Official AVS Motorola DCX series HD DVR Topic! - Page 143

There is a dedicated thread about FireWire capture from Motorola set top boxes here with some good info:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=21949917

Two important things to know before you dig much deeper though:

1) There are no 64-bit Windows drivers for the Motorola boxes , so you must use a 32-bit Windows installation in order to capture from your STB.

2) The FireWire capture functionality on the DCX boxes is buggy and transfers are not reliable. I have done successfully many times but I usually have to make at least two transfers, run a utility to detect errors and then edit two or more passes together to get a clean recording free of errors. I use VideoRedo to do this, one of the few tools that can do frame by frame editing of an MPEG2 stream natively. It's a pretty tedious process, though the editing process also accomplishes the goal of removing commercials, which typically reduces storage space by about it 30%.

I am getting an HDTV really soon with my Federal Return.

This may have been asked before. Could I have the video from my DCX-3400 to my HDTV via HDMI and the digital audio to my reciever via Digital Coaxial or Toslink Optical?

Yes. I have done this.

This is EXACTLY how you SHOULD connect your hardware, in order to 100% avoid the infamous "losing NATIVE" problem.

In other words, your optimal picture quality on the HDTV is obtained when setting the DCX3400 HDMI output to "native". This sends 720p content as 720p and 1080i content as 1080i. It also sends 480i content as 480i OAR (i.e no stretch-o-vision). The HDTV itself then is allowed to "optimize" the image however the designers of the TV intended based on the source resolution. Theory is that the HDTV will do a better job of image optimization than the DCX would do simply up-converting everything to 1080i or up-converting/down-converting everything to 720p.

However the DCX family of products has a problem with "native" if you route your HDMI connection from the DVR through an AVR, and then use a second HDMI connection from AVR to your HDTV. In this situation there is a "loss of NATIVE" setting depending on power on/off sequence of DVR, AVR and HDTV. Also, it is further aggravated by certain brands of AVR.

But if you bypass the AVR entirely (as you're suggesting) and use two separate digital connections for audio and video (as you're suggesting) then the "loss of NATIVE" problem is 100% prevented.

So yes... if it's acceptable to you (because you will then have to switch HDMI inputs on your HDTV when watching HDTV via BluRay movies, instead of being able to leave the HDTV on one HDMI input from the AVR all the time and use the AVR to switch HDMI inputs based on source) you SHOULD send (a) HDMI from DVR directly to HDTV for digital video, and set DCX to "native", and (b) optical from DVR to AVR for digital sound, which will be either DD2.0 or DD5.1 per individual programs. And of course turn OFF the audio on your HDTV configuration.

You're still getting exactly the same DD2.0/DD5.1 digital audio from the optical connection to the AVR and sound system that is also being provided on the HDMI connection to the HDTV (along with the digital video going out on that same HDMI connection). But you're using the AVR for sound, and the HDTV for video only.

Everything you say is true, but it should be pointed out that the ability to use VideoRedo to "edit" content (assuming it's even possible to get a usable firewire transfer from DVR to 32-bit Windows XP/7 machine, which I myself had NEVER been able to accomplish using the DCX3400 hardware which is all I ever had access to before returning it to TWC/LA) is entirely limited to whether or not the particular cable system involved delivers programs as copy-freely or copy-once.

ALL OTA networks that are also carried by the cable provider MUST (by FCC rule) be delivered as copy-freely, and thus can be worked on with VideoRedo (e.g. to remove commercials, create clips, etc.).

And inevitably ALL PREMIUM CHANNELS are delivered as copy-once, no matter the cable provider. So these will NEVER be available to VideoRedo for editing.

The rest of basic cable channels... well, it varies by cable provider. Here in TWC/LA it is unfortunately true that EVERY BASIC CABLE CHANNEL (save a very few "worthless" channels) are also delivered as copy-once, making them simply unusable with VideoRedo. So you will never be able to edit/save them.


NOTE: this is only for true 100% digital archiving/editing, involving firewire from DCX to 32-bit Windows. The eSATA output and USB output of the box is disabled by all US cable providers, so firewire is the only theoretically "functioning" digital archiving method available, although it was "broken" by Motorola starting with the very first DCX3400 model. It had been working essentially 100% reliably for the previous DCT and DCH generations of DVR, which also allowed the use of firewire connections to the JVC DVHS VCR's to make 100% digital copies on DVHS tape of programs from the DVR.

If you don't want 100% digital perfect copies, but are willing to accept "analog" copies (e.g. from 480i S-video to a VCR, or through a device that accepts component-video analog HDTV input instead of true digital firewire/USB/HDMI, that is probably an acceptable "workaround" to the failing digital firewire interface.


