Official AVS Motorola DCX series HD DVR Topic! - Page 83

You Canadians are so lucky to be able to buy your own DCX-3400's ..... No such luck with Comcast in the U.S.

Not to put too fine a point on it but none of the 8 steps I listed require that you "own" the DVR. The entire process is reversible if someone wants "their" DVR back.

I know many, many Comcast and other cableco customers that have much larger capacity DVRs than they received from the cable company.

Not much different than putting fancy tires and rims on a leased car and replacing the original ones when your lease is up.

My new DCX-3400-M has some kind of a foil security seal that will tear when the box is opened .... interesting. Plus, I'm sure that there is fine print within something Comcast makes customers sign that legally prevents them from tampering with Comcast owned equipment.

Besides, I've got more HD stuff recorded than I will ever have time to watch on my 500GB unit presently ...... and it's only 19% full.

What's the format of recorded shows on the drive? Are they encrypted or otherwise not playable if the drive is put into a computer?

The DVR runs Linux and the drive is a Linux format. The shows are encrypted with the serial number of the DVR that recorded them and will only play back on that specific unit.

I just wanted to see if someone else was able to figure it out. nice work. I wonder if a larger the 1tb will work ?? anyone up to try??

Where do you big hard drive fans find the time to watch that much TV?

The problem is if you go on vacation or out of town for a week or so. Even with the 500G drive, you can easily run out of room if all your recordings are HD.

That's the problem, I don't have enough time to watch everything, but I don't want to delete anything either. I have more stuff I want to record this week (that I won't have time to watch right away), and my 250GB HD is at 83% already.

A 750GB drive will hold a full season (13 episodes) of 10 HD series, ie CSI, CSI NY, CSI Miami, L&O, etc.

The idea is that you record them during the short season and then watch them over the full year.

Okay ... that makes sense (as long as the DVR unit itself does not fail or require replacement).

George, Is this 500GB DCX-3400 part of the AnyRoom DVR package or did you get it by itself? The last I heard the biggest hardrive for a
single DCX-3400 is 320GB.

A hair blower set on hot will soften the glue on stickers, shipping labels, etc., and they can be removed in one piece. Lift one end only with a tweezer and place a piece of wax-paper over the adhesive to protect it till you want to reverse the process.

I am running coax into the DCX input, then I am running HDMI out to my receiver and then HDMI to the TV. Now I am trying to run a separate cable out using "RF Out" but I am not getting anything on the other tv. Anyone know why this is. I did notice in the settings that you can turn "RF bypass" on or off but I have tried it both ways and it still doesn't work.

It's the new M series that Comcast only hands out to you if you go with AnyRoom at this time. Nice size hard drive and I've heard that they let you keep renting it if you later drop the AnyRoom feature.

Defective DVR if your are on Comcast .... But have your provider confirm RF-Out feature is enabled if not with Comcast.

The smallest (and only) 3400 being sold here is the 500GB.

Well maybe that is the problem. It is from Charter. I have 2 identical boxes and neither one works. I can split the cable before the box but didn't really want to do that

That may explain it ..... BTW, isn't Charter owned by a billionaire co-founder of the company who's operating systems run most of the world's computers?

Although many or most billionaires are very philanthopic, when it comes to business, I'd venture to say they rarely give anything away to customers for free .... Charter may probably wish to charge you extra to enable those RF-Outs

Let us know.

To be honest, I do not actually use the RF out on my DCX3400 to feed my kitchen TV. Because of previous cabling (when I had a DirectTV receiver where the DCX3400 currently is, feeding an analog VCR which I used to use) I actually run the S-video and L/R-stereo audio output of the DCX to the very same VCR. Then I use the RF output of the VCR to go to the kitchen TV.

In the past, the conversion from S-video and L/R-stereo audio input to the VCR to its RF output produced a much better picture on the kitchen TV (via channel 3) than I got when I used the RF output of the DirectTV receiver itself. So that's how I worked it, not to mention that it also gave me the best quality analog recordings on this SVHS VCR, being fed from S-video.

When the DirectTV receiver got replaced with the DCX3400, I just continued to use the same cables which were already run in the cabinet... not wanting to fight with moving that coax (which was coming out of the VCR), and also the S-video and L/R-stereo audio cables were right there, ready to be plugged right into the DCX which simply replaced the DirectTV receiver.

