How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP - Page 32

What is the Max length of Firewire you can use before there is any signal loss from recording from the 6412 to a pc? I need to connect aprox 35 feet of cable, and need to know if there will be problems before getting the cable.

I have a moto6412 and I am running fine on XP SP2 (aside from encryption issues). No problems with CapDVHS or VLC, but am now using SageTV to view and record streams (thanks to the hard work of AndersNolberger & DFA!).

ryalch - Try the latest nightly build of VLC - 0.8.1 did not work for me either.

scanpa - The longest standard firewire run you could go is 14' without a repeater.

I'm in the same boat. I needed about 40 ft so I bought a 25 ft and a 15 ft cable with a hub/repeater for the middle connection. The problem I have is getting data through the hub. The 25 ft cable by itself works and the 15 ft cable also works but when connecting the two through the hub, the connection isn't recognized by windows.

So, will there be problems? My guess is yes. The first problem is finding a place to buy a 35 ft cable. The longest I found was the Sanmax 25 ft'r at newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...149-012&depa=0

Does it matter if it is 4 pin or 6 pin to connect the 6412 to the pc???

No go on the SA 8300 HD , no wizzard no nothing ,did i miss something ?? please help



dice

The 6412 has a 6-pin connector and I have used it to connect to a 6-pim connector on my desktop and a 4-pin connector on my laptop. Both worked.

I think the extra 2 wires can supply power, if needed.

As far as I know, firewire is not active on the 8300HD. Most cable providers have only been activating firewire on models without a hard drive. In my area, only the 4200HD has firewire active.

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but I'm a newbie when it comes to transferring from DVR to PC to DVD media. I have the Moto 6412 and plan on connecting it to my Sony VAIO laptop so I can transfer recorded programs from the DVR to my PC and then edit for burning to DVD. What I need to know is should I buy a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable or a 6-pin to 4-pin cable? I would guess if I get a 6 to 6 that I can get a 6 to 4 adapter to attach if needed for the future? Can someone help me out as I'd like to be able to start doing this. Also, other than what's laid out in the very first post in this thread, do I need anything else in order to transfer from the DVR to my XP SP2 laptop. Thanks.

Thanks jonnyb, i was hoping they are active and i missed something,o well ,i called adelphia and they said they thought all ports are on, so maybe they will do something to enable them, thanks again for the confirm

If you ain't much of a tech person, search or look into ya PC/Laptor menu see it says 4/6 pins firewire. OR simply look into the firewire port on the 6412 then compare the size to your sony. 6412 is 6pins and if your vaio IEEE port look way smaller than the 6412 then it should be 4 pins. No one can tell what size of firewire of a pc/laptor you got there, it's different from one model to another. On the safe side, even the same model, who knows you may have the add-on. Firewire is only $7-12 bucks a piece if you know where to look.

Okay, question - How does using the setup outlined in the previous 47 pages (which I got about 2/3 of the way through before my eyes started bleeding) contrast w/ simply using a QAM-enabled card like the MyHD-130 or the Fusion3G QAM?

(Other than the discussion of how to get it to record C5 channels via clickery, or the legit but not what I'm aiming for discussion of using HD-VHS).

in SOME cases, some of your cable channels will be recordable with this method since the 5C flag will be not implemented or set to copy freely... but the channel could still be scrambled by the cable company (VERY common) and NOT recordable by the MDP-130.

You should be able to use the software which comes with those cards to make recordings of any non-encrypted QAM channels on your cable system (and probably any non-scrambled analog). However, the cable company is legally allowed to scramble everything other than the stuff on the basic tier. The only digital channels that they have to put on the basic tier are any channels of rebroadcast free-to-air DTV that they carry, so all of that should be recordable. If they carry any local DTV channels in an encrypted state, then they are breaking FCC regulations, and you should call them on it.

The networks will begin to apply the Broadcast Flag to their programming but, since it doesn't constitute encryption of the signal over-the-air on on the cable, it won't affect your ability to record it with tuner cards.

I don't know if anyone has talked about this or not but.....you don't need an HDTV to use the Motorola 6412. I thought of this when I played recorded HDTV Shows with my Avel LinkPlayer on a standard TV. It looked a lot better then Standard/Digital cable. So I borrowed my friends Motorola 6412 box and low and behold. It is beautiful. So I went to Comcast picked up the box and am now in heaven. To compare it. HD shows on a standard TV appear like you are watching a DVD movie. So, if you have been wanting this box and are waiting until you get an HDTV, wait no more.

My TV (Apex AT2702S) has a S-Video input on it, but composite looks good too.

Run to your area Comcast equipment place. Pick up the box and tell them you have a HDTV. It's 9.95 extra, but that is nothing really. If you call the toll free number, they will make you pay $30 to have someone come and install it.

If this has already been talked about in another thread, let me know.

Just followed the instructions:
Worked great with some patience. Follow the directions carefully.
I have the motorola dual tuner from comcast. Firmware is in the 9's.
Anyway, analogue stations record without a problem and playback in windows media and other programs such as powerdvd is perfect.
However, some problems with recording the high def stations:

The channels that are not broadcasting in full HD (ie the ones with the bars on the sides) are able to record fine but have problems with playback with winmedia player and power dvd ..not sure why...So, I read one of the above posts and found a mention of vlc. NOt knowing what this is, i searched it and found a free downloadable vlc player, and the media plays without a problem with this player. Thumbs up for this player..seems very powerful and also free.

However, when trying to record full HD channels I cant. My guess is that there is copyright protection on them. Can anyone confirm or refute this?
Also, I am interested in videoediting and converting some of my saved shows to a dvd. But, adobe premier doesnt seem to recognize these captured video files. Anyone have any suggestions on how to save the media to a dvd? thanks.

