Charter cable hooked up the Motorola box today and I am having a challenge getting accurate information on it's capabilities.
1. I asked one of Charter's "tech" guys about driving a monitor with HDMI and a front projector using the component output (same channel). He said No, however I tried running both simultaneously and they worked great!
2. I inquired about connecting an external hard drive, to the SATA port. He said he thought it would work but some HD channels (HBOHD for example) would not record. I asked if he thought it was a HDCP issue and he didn't know.

SO, have any of you been successful in hooking up an external hard drive and recording HD content?

If this issue has already been discussed elsewhere please point me to the thread.

i have NOT been successful in recording HD content to an external hard drive. i have this unit and have tried everything. when i go to the diagnostics menu i can see that the usb port is active. i tried connected everything to it, and nothing works. i even tried getting a belkin transfer line and hooking up my pc to it, but it was not recognized. finally i called motorolla and it seems they have little info on it too. the rep said that these connectors in the back were for future uses that are not out yet but she couldn't see why we couldn't use them now for an ext hard drive. no luck so far though.

Response Deleted

I really doubt the information you stated for many reasons:

-USB isn't for connecting a hard drive, it was meant for peripherals like a keyboard and such. eSATA is the external hard drive interface port.
-The "hack" you speak of isn't a "hack" at all, someone just created the drivers and the program, that records the standard MPEG2 ts stream that comes over the firewire ports as required by FCC law. I've done it many times.
-The drives inside are not 180GB, no model exists with a 180GB drive. They exist in 120GB,160GB,250GB and 320GB. Very early models only had 80GB. The earlier models were also IDE, not SATA.
-You claim you know detailed information that the box records everything you watch/order, yet you do not know that A) Simply opening the box and breaking seals/warning labels will get the full price of the box billed to you. B) The file system on the drive itself is not readable by Windows or any OS, C) It's encrypted and tied to an individual box identifier/hardware ID. You actually think it'd be easier to do this than the "hack" LOL!
-I don't believe that the box can tell EVERYTHING the user has watched/recorded on the hard drive. PPV purchases, maybe but those are not stored on the hard drive. Your so called "porn flicks" found on Christian folks hard drives wouldn't be found on the hard drive at all, PPV cannot be recorded to the drive.
-The reset trick you posted can easily be found on the public internet

So I'm sorry but I don't believe a word you said with your post that is full of inaccurate statements. If people like you program these boxes it's no wonder they are full of bugs!

I work at a cable company programming these boxes and the firmware is what keeps the USB from working. so the diagnostic screen you get to by holding power and select and powering the unit on is somewhat misleading, it's to prevent copyright infringement. However there is a hack requiring firewire and a few extra windows xp drivers and theoretically you can copy the shows from the settop to your hard drive, but if you look in side the case, you'll see the unit employs a sata hard drive from seagate usually 180 gigs. Why not take the hard drive out, slave it to your computer and pull the content you need and once it's on your computer figure out which audio codecs and video decoders you need to make it work. Would be easier than having cords running all over the place....just a thought.

Also these units DO have tattle tale chips and I know there are folks trying desperatley to get pay per views and such for free but when I get a customers box back and put it through our burn process, I can see everything they've ever watched, ordered, or flipped through. But we have NO way of knowing when a hard drive has been tampered with or taken out and such nonsense. Also to note when you turn your box in to the cable company for a new one or whatever reason please CLEAR THE HARD DRIVE for your protection With the motorola Dh6416R power the unit to the diagnostic mode and it will say D1 on the screen and then using the remote on ours press the circular arrow 3 times, the my dvr button 3 times and the live button 3 times in that order and it formats the drive. I can't tell you how many porn flicks I find on hard drives of would be christian folks that I personally know. HA HA!

At this time, no Motorola DVRs anywhere in the U.S. support external storage. Many cable providers are now deploying the Motorola DCX DVR, which is available with more internal capacity (250GB or 320GB).

If you want more storage than that, you basically have three options: (a) a TivoHD, (b) a Moxi, or a (c) Windows 7 PC with CableCard tuner. All of these solutions support both external drives and internal drive upgrades.

Motorola PVR can record to a eSata drive only. standard and hdtv alike. I have one and the eSata has been activated.
I do have a few concern about the way it works. On the Bell PVR's you could actually go into the drive and store what you wanted to save. in the motorola it seems the external HD has to fill up first to the level the internal one, but I'm not sure what happens after that.

If anyone knows how they work please let me know. I have only had it for a few days

BertBert.
What specific model Motorola PVR do you have from your Canadian cable Company?

Moto 6416 III through Shaw


BertBert.
What specific model Motorola PVR do you have from your Canadian cable Company?