Note that using the S-video analog output of the DCX going to the VCR and then via RF output to the kitchen TV does not impact the simultaneous HDMI output of the DCX to the HDTV in that same room. All video outputs (including RF output) of the DCX should be available simultaneously.

So I concur with the opinion of others, that there might be a defect in your DCX. I don't know what or where this "RF bypass" option is (I know I never had to set it or change it in my DCX, if even I knew where it was) and I have no problem getting both analog (S-video) and digital (HDMI) video out of mine. I'd suggest you check with Charter as to whether they have somehow disabled this on their units, or swap DCX boxes if your current one is defective in this regard.

Incidentally, if it's physically possible, you might try going S-video (or composite video) from the DCX to your other SD TV (or maybe just bring it into the room with the DCX temporarily to run the experiment). If you do successfully get analog out to the SD TV via S-video but don't get it via RF output, it's definitely a Charter related issue I would conjecture.

Does anyone use the DCX3400 DVR with a separate video processor? I recently hooked up a Denon DVP-602ci and cannot get video/audio over HDMI. Tried many different resolution settings, but no joy. When attempting to get a picture out of the box, it will even make the other sources unable to lock? All my other sources (PS3, Oppo BDP-83) work fine through the VP, as long as don't try to connect to the DCX first.

ANother problem is that every nice in a while the box will become unresponsive and fail transmit any signals. This is with, or without, the V P in the loop. Have to pull the plug to get it to play nice again? Just wondering if this is a bad box, or not.

The time on my DVR is 10-15 seconds ahead of real time. Just about every show gets cut off. Before you tell me I can extend the recording. I do that when I can, but most times I'm recording something after. Anyway I can set time on DVR?

Other problem is clipped shows. Sometimes I can see why this happens. The previous show ends at 10:01p so you think I'll miss the first minute, but most times it's 5 minutes. Sometimes you can't see it. Last night "Parenthood" was listed as a 60 minute show. Show ran 61 minutes. Very annoying!

Anybody else have these problems?

I feel it has to do with the channel. TNT was notorious for shows that ended at say 10pm, would last through until 10:01, because that whole minute technically it is still 10pm. The dvr stops recording at 10pm, so I would always miss the last minute. Other channels do this as well. Maybe that is some of what you are running into?

Maybe not gremlins after all.

Turns out TWC/LA had their Guide Provider change channel names on HBOHD and SHOHD for the East and West Coast feeds, shortly after that notorious Emmy's weekend Sunday and Monday when I first noticed the reported anomaly (auto-cancel of a 10PM recording on HBOHD West because 1 tuner was in use recording something 3 hours earlier, when HBOHD East would have aired the same program... with both HBOHD channels named identically though they were different channel numbers).

And I have not had any strange scheduling behavior out of A28 since then.

Well, remarkably, last Sunday night late TWC/LA "fixed things" (i.e. their Guide Provider "fixed things"). Turns out then in their previous channel name corrections for HBOHD and SHOHD East and West (to resolve this duplicate name problem) they had accidentally also lost the West Coast channels (427/502 and 428/552) from the "HD Channel List". Simultaneously they also disappeared from my Favorites list.

These 4 channels were still in the all-channel Guide (and could be selected from there and re-added to Favorites), but they were missing from "HD Channel List". Only the East coast (481 and 483) versions of HBOHD and SHOHD were in "HD Channel List".

Ok, late last Sunday night they apparently attempted to correct this. However it looks like all they did was restore the original ambiguously named duplicate HBOHD and SHOHD values for all East and West Coast versions, and also restore them to the "HD Channel List".

So now once again, we have HBOHD for 427/502 (West) as well as 481 (East). And we once again have SHOHD for 428/552 (West) and 483 (East).

And, once again I lost the previously re-added channels from my Favorites list. And once again I've now re-added them back into my Favorites List, but this time grabbing them from the newly corrected"HD Channel List".