I think I anwered my questions from reading the many posts before mine.
Thanks. This stuff is cool. However, we need to work on the hd recordings. Thanks!

I just want to say that I have been successful in recording and playing HD from Comcast's Motorola 6214 using the instructions at the beginning of this thread. Number of programs have been recommended and seem to be needed to finalize this process with recording to a DVD. The last product that I have played with is the NeroVision 3 that seem to have all the needed parts to do this in one program (I actually almost purchased this product not realizing that My copy of Nero suite covers the license for this product).
Everything was fine with the NeroVision except the part that lets you capture video to hard drive from any device. When I selected the Panasonic D-VHS AV/C Device from the list of usable devices in the NeroVision, the program refused to recognize this device as a valid device. Is there something about the NeroVision that prevents it to see this device since the other programs like CapDVHS or VLC see this device just fine?

I just wish to have this all in one program working so I do not have to switch from one to another just to do one job

Has anyone been able to hook up an external Firewire drive and archive saved shows to it? Or how about an external Firewire DVD burner.

Boy, Do I wish this was possible......

Are there any "minimum system requirements" for capturing without dropping frames? I captured the national anthem from the Super Bowl to my Dell Inspiron 8600 (Pentium M 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, 5400rpm HD) and noticed the playback was a slight bit choppy. I moved the file to my faster, more powerful desktop and noted that the choppiness was almost non-existent, but still just barely perceptible.

There didn't seem to be any problems when making the capture. Even though I'm using a 25 ft firewire cable, I saw no error messages and have made several apparently successful captures of short segments.

Are there some limitations that are known for being able to capture the stream without errors and are there marginalizing factors?

Thanks,

Tim

What scanpa's trying to say is that it's not part of the design. Some DVRs with active Firewire connections have an "archive to tape"-type function which will drive an external device using AV/C commands (turning it on, telling it to record, etc, all over the Firewire), but this cannot be done with a vanilla Firewire disk drive. There are harddrives with Firewire connections which can be manipulated through an AV/C protocol--they're called AV-HDDs. I believe that RCA's "DVRs" are driven by this protocol--by their televisions (you can see a spec for one of them here). I think that people have reported success controlling these things using their Mitsubishi televisions. The cable STBs which can manipulate D-VHS decks, however, may only be able to deal with those (it's a different AV/C subunit protocol).

Hey Tim,

I think this is a hard question to answer. There are too many variables, like programs running in the background & fragmented hard disks.
I just configured an old PC I had lying around as a dedicated recorder. It's a 1.6Ghz P4 with 512M of ram and a 7200 rpm HD. I have no problems capturing with it. Clean Windows install with minimal applications.
The CPU usage while capturing averages around 10-12% which leads me to believe even a 1.6Ghz P4 is fast enough.
A bottleneck could be the sustained transfer rate of the hard disk though I would assume any hard disk and supporting chipset paired with a Pentium M should be fast enough.

Roger

I think the cable operators like Comcast will sell/rent external drives which will be used to increase storage. Come on, you only get 15 hours of recording HDTV using the 120GB hard drive that it comes with. They would have to do something to stay competitive.

Competitive to what? I don't think that the cable companies are really worried about losing DVR lease business to people purchasing $1000 CableCARD TiVos (whensoever these appear) that'd take 4 or 5 years to make pay for themselves versus the monthly cost of leasing a DVR.

Some models of STB, like the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD, have a Serial ATA connection for the addition of an external HDD. (We were discussing that in another thread, here). We don't know quite yet but we suspect that these expansion drives will only be available for lease--it's certain that, if you connect one, an STBs will only use it if it's hit with a command from the headend to enable it--the spec sheet for the external drive says so.

The specs that the FCC requires that an STB's 1394 connections be compliant to would seem to preclude them being used by the STB as an interface for vanilla, off-the-shelf, Firewire HDDs.

anyone have any luck porting 6200ch to windows ? would be great for sageTV implementation of firewire capture

OKay, I have a Motorola 6214 DVR Dual Tuner box using Firmware 9.12 on Comcast. I am trying to record using a firewire cable. I have followed the instructions on this thread over and over, I have used both versions of the .inf drivers (meitape) and I just can not get it to work. Also, I cant see anything when I load up the VLC program. I boots up fine, but nothing shows. And when I close it its still running in the background, in task manager, and when I close it from there my computer reboots.

I have read many others that have had this working for some time now, but I have tried and failed

Any information that would help me get this working would be greatly apreciated. TIA

Hi Everyone,

I have a SA Explorer 8000 from Charter (MA) and reading these threads I guess that the firewire port will probably NOT work.

I am preparing to contact Charter to request a working firewire port model under FCC guidlines.

BUT before I do, I would like to know of a definate way of confirming or denying if the firewire port works on the STB.

I have three Widnows XP PC's:
One is a Desktop with PCI Audigy sound card Firewire port
One is a Laptop with built in (NEC?) firewire port
One is a Desktop with Nforce4 Motherboard with 2 (Nvidia?) FireWire Ports

What compatibility can I expect ?
How should I check if I have a live conection , which PC and software will give me the best responce for intial testing?

Help!

I have a SA3250 on Cox connected to my HTPC and I do not get the "found new hardware" when I plug in the firewire cable. I'm running windows XP and have two different firewire ports, one on my AIW 8500DV card and the other on the motherboard. Both show up in the device manager. Cox says the firewire port is active on my cable box. Any one got any ideas how to resolve this? Is there a way to check that the SA3250's firewire is really active?