Verizon FiOS QIP6416 DVR - Master Topic! - Page 2

I may switch to FIOS-TV when it comes to my area and I have a Mits DVCR and a Mits firewire HDTV (WS-65869) so I want to be sure I understand what the solution was here.

It sounded like the advice from Phototone was to remove any firewire connection between the DVCR and the HDTV (use component or HDMI), and ONLY have firewire between the STB and the DVCR. Did I understand? The problem for me would be that my Mits DVCR doesn't have component or HDMI out- ONLY firewire (for HD).

Maybe the Mits equipment won't have the problem reported to begin with, but I'd hate to find out AFTER switching to FIOS. Is anyone recording FIOS via firewire to a Mits DVCR?

--hourglass

Hopefully this will allay your concern. I culled this from another thread from one of the first FiOS TV installs in the country.

JVC (an Marantz since it is JVC) decks have component and possibly HDMI (5U) out. The Mitsubishi deck only has firewire out.

But, thanks for the great info.


The first part of his advice was to establish the proper handshake between STB and D-VHS. Without the handshake, the D-VHS deck will pass through the firewire signal, but not record it.

The part about component or HDMI does not apply to Mitsubishi decks. You don't have a component or HDMI out, but you have a much more reliable transport mechansim than us JVC guys!

JJ Davis has a mitsu deck and got them to talk to each other from his post above, perhaps he can post the exact mitsu procedure for you.

------

But, thanks to all that helped settle this. A very important consideration for me when I'm deciding to go to FiOS or not.

Dave

If you have a Mits TV (I do) it has two firewire ports. You can assign hardware to each port.
Now, I don't have a Mits D-VHS deck, just a JVC, but I still think it is not a good idea to string in series the STB, the D-VHS deck and the TV.

If you Connect the STB direct to the TV via Firewire, you can get a signal, however on my STB on Cox (Motorola 6412 III) you are not able to view the program guide or DVR menu. These are only on the other outputs, such as component and HDMI.

Therefore to fully utilize your STB you need to connect it to the TV via either component or HDMI (or DVI). I am assuming that the 6416 is same as 6412, just with a bigger hard disc.

Your Mits TV and Mits D-VHS deck are designed to work as a unit, AFAIK. Just connecting the Mits D-VHS deck to the Mits TV via Firewire should enable you to record what you are watching, as long as you can get a "handshake" firewire connection indicated on the recorder. The firewire connection can send data both ways. I believe that the Mits can output to recorder via firewire whatever it is displaying on it's screen.

The most convenient D-VHS set-up would be as I described in my earlier post, using a JVC D-VHS deck, which, if connected as I described is not dependent on the TV being on to make a recording. You could watch something from another input on your TV, while the JVC D-VHS deck is making a recording from the STB. The Mits D-VHS deck I think is set-up to work with the TV as a recording source, that MAY be the only way. I wish I knew more about the Mits D-VHS decks.

You are correct in that some OSD functionality is not there on the firewire. I agree that with a Mitsu deck, the "parallel" option is best:
STB-> component or HDMI -> Display
STB-> D-VHS


No, the Mistsu can record from any firewire source. In fact, with as cheap as Mitsu decks are now, and how crappy the transport is on the JVC, I'm thinking about getting a Mitsu to record and playback on and using the JVC as a firewire to component transcoder.

Dave

Topics merged and result stuck.

Thanks, Ken.

I currentlyhave the FIOS internet service and I'm also a D* subscriber that is seriously considering FIOS TV (when it finally arrives in my neighborhood). I just took a look at the .pdf file with the specs on the 6416 DVR and have a couple of questions:

1. What is the Ethernet port for? Can these things be networked so programs can be transferred from one DVR to another?

2. Does the USB port work? Can I hook up an external hard drive to expand the storage capacity?

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

Does anyone know if this DVR has the ability to do "first run" for Season Passes? Like the Tivo does?

