Official AVS Motorola DCX series HD DVR Topic! - Page 86

Let me know if you do loose the old way of searching once you do get the On Demand search option.

I have only had the Moto 3432 for a few months, was always basic (no box) cable before.

Is there a way to record games for a specific team, say the Lakers?

For NBA games Iguide only has "NBA Basketball" in the title, not the names of the teams playing.

If I do a series recording for "NBA Basketball" it would lead to all sorts of conflicts.

Right now I have to search for "NBA Basketball", then scroll through pages of results to find "Lakers", then manually select each one to record.

Since the guide only goes out a week I have to do this quite often.

Is there another way or am I stuck?

tia

If you do figure out a way, or hear of one, let me know.

Search Lakers in keyword, not title.

Good idea

"NBA Basketball" title search = 153 results

"Lakers" keyword search = 35 results

Of course there are not 35 Lakers games in the next week but it's better than sifting through 153 results

Still no way to record the games as a series

Thx

Both recordings were for 11p-12a show. I didn't have extend recording set. This event took place last Tue when Leno and Letterman weren't on. This week I have other problems. I record Leno, Letterman, Fallon, & Ferguson. Lopez is on at 11pm, so I record Lopez from 11p-11:35p and 1:35a=2a.

I just got my DCX3400M DVR and I'm trying to hook my Seagate Showcase Expander to this box. It is esata and the Cable guy (Buckeye Cable, Toledo Ohio) said this is the one to use (bigger better etc..) with external hard drives. The expander worked great for the last 8 months with my Pace and then it disappeared. The DVR was acting funny so the cable guy said to replace the DVR. When I hook up the expander nothing happens on the DCX3400M. I powered on the Expander waited, and then started my DCX. The % used did not change and I'm guessing my expander is dead. I was going to hook it up to my computer but its esata and none of my computers have a esata hook up nor do any of my tech friends. Any other way of diagnosing the drive to determine if it's the drive that's out? Are my procedures for hooking up the DVR correct?

Do you hear the hard drive spinning up when you power it on?

What is "my Pace"??? Is that a cable company? Is that a brand of DVR? Did you move to a new location and got a new cable company? Did the old one use Scientific Atlanta boxes, which DO support eSata expanders?

I was not aware that cable companies in the US were activating the eSata external drive functionality on the DCX boxes? Certainly that isn't the case with TWC or Comcast communities, as best I know.

I know that some people in Canada (where Shaw Cable sells equipment to subscribers, not rent it like here in the US) have reported that Shaw even sells an eSata expander box of their own to work with the Motorola DVRs. So it does appear to be provider-specific, whether or not the firmware/software to support external storage expanders is configured properly and activated with Motorola equipment.

But I was not aware that it was also happening in the US.

Can you provide more specifics about what you used to have (hardware, cable company, etc.), that you say "worked"? Have you always had Motorola equipment, or is this DCX a hardware change from some other manufacturer?

It's a brand of DVR. Comcast, at least, uses some Pace models in some areas. In my area, I believe they distribute Pace DVRs for non-HD clients.
http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FA...9-644e00cd0a5a

Thanks. Didn't know that.

Anyway, I'm then going to speculate that he's SOL. Whereas the Pace non-HD DVRs may well have supported eSata expanders, certainly no (or very few?) US cable companies using the Motorola boxes have activated the eSata port.

Yes, I've been corrected previously that Shaw Cable in Canada DOES activate the eSata port on their Motorola equipment (which they SELL, along with selling their own brand of eSata expander equipment... so this is not a complete surprise). But nobody in the US (where the boxes are rented, not sold) has chimed in that their particular cable system also has enabled eSata expanders.

I'm afraid he's going to be disappointed when the truth is learned, that the DCX in the US will not support an eSata expander that he owns!

Quikdog ..... First, a hardy welcome to the Forum.

Now to business ...... I believe each individual cable company in the US can specify to Motorola to leave their eSATA ports active for expanders, but unfortunately the trend by cable providers has been to deactivate eSATA ports as their newer equipment rolls out.

