to them?

You need the on screen display to control playback. The firewire port outputs the same video as you are viewing on the screen. It outputs video only, no OSD. If you can't boot to a point where you can view a recorded show, you won't be able to offload it via firewire.

I have a pIII box connected using component cables for video and a fiber TOSLINK cable into my AVR for audio. I have not had the rebooting problem reported in this thread. As moyekj said a few posts ago, use component cables, not HDMI, until the reboot bug is fixed. The pIII box has far superior analog output, it has a second fan and the HD / digital bugs are no worse than the pII. IMHO, go with the pIII.

I assume you have tried a hard reboot ... unplug the unit, let it sit for a couple of minutes, then plug it in. That has reset mine a couple of times when all else failed.

I assume you have tried a hard reboot ... unplug the unit, let it sit for a couple of minutes, then plug it in. That has reset mine a couple of times when all else failed.

I've been doing that for MONTHS with this box. I left it unpugged for an hour last nite, and it's been sat on One Moment Please for over 5 hours, Cox sent it a reboot signal when i called them, and it went back to OMP, and has been that way for 3 hours now. The clock won't even sync back up.


AND of course since they are not going to know what i'm talking about when i say i want a phase III box, what do i tell them to convince them they HAVE what i'm talking about? lol

I don't think you ever said for sure, how do you have that box connected to the tv? Is it with component cables?

yes

well got my phase III box... no one at the COX center knew what one was of course, so I had to check and make sure it was a phase III. SHEESH... I'm still pissed about my shows tho.

Is the HDD the same size in the p3 boxes?

Is the HDD the same size in the p3 boxes?

I have heard stories about a 160GB phase III box but have not seen one. It is a model 6416 ... my local Cox tech told me about it but hasn't seen it. The 6412 phase III contains the same size (120GB) HDD as in the phase II.

I haven't looked at this thread for a long time, but wanted to share some info on overheating.

My Cox 6412 III box has had some serious overheating problems. It's on it's own shelf, with nothing above or below it, and nothing in front of or behind it (ie: no glass door or back on the cabinet).

It would frequently not record shows --or record them all pixelated and skippy. I knew it was a heat issue, and would turn a fan on behind it. I left the box on all the time because of the subscription bug, and between that and a warm day was all it took for this POS to not record.

I tried to get in on a deal COMPUSA had for a notebook cooler to put under it to help cool it (powered by the USB ports on the back of the unit) but no stock. So I ended up cutting 2 wine corks in half and used the 4 half corks to raise the unit up. The added space UNDER the unit has eliminated the overheating issue for me. It is now centered in the space of the shelf.

Just thought I'd share that as a cheap solution for those of you experiencing overheating issues. So now I only have to deal with the subscription bug. It's ridiculous, but it's better then the $1000 HD Tivo that DTV tried to get me to buy. LOL. And yeah I know it's cheaper now... they finally got a clue.

I have heard stories about a 160GB phase III box but have not seen one. It is a model 6416 ... my local Cox tech told me about it but hasn't seen it. The 6412 phase III contains the same size (120GB) HDD as in the phase II.


hmmm. ok so let me get this str8 about the p3 box:

SATA port: Inactive
HDMI: Buggy
USB: Inactive
Firewire: Active (but it's not like hooking up a firewire HDD to your computer? u can't simply read the data off like a X:\ drive?)
Ethernet: Active, but for who know's what, can't get vid files from it either
RCA IN ports: Inactive
RCA Out ports: active
Component Out ports: Active
S-Video: ????
SPDIF's: Active

That about cover it? Is there any way currently, to hook up an external HDD for more storage space? Is there any way currently to read the vid files on a PC as if the HDD was the PC's X:\ drive?

IS this normal?

i did the Down B Up B thing to check the firmware, and i saw the Recordable space is only 83230 MB of Recordable space. But PVR_CONTENT is 109944 MB.... :confused: :confused:

SOOO what do i have? 85 GB of Filespace or 110 GB?

Echo 2.5.037 TC 12.13



P.S.
what is the difference b/w 12.13 and 12.15?

IS this normal?

i did the Down B Up B thing to check the firmware, and i saw the Recordable space is only 83230 MB of Recordable space. But PVR_CONTENT is 109944 MB.... :confused: :confused:

SOOO what do i have? 85 GB of Filespace or 110 GB?