Or is it "stupid" like the Time Warner SA 8300 series where it's idea of a Season pass is basically (record this channel at this time, regardless of what's on?), so you get like all the reruns and if the show is moved, it misses the show you want?

It allows you to set it to "Record New Episodes", "Record New and Rerun" or "Record all shows & Duplicates". In addition, you have a choice of recording at the scheduled time or record at anytime.

Has anyone else had an absolutely horrid experience with these boxes being bad? I'm not sure if they intentionally picked out all the dud boxes for me or not, but I needed three HD DVRs on Saturday. The guy had four with him. One worked just fine... The other two, not so much. Their serial numbers were extremely similar, so the install tech figured they were out of the same batch. When they came up, an error message appeared on screen and the box stayed in some diagnostic mode.

So the guy brings the fourth in, and it takes two hours of resetting to get the box to see the digital channels. It always saw the HD local and local analogs without a problem, but they had to keep resetting it because it wouldn't display the digital tier. Problem solved I thought. Well, Saturday night I am set to record Cops, AMW, HBO Boxing and a few HD movies. Only Cops and AMW are recorded. Next night, about 8 hours of stuff. Nothing is recorded. Apparently this other box is bad.

Then for the third box on Saturday, they had another truck with two on board come out. The first wasn't checked out of the warehouse properly, and thus couldn't be initiated. The other one again refused to show the digital channels. They stayed until 8pm on Saturday trying to get it to work, and eventually left me with an SD box until they come out again in another seven hours.

I find it impossible that I've had four out of five boxes bad and that it's just an isolated problem. And yet, no one else has mentioned having a large percentage of their QIP-6416-1's not working for one reason or another. Thus I have to wonder: Is this just bad luck, or does Motorola have some serious manufacturing problems?

It's all you.

Just kidding! No problems here at Tranquility Base. Took about 15 minutes to download and, so far, no problems. Just beginning to really explore what all can be done with the box. I like the fact that it allows you to choose first run only when recording a season, PLUS it allows you to set the recorder to record th show at "anytime" instead of just the pre-planned time slot. I am guessing that means if the program is delayed for some "breaking news story" that the unit will adjust the time? Anybody know?

These boxes won't be anymore adept at doing this than the TiVo boxes are. "Record anytime" means "anytime based on what in the guide". There is no way for the box to know that, for example, your program was delayed due to an overrun in a football game. The "start recording at" and "end recording at" options can be used to widen your timeframe in that instance.

I have had 3 QIPs installed since Friday. All three worked out of the box and I have seen no unusual problems. Most of the TiVo functions are there, and I will likely just get used to the couple that aren't.

An irritation I have encountered (and seen posted on a thread elsewhere as well) is that scheduled recordings begin approx 2 minutes before the scheduled time and end around 1 minute after. This messes you up in cases where you are recording consecutive programs across different channels, or happen to be watching a VOD program during a transition.

For example, we were watch a VOD movie this weekend. In the background we were also recording a program, and another program that followed it on another channel. For the 2 minutes of the "unexplained overlap" the box made us stop the VOD (it did ask nicely though) so it could record the two channels in parallel. After the transition we were able to restart.

Note that going into the recording options provides no way to stop this behavior. In all cases programs are set to start and end "on time" but add this time buffer anyway.

I see a lot of "features" in this box that I believe are designed for users who have trouble dealing with such things as slightly-off network scheduling, dual tuners, etc. Given the success of the TiVo in providing access to these services in a highly intuitive manner I am surprised that Microsoft seems to think we are all so stupid.

Anyway, if *anyone* knows how to turn off this time buffer feature I would greatly appreciated knowing. It would eliminate what is currently my only functional grip with the box.

I've had my FIOS TV installed for 24hrs and already had the 6416 crash and reboot itself a couple of times. Also, there are times when the audio is out od synch with the video - sems to be on recorded shows and during regular viewing. Anyone else seen this?