Quikdog, in this case you should call your cable provider to get the definitive answer to your question. They may have recently changed their port activation policy on the newer equipment.

In any event .... best of luck to you and please share with us what you discover.

DS .... time to take a 10 minute screen break ..... go easy on our newest member

Re: dcx3400 recording to hdd panasonic dvr


dcx3400 recording to hdd panasonic dvr
Hello , i'm wondering if anyone knows why I cannot get the dcx3400 to output a 16:9 screen to my panasonic eh75vs recorder and record in full screen 16:9? i'm using s-video output, to the dvr.THE reason for asking is that I also have a dhg-500 sony high def recorder that has s-video outputs and when I hook it up to the panasonic it records in full aspect 16:9 perfect ratio.???
thanks for any help..

According to the dcx manual that connection does not support hd video, so I am assuming that means that the dcx will output only 4:3 too.

The S-video standard requires 4:3 aspect ratio 480i format.

"not recorded because of a fatal hardware error"

Can't find much about this via google

I have had this with all 3 DCX34xx boxes

Box 1: Fine at first, after a couple weeks got sporadic ""not recorded because of a fatal hardware error" which progressively got worse. Had to replace after 1 month.

note: might have been a failing tuner. Using the tuner swap button, sometimes the screen would freeze and not change to the other tuner

Box 2: On day 2 got "not recorded because of a fatal hardware error". Got worse quickly. Replaced after 1 week.

note: might have been a failing tuner. Using the tuner swap button, sometimes the screen would freeze and not change to the other tuner

Box 3. Fine for 1 week. Then "not recorded because of a fatal hardware error". Recorded everything else fine for 1 week, then "not recorded because of a fatal hardware error" again 2 days in a row, same time and channel. On third day, same time and channel, it recorded fine.

note: Noticed it was not recording about 10 minutes into the program. It was sitting on the channel all day so it did not need to switch channels to record. Hit record and, using the buffer, recorded all 60 minutes fine.

note: Not having the tuner swap issue like the previous 2 boxes...yet.

My s/n ratio is good, only thing I see that looks fishy is my AGC is at 30%.

I am really stumped

tia

Quickdog,
The firmware application your cable company for your DVR may not support the ESATA port
The disk format used for DVR is incompataible with the disk format used by Windows PCs.

Hello:
I'm joining in on these cablebox threads now that CableVision in MexCity installed my DCX3400 .
I'm interested to see what THIS MSO does or doesn't do to these units, like the eSATA port, etc.

I don't know how big the HDD is in this unit, is there a way to find this out?

Thanks.

Pace (Model TDC778X) is a DVR option from Buckeye Cable. I assumed what I was doing was something everyone does. The Pace thread on this forum talks about DVR expanders all the time.

I am with the same provider (BUCKEYE CABLE, Toledo Oh) but suddenly my Pace box was acting up. The cable tec told me to trade out boxes. He stood in my house calling another tec who was more familiar with expanders and He recomended the Motorola DCX3400M DVR. Apparntly it is a bigger drive and they have less issues with external hard drives. Buckeye cable says you can use expanders, they will not support them, heck even the cable guy says he has one on his DVR. It's not like I had to run and hid the expander when he arrived.


I had been using another Seagate hard drive (FreeAgent Pro eSATA) with my Pace box since May 2008. It was worked without fail for 1 1/2 years with only occasional glitz when I had power outages. It seems that they are a little touchy about the order in which things are repowered up.

In January 2010 my hard drive expander stopped working. I switched to a another Seagate drive the Showcase ST30500SCA109-RK still using my PACE DVR. The only reason I moved to the Motorola DVR is because of Buckeye's recommendation. I thought maybe it was something different about this DVR what I had to do to make it work. I'm beginning to think that it's the hard drive has taken a crap and that's why it doesn't work.

A lot of anger on the thread.

Walford,

The reason I tried to hook it up to my PC is to do diagnostics. See if the drive is good or not.

Thanks

THE sony dhg-HDD-250 OUTPUTS 16:9 ASPECT RATIO THRU S-VIDEO TO THE PANASONIC recorder perfectly, just do not know why the dcx can not do the same.