And... ONCE AGAIN I HAVE AUTO-CANCEL AND AUTO-RESCHEDULE OF "SERIES" RECORDINGS ON THESE WEST COAST CHANNELS, BASED ON "PSEUDO-CONFLICTS" WITH 1-TUNER IN USE 3 HOURS EARLIER RECORDING SOMETHING ELSE!!!

In other words, I just noticed that my upcoming Sunday first-run-only "series" recording of "Dexter" on SHOHD (428) which should have occurred at 9PM is now scheduled for 11PM!!! There is nothing else at all scheduled for recording at 9PM, so there is ZERO CONFLICT that requires some kind of conflict-resolution by A28's scheduling algorithm and DVR History or my "recording settings"!!

However... I DO have a recording scheduled 3 hours earlier, at 6PM, for "Rubicon" on FXHD (also a "series"). Now this is very curious, because this "Rubicon" recording was also happening back on Emmy's Sunday when I first noticed this anomaly on HBOHD recordings scheduled for later that night. Hmmm...

I was unable to later duplicate the anomaly with my own attempts to create the pseudo-conflict per my theory. But then I was using scheduled recordings on CMDYHD, rather than on FXHD. Obviously this should be totally irrelevant, but I still point this out because of what's apparently been done for tomorrow night.

Again... this A28 bug (only for "series", as it never showed up when I was manually setting my recordings every week) is obviously being exposed because TWC/LA once again has duplicate channel names for the East and West Coast channel feeds that actually have unique channel numbers.

And I'm now much more convinced that my theory (at least my enumeration of the factors going into exposing the bug) is correct: (a) duplicate channel names for East and West Coast feeds on different channel numbers, (b) at least 1 recording scheduled (from FXHD???) for 3 hours earlier than the scheduled recording 3 hours later on either HBOHD West or SHOHD West, when the East Coast airing for the same program would have occurred (on a channel named identically as the West Coast channel number for which the recording is actually scheduled).


Come on... I've got to be right here.

The problem occurred once I started using "series" recordings instead of "manual" recordings.

It only occurred when there were duplicate channel names for East and West Coast versions of HBOHD and SHOHD for which I'd scheduled "series" recordings.

The auto-cancel and auto-reschedule only occurred if [at least?] 1 tuner was in use 3 hours earlier than the scheduled recording on HBOHD West or SHOHD West, when the East Coast airing would have occurred for the identical program on the ambiguously/identically named East Coast version of HBOHD or SHOHD.

The problem has been gone for the past month during which TWC/LA had actually "fixed things" and assigned unique channel names for East and West Coast HBOHD and SHOHD. Unfortunately, this "fix" also broke "HD Channel List" which lost the West Coast channel entries.

And it has once again reappeared this week, when the Guide Provider attempted to "fix" things to restore the lost items to "HD Channel List" but in the process actually restored the original ambiguous/duplicate named HBOHD and SHOHD for East and West Coast versions of those channels.

And... bingo... once again A28 now auto-cancels and auto-reschedules, according to my theory.


On a side note, I mention one more strange event that occurred this week. My two recordings from SHOHD on Monday night and one recording from HBOHD on Friday night were all in 480i SD, rather than in 1080i HD as they should have been. These recordings were made this week, after the late Sunday night channel name changes of this week that I described above, during which obviously I no longer had these channels in my Favorites list... although that shouldn't have affected anything regarding the SD vs. HD channel content being "series" recorded.

And yet... all three recordings on HBOHD (427) and SHOHD (428) this week turned out to be 480i SD.

I can look at 427 and 428 right now, and they're in 1080i HD. I'm hoping that now that they've been re-added to my Favorites list (pulled from "HD Channel List") that all upcoming recordings from these channels will be in 1080i HD as they've always been.

Fortunately, all three shows still have upcoming airings of repeats, so I've deleted the 480i recordings and scheduled new recordings of all three... which hopefully will be 1080i HD.

Very strange. Never saw this before. Clearly, again somehow tied to the channel name changes made last Sunday night, perhaps confusing the A28 software to believe that HD channels were not available and to instead find the SD version! I almost can't believe that is possible, but there must be some explanation. Again, fingers crossed that this does not repeat itself going forward now that I've at least restored the channels to my Favorites list (though this obviously is completely irrelevant)... even though I can view "live" in 1080i HD so recordings should be identical.