My solution?

I have returned all TWC cable hardware like my old DCH3416 or DCX3400. Instead, I built a Windows 7 HTPC based around a 4-tuner Ceton card (M-Card cablecard enabled) and Windows Media Center as the DVR software and with a 1TB internal hard drive for recordings (which could actually be as large as I care to install). Delivery of HDTV around the home by WMC is via home LAN and Media Center extenders, rather than via TWC coax.

The programs delivered by TWC are still the same copy-freely or copy-once programs, so the WMC-produced WTV recordings on the hard drive of the HTPC are still the same usable or not usable by VideoRedo for the same reasons. But for those copy-freely programs which are usable the WTV recordings are already 100% digitally perfect to begin with, and do not require firewire transfer (which doesn't work anyway, much less to a 64-bit Win7 machine) from a DVR to HTPC for editing.

Just so you know, there is no 1080p content provided by any cable company, at least not yet, for ordinary programming. All broadcast and cable channels are delivered as 720p or 1080i.

Yes, the DCX3500 can up-convert these to 1080p if you have the settings to do that, but the original source feed was still only 720p or 1080i.

There might be isolated delivery of 1080p content, say for 3D channels, and perhaps some pay-per-view, but I don't actually know if this is true and even if so would certainly be cable company and location specific. But for sure, all "ordinary" standard cable delivery is 720p or 1080i. That's the current standard, given current infrastructures. And besides, these 3D and pay-per-view broadcasts would almost certainly be marked copy-NEVER, so you would NOT be able to archive them using 100% digitally perfect methods under any circumstances... including offloading to a DVHS VCR if you had one. Copy-NEVER content cannot even be recorded onto the DVR's hard drive. You must be watching it LIVE (which is why it's pay-per-view, of course, since you probably have at least a 24-hour window to watch it whenever you want). You CANNOT RECORD IT ANYWHERE!

Personally if I had the hardware I would still set the DCX to "native", feed HDMI direct from DCX to HDTV (on a dedicated HDMI input), feed optical from DCX to AVR (since all cable digital audio is either DD2.0 or DD5.1 which are both fully compatible with optical cable delivery), and let my HDTV do its own presumably superior-to-DCX "optimization for display" of delivered 720p/1080i source.

So the only 1080p source at this time is a Blu-ray disc ... correct?

I know that D* has some 1080P & I believe that E* does as well. However both would be download only (for free or pay-per-view). Also both are wrapped into a robust (respectively) DRM scheme that ties you to the machine that the content is downloaded on.

The essence of your question is yes, only Blu provides widely available 1080P commercial content, but as is almost always the case with such questions, there are exceptions.

Comcast has 3D on demand sources at 1080p/24

hi all I have a problem with my dcx3501-m from calbeone. here is the thing i have a Logitech Revue(Google TV) hooke up to in and my SD channels dont want to scale riight. the HD channel scale to 16:9 but the SD revert to 4:3. so where i change to a SD channel it will start in 16:9 the 'SNAP" to 4:3. yes i have the 480 override set to strech. but i cant fix it for the life of me. with out the logitech Rerue hooed up it works fine. also before i had to Logitech Revue my cable box and TV would change from 720 to 480 but now only the cable box does. BTW i have a Westinghouse VR-3235 So can some on help me?

You were the first one to clearly identify this issue some while ago and discuss how to deal with it. Many thanks (again)!

One interesting (at least for me) footnote is another setup by which the 'native' setting is retained by the DCX. When I initially sent the output of it (and also that of a BD player) via HDMI to my Onk 3008 AVR, with it set on 'pass through', and then from the AVR via HDMI to my projector, I indeed lost 'native' every time I turned the AVR and projector off and on. About a yr ago, though, I added a RadianceMini video processor in the loop--between the AVR the the projector--and now the 'native' setting of the DCX is retained. I presume that this is because the Radiance is always 'on' and thus always keeps its handshake with the DCX.

Now I'm not suggesting that one get a Radiance just to retain 'native'--would be rather pricy just for that!--but it was a nice benefit by-product of having it.

crossbeaux & DSperber,

One thing I have to say about my HDTV is "WOW!". I have my DCX-3400 hooked up to my HDTV via HDMI and the digital audio out to my audio reciever via Digital Coaxial. It certainly works the way I have it. I have my DCX-3400 set to Native for the output (720p for channels broadcast in 720p and 1080i for channels broadcast in 1080i). I kept the 480i and 480p options left blank.

It is pretty awesome when you go from SD to HD .... BTW, how good are the SD channels displayed on your new HDTV?

