Motorola 34xx &64xx DVR "Official Thread" - Page 66

I swear I am not crazy, but crazy people usually do make that claim.

I think that PhaseIII has the HDMI and earlier Phases had the DVI-D. I don't know if earlier phases had the 160Gb hard drive.

Here is something on Motorola's web site for the 6400 series.

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US...6400_US_EN.alt

I'm sure you're right, with the 6200 series for instance. I guess I made an assumption that the OP was referring to either a current DCH or DCT 6416 Phase III. I have the latter and it has HDMI, though I choose to use its component ouput so that I can use the split screen function on my Panny plasma.

It's really a shame that Charter (or is it Motorola?) never deployed the split screen fxn within these boxes themselves.

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/...ta%20Sheet.pdf

http://www.motorola.com/consumers/Vi...008406b00aRCRD

BTW for those who might not know, XX12=120GB, XX16=160BG.

My DCT 6412 P3 only had DVI out.

Well, there's validation! Last thing I had with DVI was a MOXI!

Do you guys know of any models of the 34 or 36 that work with the logitech revue run through an avr and are able to get a pic on the tv. Ive tried the dct 3416 dcx 3400 and one other and none work. They all have the hdcp issue. I have to run it straight to my tv and optical out to my avr.

Moto currently only allows two downstream devices through hdmi, the television being one of them. Future firmware may extend this but don't look for it any time soon.

http://simplygoogletv.com/2010/10/397/

I've been playing around with the hard drive in my DCH3416 and decided to hook up an external drive via the eSATA port on the back. The port is active and a message appeared on the screen that said "The use of external drives is not authorized with your account. Please disconnect the external drive and contact your provider. Alert 08"

I've always read that the port is inactive in the US, so I was surprised to see anything occur at all. I may call Comcast (SF Bay area) and see if they can authorize my drive. I've read that Shaw cable in Canada allows external drives and they have to get the serial number of the drive and authorize it before it is usable.

I understand that it's a long shot and that Comcast likely has an iron-clad policy refusing to support any external drives, but I figure it can't hurt to ask.

Here's a screenshot of the message:
eSATA_Not_Authorized.jpg

BTW, I've done some reading on other websites and discovered how it is that some eBay auctions have 1 TB hard drives pre-formatted to work inside the 34xx and 64xx: These people are in an area that allows eSATA external drives and they merely format the drive externally via eSATA and then sell it. The formatted drives can be up to 1TB in size and they will work as either internal or external drives so long as the DVR's firmware isn't ancient (of course, if you're in an area that doesn't allow any external drives, your only choice is to use it as the internal drive).

I find that a little disappointing, as I was hoping somebody really clever had found a good way to read the IBM GPFS filesystem and extend the partition size. But I'm thinking that's a lot more unlikely, being that GPFS is not freely available and is rather esoteric. It's way more likely that someone merely did the eSATA format on one drive and then dd'd that formatted drive till the cows came home (a far less impressive feat, but still one that is beyond my grasp unless Comcast allows external drives).

Anyways, if anyone has any thoughts, I'm all ears.

That's not true. ANY suitable eSATA drive simply works. You do not have to "authorize" or collect serial numbers, etc. Period.

PS. We can also swap out the internal drive as well and the DVR automatically formats "new" drives.

There were tons of messages about Shaw customers having to call with their serial number. A firmware update eventually removed that requirement. Or is that wrong? I am going by old message threads from a different site.

And I absolutely do not believe you can pop in a blank 1TB internal drive and end up with more than 160 GB of usable space. I can pop in a new internal drive (or any drive, even one with incompatible NTFS crap on it) and it'll format it too...but only to a maximum size of 160 GB. But that is old (and unhelpful) news.

Do you have any info that could be helpful in my trying to connect the internal drive to any PC and extend the partition to a full 1 TB? Any info about GPFS support would be particularly helpful.

Well, I called Comcast and asked about authorizing my external drive. The Comcast rep seemed to be a knowledgeable guy who instantly understood the situation, but unfortunately didn't have the answer I was hoping for.

Comcast still does not support the use of external drives and has no plans to do so in the future

Just thought I'd share.

Biggest drawback of the Comcast DVRs, IMO. Either swap it out for the latest model (DCX3400 which might have a 320GB or 500GB drive installed) or get a Tivo or Moxi instead. Both Tivo and Moxi can be upgraded to 2TB internally.

I've been having a problem with my Comcast DVR (DCH3416) where, at since their last software update, when I stop playing a recorded program, then delete it, the DVR resets the audio connection to my Onkyo receiver to all channel mono, from Dolby Digital. I have audio & video connected from the DVR via HDMI, with video going on my to TV via HDMI. Any suggestions? Or, anyone else see this???

That sucks. I haven't seen this, but my HDMI goes straight from my DCH3416 to my TV (Sony XBR4). My Onkyo (905) gets the audio from my DCH3416 via digital coax (RCA connector). I do this so that I can set different TV picture settings on the Cable TV input, versus my Blu-ray player's input (and anybody with an Onkyo 905 or similar knows how broken the Reon implementation is on it). This setup works really well for me.