These boxes do have some history of quality problems according to early adopters in this area. Odd that more of this has never shown up on the forum....

I am still waiting to hear if anyone has any insights into solving the "time buffer" that the QIP's put around recordings. This is causing some consternation in our household. I expect that somewhere there is a "secret menu" that allows savy users to modify whatever internal setting is causing this behavior. Anyone know how to get into a Microsoft TV service menu?

Yesterday the QIP missed an afternoon recording of "Dr. Phil". Wasn't a huge issue, but there is absolute no way to diagnose why this occurred. No other recordings were going on other than a 2-minute overlap with Oprah (brought on by the unwanted time buffer). No one was home to have told the QIP not to record Dr. Phil. I am missing TiVo's nice recording history feature, which was always very useful in the "who shot this recording?" analysis.

Of course, the bigger issue is that you're actually recording Dr. Phil?

Ha! not for me, but for the wife. That is why we record that and Oprah on the SD locals vs the HD. Sometimes there are 7 or 8 of these backed up on the recorder and I couldn't bear to see that much disk space wasted.

Everything else is recorded in beautiful HD.

I was wondering if you can bring in your OTA channels (or analog Fios channels) to your Tivo and then send the Tivo in as another input into your display? This way you could avoid using up your precious hard drive to this fluff!

You may have to take the bull by the horns and contact Verizon directly. I have had the service for a week and a day now and am overall very pleased. It took the tech a while to get my two 6416s (one was a return from a customer who downgraded) and my one 2500 configured but they have been up and running ever since. I have had a couple of glitches with the VOD. I have called up a few programs (just fooling around--I don't typically watch anything in SD) and have gotten the message that the VOD was not available or something to that effect. I am extremely pleased with the responsiveness of the menu system and program guide but some of the navigation seems to be not that well thought out. I look forward to gaining more familiarity with the remote and the box.

I have contacted the Verizon FSC (Fiber Solutions Center, 888-553-1555) approximately five times regarding sundry issues, mainly local programming, but I did have some specific input regarding some of the navigation shortcomings I referred to above. One of the reps I spoke with gave me his email address and asked me to put my suggestions in writing and he promised to pass them along to his supervisor.


My JVC DVHS VCR's OSD reads: QIP-6416QIP-6200. This was what displayed after connecting a 6 pin to 4 pin firewire cable and running the automatic I-link detector on the JVC. The JVC assigned I-2 to the 6416.

My brand new 6416 has also had the reboot problem. It rebooted a couple of times during the week, the on Sat, Feb 2, it rebooted 6 times is 2 hours. Not good for recording stuff. A service call is set for Monday afternoon for a replacement box.

Anything to look for at install time to maybe avoid some of these issues with this DVR?

I too have experienced inexplicable failure to record scheduled programs; no error message, no overlap problems, the box just didn't record the show. Where are you finding the options to record only new shows vs reruns? I have not noticed those options when trying to set up a recording of a series.

Finally, for the guy who wanted to know if you could hook up a USB hard drive to a USB port on the box to get more storage, the answer is, sadly, no. If anyone knows how to enable these ports for external storage, please let us know.

I know that you can access "season pass" options by going to the "subscriptions" (I think that is the name) tab on the List screen and selecting the program whose options you want to modify. You should then be taken to a screen that allows you to modifying recording options. First-run vs. reruns vs. all is one of these.

I haven't been able to determine a reasonable pattern for these missed recordings, other than there appears to be cases where:

1. A particular show (it is very show specific) just doesn't want to record consistently. "Dr. Phil" is my only example of this

2. A particular showing of a program that the DVR does not recognize as matching the subscription. In the case of the back-to-back "Scrubs" episodes the DVR does not appear to match the second showing (i.e. no "record" marking prior to occurence). This is very consistent. Note that if I manually go forward and mark these for recording in advance they execute appropriately.