Most people find SD to be not quite as good on HDTVs as it was on the older SD TVs .... just curious.

George-O,

I haven't tuned to any SD channel yet. Playing a DVD (currently viewing the Special Features from TNG Season 5 set), looks great. I am playing the DVD in my Panasonic BD80 Blu-ray Player. I will post something in a bit.

Just wait until you rent an actual Blu-ray disc .... it's even better than HDTV cable or OTA HDTV or a DVD!

Thanks for the info. I'll check out that Firewire discussion you provided. I like the idea of building a Win 7 HTPC/WMC as mentioned by DSperber. I've already got the home network in place and plenty of old PC's I can upgrade & re-purpose.

Just in passing, I mention again that your plans and dreams of making "permanent" digitally 100% perfect edited copies/clips of HD programs are entirely controlled by whether the content was delivered to you by your cable company as copy-freely or copy-once. VideoRedo and any other subsequent post-editing storage techniques (such as burning authored BluRay collections of your work with titles, menus, chapters, thumbnails, etc., rather than collecting it on analog VCR tapes as we used to do) is all limited by this copy-freely or copy-once protection.

Mostly, the HTPC/WMC solution works perfectly. The WMC DVR software is much slicker and more reliable than the iGuide A28 software used in the Motorola DVR's from the cable companies.

Also, you have much more flexibility since you are in complete control. For example, in addition to the 4-tuner Ceton PCIe card in my PC for TWC/LA content, I also have a 2-tuner Hauppauge HVR-2250 PCIe card for OTA/ATSC use (since I also have a roof antenna). WMC handles all 6 tuners, and can even "prioritize sources" if the same channel is available from multiple tuners so that you can designate which tuner(s) are to be selected for use first if there's no scheduling conflict with another recording and they are available for use.

In the case of EVERY OTA-available program, I will always record from the OTA tuners rather than from the Ceton card as TWC/LA recompresses everything they deliver, including local broadcast networks. The picture quality is simply superior when recording the OTA/ATSC version from a roof antenna, and I have that ability through the HVR-2250.

Finally, and again this only applies to copy-freely content recorded by WMC which is the only WTV content you can work on with VideoRedo, once you edit your recordings "for posterity", you can use products such as multiAVCHD to author the results into BluRay-compatible format (retaining 100% digital perfection from the original MPEG-2, not recompressing at all) and burn the authored results using a product such as Imgburn.

You can even use single-layer or double-layer DVD+R blank media instead of official BluRay blank media (though obviously with capacity differences) for cost savings. The burned results still appear as BluRay source content to your player although not from BluRay media, so you're still going to get original quality 720p/1080i HD results at playback.

And one more "finally", many people opt for external network-based tuners using the Silicon Dust HD Homerun (for OTA) and HD Homerun Prime (for cable), rather than going for the internal tuner cards as I have. Functionally they are very similar but differ in the number of tuners available. Also, the external network-based tuners require capable LAN infrastructure whereas the internal tuner cards do not.

This of course is true, but cloneranger mentioned he is on Comcast, which I think will be okay. I have Comcast and the only issue I've run into is that premium channels like HBO cannot be copied (obviously). Of course, that doesn't mean that the same is true in all regions that Comcast serves or that they won't change that at any time...

I have recently run into a problem that I'm wondering if others have seen with a DCX-3400-M, from Comcast. Not used in AnyRoom mode.

When playing back HD recordings the audio & video is jumping ahead, stuttering. It's like when in the slowest FF mode but you can also hear audio. I've tried re-booting the unit to no avail.

After playing a recording and having the problem, when I stop DVR playback, the channel the box is tuned to also has the same problem until I change channels, at which point the problem stops.

I'm guessing I may have to replace the box. Any other ideas?

I have never experienced that before but a lot of the glitches can usually be fixed by swapping tuners to make sure the other tuner is not in a paused state.

Well, where I live, in S.E. Michigan, HBO and premium channels CAN be copied from Comcast. I used to copy from several premium channels regularly, but I gave them up a few years ago. Now, I have a friend who copies Bill Maher from HBO, and loans me the discs. I still copy from OnDemand.

Bing!

I just switched DVR's and this didn't happen with the DCT I was using. Thank you very much.

I'm glad it worked for you.

I just got a new motorola RNG200N from comcast

They said this is the new model

I see it offers 1080p , should i keep it at that or 1080i ?