Echo 2.5.037 TC 12.13




The below is copied and pasted from moyekj's webpage located here (http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/DCT6412_Passport.html). It is a must read and answers many question you may have.


Hard Drive Available Space Analysis

120GB drive => 120e9/2^30 = 111.76GB available
Looking at allocation totals (d14 module of Status Page):
System = 238MB
GPFS = 2861MB
PVR Content = 109944MB
PVR Index = 1431MB
=>TOTAL allocation = 114474MB = 114474/1024 = 111.79GB (matches hard drive spec)
Looking at useage totals with no recordings saved on the box (d14 module of Status Page):
System=1MB
GPFS=21MB
PVR Content =~ 19280MB (=> Total buffer space taken by both tuners)
PVR Index =~ 96MB
So really these are the true numbers in GB that we have available:
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

Thanks for the heads-up on command & chief. I missed it this week because of that name change...but interestingly enough my "back-up" which is a Media Center 2005 PC connected to the analog cox cable line...recorded it just fine. Thank god for backup....but its rather sad that I even need one.

By the way, I missed ER too...it did that stupid thing again where I turn it on, and it starts recording from that point on....its like it locks up or something when left alone all day...and then wakes up when I try to change channels or look at previous recordings.

Oh, did you guys hear about that thing NBC is doing where they offer on demand episodes of their shows for 99 cents? I think its incredibly stupid because it automatically erases it 24 hours later...or before the next episode! SO you're basically renting it...but if you just set up the PVR to record it in the first place, then you won't have to pay 99 cents, or make sure you watch it within 24 hours...
I'm just not sure I get these weird business ideas

> S-Video: ????

S-Video out works fine. I have the 6412 component out to the TV and S-Video out to my DVD recorder.

I think the USB port is active?

I think the USB port is active? USB ports can supply 5V but nothing else useful.

I apologize if this has been asked.

I'm having trouble on some recordings. I have my DVR set to record a TV show and "keep until manually erased" and "keep at most 2 episodes". This should record 2 episodes and keep them until I delete them and once I watch and delete a show, it should replace it with a new one. So I should have 2 episodes on tap most of the time.

I can't get this to work. I came home and had about 10 episodes of the same series, when it was clearly marked to keep 2 at most. How do you fix this?

I've noticed this on a few different series, maybe all series that have a ton of reruns.

My guess is you have to mark it to delete automatically. The unit probably wants you to have the two most recent, and since it can't delete them you end up with 10.

My guess is you have to mark it to delete automatically. The unit probably wants you to have the two most recent, and since it can't delete them you end up with 10.

That does kind of make sense. I'll see if that works. I was trying to avoid it constantly recording new episodes, but I guess I can live with that.

This thing(software) sure isn't like a Tivo.

I recorded Lost last night... i got home and it was ready to watch, so about 10 min in the recording stops and will not go past that point. It claimed to have an hour of video taped.

I am also seeing the same error in Omaha on my 6412. It doesn't matter if it recorded analog or digital or HDTV. I see the error about once a day.

Andrew Wees



I recorded Lost last night... i got home and it was ready to watch, so about 10 min in the recording stops and will not go past that point. It claimed to have an hour of video taped.

I am also seeing the same error in Omaha on my 6412. It doesn't matter if it recorded analog or digital or HDTV. I see the error about once a day.

Andrew Wees Sounds like a signal strength problem to me - the DVR gives up trying to record something if signal strength drops below a certain threshold for an extended period. It would be interesting to find out if the red light is still on once that happens indicating it's still recording. I'm in the same market as AMRivlin and didn't have the trouble with that "Lost" recording. In fact I even was able to capture it via firewire and author to DVD with no issues. I have an older P2 model box - maybe this is another issue with the P3 box?

Guys, I've got a question about my HD set and the Motorola 6412 DVR.

We all know that SD channels look like crap, analog more so than digital, but in general, they stink. So, for the most of the time I've been using my set and the DVR (for about four months), I was using 1080i Wide with it just upscaling all the 480i channels along with sidebars. I mean, it was tolerable. But lately I've quite caring about correct aspect ratio since the only things I really watch in HD are a few shows on Bravo and CNN, ect; pretty much all of my other content is presented in HD or I watch it an SD program on the HD feed because it looks better.

But anyways, since I don't care about a little stretching, I was messing with the output formats and on my LCD HD set, SD programming look great if it is preserved in 480i. Has anyone else noticed this or tried this? I never even bothered with this setting before because I assumed that upconversion (or whatever the term is) would do a whole lot better than just passing the normal signal.