Amazing.

I just double-checked my "series" recordings, and it appears that somehow in all of the channel name changing that went on last Sunday night the A28 software apparently changed my scheduled recordings to follow CHANNEL NAME...

In other words, for the past month, since Emmy's Sunday, what the Guide Provider did was to give a unique name to the HBOHD West channel from the HBOHD East channel. HBOHD West was now named HBO-W and HBOHD East was still called HBOHD. So the East and West HBOHD channels had uniqueness, and I had no scheduling anomalies.

But actually, the HBO-W value they had assigned to HBOHD West was the identical name as the SD HBO West channel!!! Genius I tells ya', GENIUS!!!

Well this didn't seem to make a difference for the past month, since the 427 HBOHD channel (named HBO-W, a duplicate of the SD channel name) actually contained HD content. My scheduled "series" recording was for this channel named "HBO-W" on 427 which truly was HD.

Last Sunday night they changed names again as I described earlier. And now 427 was once again named HBOHD (West), and which was now once again a duplicate of 481 HBOHD (East), just as it was originally (so they haven't really fixed anything at all... but simply warped time back to last month!!! Genius I tells ya', GENIUS!).

However my series recordings for those shows on a channel that was, up until last Sunday night, named HBO-W and carried HD content, with the disappearance of HBO-W on 427 actually followed HBO-W to 503 (which is HBO West 480i SD)!!! I guess it thought there was simply a channel number change and it was going to stick with HBO-W by channel name, even if its channel number had changed.

And THAT is how I got 480i SD recordings all of this week. They actually were from HBO-W, which this week was a non-duplicate 503 but which was the 480i SD version of HBO West.

Same with the SHOHD recordings. Again, SHO-W is uniquely named now and is 554. So my recordings originally scheduled for SHO-W 428 followed SHO-W to 554 which was the non-duplicate only SHO-W. And that's how I got 480i SD this week.


Ok... I've now deleted ALL of my HBOHD and SHOHD series recordings (which all were actually now set as HBO-W/503 and SHO-W/554... i.e. SD) and recreated them all using the current HBOHD/427 and SHOHD/428.

And actually, quite remarkably, the 9PM auto-cancel and auto-reschedule for Sunday night's "Dexter" is gone. Now, the true 9PM first-run is scheduled properly! Now THAT is really strange, and once again blows my theory about the "pseudo-conflict" based on duplicate HD channel names for East and West out of the water.


Anyway, it does look like I'm back to normal again. At the moment I no longer see that auto-cancel symptom, since I've recreated my series recordings on the newly renamed HBOHD and SHOHD channels per their current names and number assignments.

I've pretty much given up on using series recording for weekly shows. I spend a few minutes every day or so and pick out the evening or overnight things I wish recorded from the guide as one-time recordings. My series recordings are limited to daily stuff like on CNBC and the nightly network and local news. Things this time of year are changing rapidly as new Fall line ups are rolled out and then often cancelled .... Like Fox's Lonestar (cancelled after only after 2 episodes).

I have 2 shows set to record at 9pm on Mondays. The Event and Lone Star. I also have a season pass set up for Lie To Me. Well, Lone Star was canceled and replaced by Lie To Me. And what my guide shows now is The Event will record, Lone Star is no longer listed, and Lie To Me is showing in the slot, but has the 3 red circles (not solid dots) meaning it will now record. I removed Lone Star from my season pass listing and Lie To Me now shows it will record. Weird that Lie To Me would not have just plugged itself in and recorded since Lone Star was not airing.

I've given up on most series recordings too. I have about five set and the rest are done manually. I keep a list if shows on a chart and go in once a week to set the shows and the check each day what is scheduled to record.

Changes in time slots, double episodes that initially appear as single episodes then merge into one, and even changes in the descriptions sometimes have caused my series to not record. I catch them better this way. Plus I record a lot so there would be conflicts more often. Many times I have to record a second airing to avoid them.

+1

I must be lucky or something because all my series recordings seem to be recording correctly for me. I change the shows on HBO, USA, etc to the lowest priority so when they get bumped from their original air time/date they can record later in the week & they seem to be doing fine. I record ~6 shows a day.