As far as I can tell it's a software bug rather than a tuner failing. I get this on both of my DVRs and they are different models. I've also kept both models and other than the occassional issue they have beem pretty solid.

It seems to happen when I am watching a show on Tuner 1 and schedule a show to record on the same channel. Tuner 2 won't change and record in the background because I am already watching it (or at least that's how I think of it).

This is sporadic. It will do one of three things:

1. Record as expected
2. Not record and show "fatal hardware error" in the DVR History
3. Not record and have no DVR History

I can almost predict when it will happen and have been able to duplicate it when I want, although sometimes it records normally. I ensure that neither tuner on the DVR is tuned to the channel I want to record to guarantee that it won't happen. But sometimes I forget. It's a real PITA to worry about.

I glanced at the DHGHDD-250 manual, and it gave three options for HD to SD output. Either letterboxed to fit the 16:9 to 4:3, Side Crop to cut off the sides to fit the 4:3, or Squeezed to shrink the image into 4:3.

Could it have been outputting in letterbox, so you got the full 16:9 picture but in the 4:3 ratio?

Certanly thats what I would expect it to do.

I would have expected the opposite, but this is what I am seeing right now.

btw it failed again yesterday, so that's 3 out of 5 days this week.

thx 4 the info, now I have something to test with.

Come to think of it, when I record Modern Family, then Cougar Town, it does not have to switch channels for Cougar Town and that has always recorded fine.

Wonder if the buffer has something to do with it.

Ah, idea.

Set both tuners to same channel, schedule recording for an hour later on same channel and see what happens.

Gonna document these "hardware failure" tests here

TEST 1 - 9:50am - Both tuners set to same channel. Set recording for same channel at 10am.

TEST 1 RESULT - Recorded. Note: Recording was on background tuner.

Have another test scheduled for 10am

Here are three more that I did today. I chose random shows to record for the tests. I normally set the Save Until I Delete option and pad the shows at the beginning and end, although here I did pad the beginning mostly so I did not have to sit around waiting for the next half hour to start. The tuner numbers are the physical tuners as they are listed in the diagnostics. An easy way to see which is which is to turn off the box, when you power it back on it's on Tuner 1. I also occupied the alternate tuner so it would not change channels, although in my experience it doesn't always have to be occupied for the error.

TEST A:
Scheduled Recording on Tuner 1 for Andy Griffith Show, channel 163, Save until I delete, 11 minutes early.
Pressed Record on Tuner 2 for College Football on channel 4, record as planned when prompted for the Live Program notice, Continue and check space later on notification of 18% recording space left.
Watched channel 163, recording started as normal however College Football did not record due to cancellation by the system.

TEST B:
Pressed Record on Tuner 2 for College Football on channel 4, record as planned when prompted for the Live Program notice, Continue and check space later on notification of 20% recording space left. Verified recording started this time.
Scheduled Recording on Tuner 1 for Andy Griffith Show, channel 163, Save until I delete, 9 minutes early.
Watched channel 163, show did not record, History shows due to fatal hardware error.

TEST C:
Pressed Record on Tuner 1 for Andy Griffith Show, channel 163, verified recording started.
Scheduled Recording for Tuner 2 for Thomas & Friends, channel 118, Save until I delete, 12 minutes early.
Watched channel 118, show did not record, History shows due to fatal hardware error.

My idea was it may have mattered which tuner it was, but it does not appear to be that way. There was also very little buffer on any test. My experience is that back to back shows (like Modern Family & Cougar Town) record most of the time, however I normally extend the recording of the first one to capture the second one too just in case. Even if there is another show in between I also extend to record that too just so I can guarantee that it doesn't have an error. Of course I have to make sure it's not on that channel to begin with

One last note, this was on my DCH model and not my DCX. I've had some of these issues since the old Microsoft guide and then A25 but it was not until A28 that I could actually see what the issue was. At least I am not going crazy wondering if I dreamed scheduling the shows in the first place any more.