Or is there possibly a different setting I can try or cable that would make it look better than this? Because having a one or two second delay when switching from 480i to 1080i on my set when moving from SD to HD channels is a little annoying.

If it is a signal problem wouldn't it be happening all the time? I have only seen it happen once or twice since we had the 6412 replaced. I also have a P2 6412 so it is not a problem with just p3 6412's.

Andrew Wees




Sounds like a signal strength problem to me - the DVR gives up trying to record something if signal strength drops below a certain threshold for an extended period. It would be interesting to find out if the red light is still on once that happens indicating it's still recording. I'm in the same market as AMRivlin and didn't have the trouble with that "Lost" recording. In fact I even was able to capture it via firewire and author to DVD with no issues. I have an older P2 model box - maybe this is another issue with the P3 box?

Guys, I've got a question about my HD set and the Motorola 6412 DVR.

We all know that SD channels look like crap, analog more so than digital, but in general, they stink. So, for the most of the time I've been using my set and the DVR (for about four months), I was using 1080i Wide with it just upscaling all the 480i channels along with sidebars. I mean, it was tolerable. But lately I've quite caring about correct aspect ratio since the only things I really watch in HD are a few shows on Bravo and CNN, ect; pretty much all of my other content is presented in HD or I watch it an SD program on the HD feed because it looks better.

But anyways, since I don't care about a little stretching, I was messing with the output formats and on my LCD HD set, SD programming look great if it is preserved in 480i. Has anyone else noticed this or tried this? I never even bothered with this setting before because I assumed that upconversion (or whatever the term is) would do a whole lot better than just passing the normal signal.

Or is there possibly a different setting I can try or cable that would make it look better than this? Because having a one or two second delay when switching from 480i to 1080i on my set when moving from SD to HD channels is a little annoying.

I tend to like the "strech" function, allowing the box to strech the picture rather than the TV. I also like the 720P, over the 1080i, but I have seen sets where it looks a lot better the other way around.

Since I got my HLP5663W I have had the STB output set to 1080i. I was experimenting with this setting today, and I found that the 720p setting is not compatible with my set. The picture never returns, and I am unable to confirm the setting. 480p works, but this this seems very odd to me since the set has a native resoloution of 720p. I figured that 720p would probably look better since it is the sets naitive resoloution, and it is not interlaced. Any thoughts on this?

Guys, I've got a question about my HD set and the Motorola 6412 DVR.

We all know that SD channels look like crap, analog more so than digital, but in general, they stink. So, for the most of the time I've been using my set and the DVR (for about four months), I was using 1080i Wide with it just upscaling all the 480i channels along with sidebars. I mean, it was tolerable. But lately I've quite caring about correct aspect ratio since the only things I really watch in HD are a few shows on Bravo and CNN, ect; pretty much all of my other content is presented in HD or I watch it an SD program on the HD feed because it looks better.

But anyways, since I don't care about a little stretching, I was messing with the output formats and on my LCD HD set, SD programming look great if it is preserved in 480i. Has anyone else noticed this or tried this? I never even bothered with this setting before because I assumed that upconversion (or whatever the term is) would do a whole lot better than just passing the normal signal.

Or is there possibly a different setting I can try or cable that would make it look better than this? Because having a one or two second delay when switching from 480i to 1080i on my set when moving from SD to HD channels is a little annoying.

Ive always found the best setting to be 1080i/720p wide and preserve 480i picture the clearest setting for me
Also anyone using Cox have a newer firmware than 12.15? 12.22 is suspose to fix the 5:1 DD sound problem.

I'm in the same market as AMRivlin and didn't have the trouble with that "Lost" recording. In fact I even was able to capture it via firewire and author to DVD with no issues. I have an older P2 model box - maybe this is another issue with the P3 box?

No, it was fine on my P3 box.

The only time I've had the cutoff recording issue was the Medium season premiere, which seemed to effect just about everybody.

I swapped out my 6412 last Friday because my old one wouldn't download the guide data, or sync up the clock, and consequently would not do scheduled recordings. I can't really comment on the SD channels, as I rarely watch them, but the HD channels look to me to be not near as clear as they were on my old box. Has anyone else noticed a degredation in HD channels going from a Phase I/II to a phase III? My connection is through component to a Mitsubishi WS-65809(HDMI, or DVI weren't available when it was built)