How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP - Page 87

The readme lists the 6412 as the latest model supported. Does anyone know if this driver will work with the 6416 III? Also, what degree of success have those who have attempted this under non-MCE XP SP2 had?

Thanks,
Bob

6416 III is the same thing as a 6412, just with a 160 GB hard drive, an HDMI port, and a SATA interface. Should function the same.

Thanks, Twitchee3. Now I just have to convince Cox that they should meet the FCC mandate regarding firewire.

The problem is that they do not have to provide you with a 6412 or 6416 with firewire, they just have to have ANY firewire enabled STB for you upon request. Now, chances are they have 6412's or 6416's that are firewire enabled, but they usually don't even respect the FCC mandate is it is.

Yes, that has been the problem here. In fact, trying to get any information at all over the phone is impossible. Either they run off every 2 mins. to 'ask' someone, or they just state ignorance. The mandate does state that the STB must be HD, But I've grown attached to the 6416's dual tuner HD/DVR.

During one conversation, a 'supervisor' said that *none* of their STBs had firewire enabled, but I'm not sure about that, given that no one I've talked to seems to knwo what they are talking about.

In the interim, I'm using s-video to transfer the DVR recordings to a Navis Pro card. Quality is not too bad, but not digital quality.

Thanks,
Bob

Could you please provide the firewire.zip link again? I am just starting to install the drivers and hopefully use my Motorola 6212 box to record on my computer via firewire. Are there any new fixes since your original post regarding this? I am not very technical so this will be some fun for me.
Thanks
Rick

Would you be so kind to send me the firewire.zip link please. I cannot find it on the webpage.
Thanks
Rick

Try the first post in this thread.

Try the first post in this thread.

Thanks, got the info. Ended up using another link on a previous post -replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412 which has all the drivers needed in one folder. However, it sounded too good to be true and was. It appears I have the driver installed but when I run CapDVHS, it can't find the device....
Any idea where I went wrong? My device manager looks like this:
VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE Host Controller
-1394 Net Adapter
-AV/C Tuner(disabled)
-Motorola AV/C Panel Device(DCT5412)
-Unknown Device(disabled)


Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Well you should probably enable the AV/C Tuner for starters, that's the 6412.

Firstly, the drivers I had up were for the Motorolla units, yes, but I'm not sure about the 5412, in fact I didn't even know they made such a unit. Also, the ones that TimMoore has over at the green button's site are the absolute latest ones and you'd be best off getting his. Besides his will automatically install them for you, plus give you a few more things if you have MCE 2005, such as the ability to use them with the Media Center. The latest drivers are in the thread by ghostlobster here: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/98686.aspx.

There is only "one driver" and its the one that 'got out' from Panasonic MotionDV. Probably my copy, too. If it doesn't work on your box, its either a) unsupported b) you didn't RTFM. In either case, spending time with the 1st post of this thread is a recommended course of action.

Also, if your 'drivers' crash, 'getting new versions' isnt going to help anything because at the end, its all spins around meidvhs driver, which hasnt been updated by Panasonic for a few years.

Sorry, typo on the 5412...should read 6412

Thanks for the suggestions...all of you. I used the instructions included with the "replayguide" source...easier to understand for a non-techy like myself. It appears the only active drivers needed are, "Motorola Tuner AV/C Device (DCT6412) according to the instructions. When viewing the diagnostics page on the 6412, the d11 Interface status-1394 I/O Device shows Active Ports=0 and 5C=0. According to Shaw, my ISP, the Firewire ports are active.
Just a thought. My firewire cable lights up with a blue light when connected to my computer. Which I guess indicates it is hot. Should the cable light up when I connect it to the 6412 as well? If it is hot?
Still trying....
Thanx
Rick

Shan-
I had the same problem, and it turned out to be a bad (brand new) cable. Just oen thing to try.

Now, for my problem (which i wouldn't have started a new thread for had I remembered this one). I think that my .ts files from CAPDVHS are invalid. At least that is that is what WINDVD says when I try to play them. And HDTV2DVD won't let me drag them into the Assets window. Any suggestions?

Then use DGDecode/DGIndex, or Womble MPEG Editor. (google either one)

I tried DGIndex. Still no go, but it gave me a more specific error: No video header sequence, I believe it was.

How nice it would be to have XP64 drivers.

Someone is going to have to write 64bit drivers eventually, just for Vista support.

Do you by chance have a 0byte file as a result of this "recording"?
heh.

Hows this for a ramble

Seems to me like all of the bogus files sizes are a result of the box itself trying to fool the recording device (the pc in this case) .
Similar to what happens with some of the copy protection on newer Sony DVD's.