My conclusion is that in the first case the DVR is panicing or perhaps doesn't like Dr. Phil. In the second case there appears to be a bug in the DVR's selection logic. The TiVo successfully records all of these programs, and has actually never missed a recording (and the nicest feature is of those there were "missed" there was a logical explanation in the recording history. This would be a nice add-on for the FiOS DVR).

That's the diff between a DVR company developing a product and Microsoft developing one.

I'm actually now having this same problem. "Season Passes" for this box appear to be utterly, totally useless. Not only do a number of the shows set for "New Episodes" end up recording a random smattering of repeats, I've now been having a consistent problem with it not recording a show.

It's on every weekday; I set up the season pass when I got my replacement box last Tuesday. It recorded all of last week just fine, and recorded this Monday without a problem. Starting on Tuesday, it didn't record. Wednesday, it didn't record. And now today, it didn't record. Obviously the software this box has is either in a very early stage or was done by incompetents. I think the advice everyone should be following at this point is to just go through the guide every day and manually set up your recordings. Looks like setting a season pass can't be trusted...

Relax dude

My theory is that the recording problem has something to do with the guide information getting out of sync with the meta-info that the subscription is using to match for recording. I'm pretty sure they are constantly tweaking this stuff and that we will continue to see some bumps and settling in the near future.

On the bright side, I also expect we will be seeing some improvements and new features. For example, I am now absolutely certain that my local SD quality is significantly improved from when I first got the box. It is hard to tell the difference between the local SD and the same material upconverted on the HD station.

We are certainly early adopters here, and there are a lot of things that can go wrong. For now I am just developing the approporiate procedures to work around the temporary problems, as you suggest.

Thought this article would be of interest. So my questions are: will I be able to connect these STB to my home wireless network, similiar to what TIVO provided. The ability to share music, pictures from my PCs that are networked? Will we be able to share recording between the STB? Sounds like there are some untapped technologies in the STB.

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT)
today redefined the digital video recorder (DVR) as a multimedia hub that lets
consumers access and share video recordings, video-on-demand (VOD) content,
pictures and music in and around the home with the introduction of the new
Motorola QIP family of products.


The new Motorola QIP6416 is a high-definition (HD) capable, dual- tuner DVR
with watch-and-record capability; the Motorola QIP6200 is a single-HD tuner
set-top; and the Motorola QIP2500 is a single-tuner standard- definition model.


These three new Motorola set-tops are the first to include built-in home
media networking capabilities. Using a technology known as MoCA (short for
Multimedia over Coaxial Alliance), the Motorola QIP set-tops can create a
multimedia network using the existing coaxial cable already found in the walls
of a consumer's home. This network is capable of transporting high- definition
video, high-quality digital voice, and high-speed data to televisions, DVR,
game consoles, wireless access points, and home computers.


The products are also unique because they support two different network
architectures within the same device, providing service providers with a
choice in way they can deliver digital video services into the home: The first
supported is the traditional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) method
commonly used today by cable operators, which sends video information to the
home over radio frequencies. The second is the newer, emerging video- over-IP
method, which delivers video to the home using packets of data.

We've had the service since early August and the missed recording issue has been a real pain. So far the best advice I can give is what the techs tell me, set your programs to record individually. Don't use the "series manager", it is flakey. They tell me the issue their "top" priority, (right after collecting payments).
Since I stopped using the series manager and went to individual recording, I haven't missed a show.

Alan

It's totally worked for me on ALL my season passes now for three weeks w/o a hiccup. Not saying you're not doing things wrong, but are you certain you've got everything set right?

I will verify that I have everything set up right on my end. All season passes have worked without a hitch EXCEPT for Dr. Phil and the second back-to-back episode of Scrubs. Note that Dr. Phil recorded successfully all of last week by requesting a one-time recording each day that it was on. Scrubs likewise works if you manually request the recording. This is some odd "doesn't match" behavior of the season passes that I certainly can't explain. Perhaps it will be corrected with an update at some point?....