Ever since a software update a few weeks ago, when I power it up I keep getting "dUI" on the display as my DCT6412 tries to do a HDMI handshake with my Denon AVR.

The only thing I can suggest to you is to turn off HDMI control on your receiver. I find that, in general, having HDMI control turned on will cause even greater handshake problems.

Yes I've noticed that too. But it goes away after a few seconds. When I turn on the tv and receiver to connect with the dvr, it takes several seconds to connect. And, I do have hdmi control on, I think.

This afternoon I had one of the digital music channels on (480i display). My wife turned the system off thinking we were ready to go out for dinner. But we weren't. So I turned it back on as I was finishing up a task in the other room. I wish I would have timed it, but it took several minutes before completing the HDMI handshake.

My connection takes almost one minute.

Wow! Anything more than 5 or 10 seconds for an HDMI handshake is really bad. You should provide details on what model number of cable box, TV, and A/V Receiver you have...Motorola may not be aware of that device combination causing so much trouble.

I wonder if the handshake would be any faster if you connected the HDMI directly from the cable box to your TV.

You could then get the Dolby Digital audio by running either a Toslink optical cable or a coax (RCA connector) cable from the cable box to your A/V Receiver.

*You won't lose any audio quality by doing this. Only Blu-ray and HD DVD benefit from the additional audio bandwidth provided by HDMI. The only downside is having to run one additional cable (and do a little reprogramming of your universal remote).

Today it took only a few seconds. It's hit or miss. It's a Motorola DCT-6412 III connected to a Denon AVR-591. There's also a severe lip-sync problem that's also hit or miss.


The TV is a Toshiba 40rv525u, and that makes things a lot worse. The screen will sometimes turn green and stay that way. It happens sometimes during boot-up, and it also happens sometimes when changing channels from a 1080i braodcast to a 480i, or vice-versa.

At least it used to be that way. I haven't tried it lately. It might be worth a try.


Yup. That's the standard work-around for these types of problems. In extreme cases we have to switch cables from HDMI to component video.

Anyone know if there is an update to make the Motorola DCT3416 Type I have 1080p?

I have this unit and it seems to only do 1080i. It's from Comcast.

If it doesn't do 1080p, anyone know which Comcast DVR can, or which box succeeds this one? (I have a 1080p tv now and would like the DVR to match.)

http://help.rcn.com/files/ONNET6907/...rs/DCT3400.pdf

Also, the user manual doesn't say how to make this box get to a maintenance screen that can show stats such as db levels, etc.

Since my cable modem can show SNR, Downstream\\Upstream power, etc., I would think the DCT3416 could as well. anyone know for sure? thanks

Why? The 3416 passes through the native resolution. No cable channel (or over-the-air network) broadcasts in 1080p, so what would be the point?

You can get to a maintenance screen by powering off the cable box and immediately pressing the Select button on the Comcast remote. It can show you the signal strength for the channel you were last on. (use the left arrow key to move back to the main menu that gives you a *ton* of options)

Ahh. Wasn't aware of that. Any idea when they will start broadcasting in 1080p?



Thanks. Sounds like what I was looking for. Going to test it now.


What about the data port? If I hook the dct3416 up to my home network, what will it allow me to do?

When bandwidth grows on trees...

BD is the only way you will get 1080p, unless they stream it. It won't be on broadcast TV, because they aren't going to change the standards for that, having done it not long ago. It isn't likely to show up on cable, even for OnDemand, because it would take so much more bandwidth, and they are trying to cram MORE stuff on now, so not likely to do something that would make them carry less.

Nothing.

Same with the USB and eSata ports (except in Canada where the eSata port is used for external storage).

Geez. That is what the ports could do 5 years ago.

I see nothing has changed....Not sure why they tease us like that.

The use of the ports is up to your cableco, not Motorola !!

Take it up with Comcast.

My cableco (Shaw) enabled the eSata port and we are free to add any external expansion we want ... I have a 2TB drive external and 500GB internal.

Yup. Comcast is the evil empire.

They are worse than that.

They are ratfarts!

My 6416 was acting fairly loopy last night. First it froze while I was watching a recording, then the screen went black. I unplugged the power and then plugged it back in, seemed to work fine for a bit then it restarted by itself two more times. Also, it seems like a new version of the guide came out, as my recordings are now sorted by folders.

It sounds like you just got yourself the A28 update. One of the cool new features is the ability to search for shows and set search recordings that will auto-record if your show ever appears on the schedule.

I was recently pleasantly surprised to find recordings of Adult Swim's Xtacles show thanks to that feature

One of the problems in the A28 update is that the firewire is a little bit buggy. If you leave a PC hooked up via the firewire port, your cable box will reboot whenever your PC goes into or wakes up from sleep mode. The cable box will also reboot whenever you plug or unplug the firewire cable. You can avoid this by first putting the cable box in Standby before plugging or unplugging the firewire.

In fact, when the cable box reboots, sometimes it will hang indefinitely unless you unplug the firewire cable (the hard drive sometimes refuses to spin up until the firewire is unplugged).