I am not sure how to describe this correctly but if a nominal final file size is supposed to be 38mbs for a given signal (HD) then the STB through firmware may be adding additional blank information to the stream?
In other words maybe every other bit is a blank or bogus bit designed to throw off any decoder set to look for a typical bit stream in a standard mpeg2 file >?

I have no idea what im talking about really but this sounds like an easy way for the cable companies to enforce the "rules".
Simply detect "if" a firewire device is attached "then" write additional bits into the stream.

I wonder if one can take one of those 80mbs+ files and try to run it through DVDDecrypter/DVDFabDecrypter or a similar program somehow? which is designed to see these things.

Rambling for sure......just trying to plant ideas that may turn on the light bulb in one of the gurus minds that like to tinker with these things.

I have no aspiration of selling dvds that I may create by capturing a stream from an STB that I pay for as part of a service that I pay for, I just really hate being told I cant watch that content however I see fit once I have paid for it.
If that means I time shift my way and transport it my way to another device in my house wheres the beef? being confined to one box and one display is like being in a cage, yet I still pay for that "privilege". kinda big brothery

Why shoudl I be forced to use a DVR the cable company provides when I have hardware wholly capable of doing the same thing that I have already paid for?

This is ridiculous.

[Q]
Do you by chance have a 0byte file as a result of this "recording"?[/Q]
Nope. Not over 4GB, either, so I don't think it is a FAT32 problem.

No.
All those things you mentioned are invalid. OTA stuff does have null byte padding to make it fit into a specified bitrate. But what you are suggesting is ridiculous/pointless. There is a robust content protection mechanism which is 5C. It has nothing to do with file sizes or whatever. The way it works is simple, you either get a picture of you get nothing.

If you're recording a 80mbps file with capdvhs, all you have is a multiplexed stream of 2-3 programs. Using dgindex, or any software which can parse and show proper transport streams, you will see multiple programs. You can demux them as you wish, or whatever. There is no conspiracy theory. Nobody wants to make you have less use of firewire. Put your tinfoil hat down.

When I try to install the firewire driver, firestb.msi, I get an error stating that it requires Microsoft Media Center 2005. I have XP Home on the machine I want to install it to (a laptop). Does anyone know of another driver?

Thanks,

Rustyp

Actually the ones I got were from Sage's site I belive, but they most likely are the same driver and from what I understand the actual .dll files are still the same, although MS has upgraded them a few times since, I haven't paid attention to see if the Panasonic ones have actually been updated or not and the portion of it that has been updated in Tim's package is the installer which supposedly adds support for more equipment than what was in the package I put up.

As far as getting ones designed for x64 edition goes, I too would like to see them but I don't know enough yet about the differences between the x32 and x64 versions to create the installer for the x64 edition and I don't know if the files in x64 edition will need any modifications to make them work or not to get them to work like the ones for x32 do. Since the files are actually a part of Windows XP to begin with there must be a way to use what's in there and just use an inf file to activate them, along with the 1394 transport that is shown as "Unknown" in the Driver Manager.

@Rick, I kinda figured that's what you meant but I wanted to be sure, and it's also why I didn't make a big deal out of it.

All it does to "support more equipment" is adds device IDs to the inf file. Really.

Same here Windows XP Pro w/SP2.

Check out the FAQ section at the end of the readme file included with the installer. If you're installing the same kit I did, there are instructions on passing command-line parameters to the installer that force it to install under XP. It worked for me, after having received the MCE error.

i used the firewire_6412 drivers with XP and a new DCT6200 box from Shaw. recording via CapDVHS worked great. I also discovered that I could use VLC to record, by going to File/Open Capture Device, then clicking on 'Refresh List' under Video Device Name, selecting DCT6200 as the device, then using the 'stream output' settings to specify a name and location for the recorded file. I did not mess with encapsulation method or other settings, but left everything else at defaults. Hitting OK a couple of times gets you back to the VLC main window, where it looks as if nothing is happening, but take a look at the file you specified earlier and hit F5 a few times and you will see it growing rapidly. Recorded JayLeno on NBCHD last night for 20 minutes, the file was about 1.82GB in size.

I have a Moto 6412 with Passport Echo software and I just got my 6-pin to 4-pin firewire cable so I wanted to give this a try. I have not made it all the way through this thread but I wanted to try it anyway.

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000, 1.6Ghz Pentium M, 1GB RAM. I tried to record a bit of a show I had saved on the DVR. The result was choppy, contstantly breaking up, and totally unwatchable. I have my 6412 set to output 1080i. Would this work better if I set it to 720p?

BulkHedd, it is more likely that your system couldn't handle playback of the file, which it likely captured easily, digitally, at the 1080i reslution.

720P *may* alleviate this, if your system can play that back. I seriously doubt capture is the issue here.