What are the diff between this and the old dcx3400


And what is 1080p pass-through ? It is set to on

You should look on the device for the actual Motorola model number. "RNG200N" is the Comcast model number, this ID gets shared by multiple devices from multiple manufacturers and seems to just serve the purpose of letting employees know whether the device meets the requirements of a particular service offering. If you can find the actual model number from the original manufacturer you should be able to get much better information from other users and perhaps find the manufacturers manuals or other details which will help you to understand the device's capabilities and shed light on the type of questions you are asking.

As for the resolution setting, 1080P will likely be fine if you are happy with the quality of the upscaling built into the device. Some users prefer to set the cable box to "Native" when that option is provided, this would send the video stream in it's native resolution for the next device up the HDMI chain to handle (such as your TV or an AVR). This way, if you're watching 480i, 720P or 1080i content, it gets sent in native form to the next device up the chain, which may or may not have better upscaling and de-interlacing capabilities than the cable box (actual results will depend on your equipment so you'll just have to try it and find out what looks better).

Is a small box

Smaller than the dcx3400

I thought all comcast boxes are the same, meaning all rng200n from motorola comcast/xfinity are the same

I know cisco makes the same box with diff hardrive sizes inside

But i read that all the motorola/comcast rng200n are the same 500gb boxes

How did you go about getting Comcast to give you the newest model? Was it just in stock at your local office at the time you went and asked?

Yes it was just there, they had a couple
massachusetts

I have another problem

I have this hdmi switch
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

When ever i set the output to 4:3 override to "stretch" if i restart my tv or the switch it reverts back to "off"

On the previous box i had dcx3400 it reverted the resolution to 480p

This new box rng200n the default resolution is 1080p so thats good but the 4:3 override from stretch to off is buggin me


I did a google search and found a lit of people having problems with a a receiver and the dcx3400 reverting the resolution back to default 720p or 480p when ever u restart the tv or receiver
See here: http://larchive.avsforum.com/www.avs...1160533&page=3


My hdmi switch is kinda like a receiver , that it takes the hdmi audio & outputs it in to optical for my vizio soundbar
Thats why i got this switch

I have a mitsubishi dlp ,ps3.apple tv , and the comcast rng200n

The only problem is with the cable box reverting back to default 4:3 override OFF" when ever i restart my components , i than have to go into the secret white menu to change it again


Any ideas ?

I also use a harmony one

If this HDMI switch is kind of like your AVR ("HDMI patch panel") I would experiment with attempting to prevent the "loss of native" symptom you're describing through the power on/off "trick" which is known to mostly work for others when routing HDMI from the DCX boxes (which support "native") through an AVR.

In other words the "loss of native" symptom is really a description of "revert to box configuration setup defaults", meaning whatever that box did with your particular related HDTV/AVR when it did "revert to default"... that's what we're trying to overcome. Whether it's a reversion to 480p or 720p or 1080i, or "480i stretch off" (and just why wouldn't you want 4:3 OAR as your default anyway, rather than 16:9 stretch-o-vision for 4:3 content??), it is "revert setup to DEFAULT" that we're trying to prevent in order to retain whatever your chosen configuration options were.

Anyway, since that HDMI switch does have a power on/off button, and since you say it's like your AVR, I would suggest trying the well-known "AVR OFF-FIRST, AVR ON-LAST" approach. In other words, rather than just leaving that HDMI switch on all the time and simply turning your DVR and/or HDTV on and off, you'll need to actually TURN THE AVR, aka HDMI SWITCH, OFF... AND FIRST, before then turning off your DVR and/or HDTV (in any sequence next, as long as you've turned the HDMI switch off first).

And in the other direction, instead of always having the HDMI switch always on, you'll have to turn your DVR and/or HDTV on first (in any sequence, as long as the HDMI switch is still off). Then once they both "stablize" you can now power on the HDMI switch, i.e. "AVR, aka HDMI SWITCH, ON... AND LAST".

See if that works to prevent your loss of box configuration setup. Yes, I realize you probably don't want to do this. But at least you can see if it works to prevent your "loss of native" symptom, in which case you may just then decide it's the lesser of two evils and you can live with it (rather than being forced all the time to re-configure your DCX box every time you turn it on as you currently do).

We got our 3400 in Oakland (500g drive) almost a year ago when our ancient 6412 box died. The driver happened to have one on the truck and I asked if I could have it. He called in and got permission to give it to us. Since then, have had 2 replacement boxes because of the "black screen" problem other Comcast 3400 users have reported here. (Comcast pays for mail to and from IF you know you can ask for it. They don't volunteer and make you think you have to go to an office to exchange it.)
I digress, obviously the black screen recordings our a s/w issue, not hardware.

In Miami, they claim they only have the 5 to 10 year old models like the 6412, 3412 etc. So, I guess, availability depends on area.