Official AVS Motorola DCX series HD DVR Topic! - Page 148

It will be on there somewhere, probably a sticker on the bottom. A 3501 is approximately 12 iches wide. A 3400 is about 15 inches wide and is deeper and higher.

Our 3 3400m boxes (all w. the black screen recording problem) have all had the model number on the front. Our 3501 box is smaller. I am not where our 3501 box is now - but it may have the alternate model number of RNGxxx (I forget the 3 numbers). I gather that Motorola licensed the box to also be made by Cisco and maybe someone else. Whatever the number, the 3501 and its clones are identical.

The power supply on the DCX3501 is external.

What does "external" mean?

I think he meant that the 3501 uses a "power brick" to convert 110v to 12v, and the 3400 just uses 110v. That is, if you look at the back and it will accept a 110v power cord, it's a 3400. If it has a socket to accept a 12v power cord, it's a 3501. I Googled for those product names/numbers and the photos of the back told the tale.

OK, I have one more question about the newer boxes. Is there such a thing as a DCX3501 (as opposed to the DCX3501-M)? When I search the web, I can't seem to find any references to a plain 3501 (without the -M).

Don't know the answer to that, but I thought previous posters were wondering if there WAS a 3501-M. That is, they had only seen the plain version.

I have a 3501 without an “M”. On the front panel it is designated as an RNG200N; but, a sticker on the bottom identifies it as a DCX3501/E385/012/500. No “M”. I have had it 4 days short of a year now and when I got it I had the sense that they were just being introduced here.

Lately I have been under the impression that the “M” meant a unit had Integrated MoCA™ networking capability and thus could be used for Any Room DVR. However, upon close examination, the Tech who came to install Any Room DVR determined that even without the “M” my 3501 had the appropriate software for that service and that all he had to do was activate it. He did.

Looking at the Motorola website I note that they now have a DCX3510-M. Hope they fixed the bugs. I’m just happy that I was able to keep my 3501 when I subscribed to Any Room DVR.

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback. We did the DVR swap today and ended up with a DCH3416. The newest model they had available was the DCX3400, which we didn't want because of the recording issues with that model. If they had a 3501 we would've taken it, but since they didn't we went with the older but reliable DCH (which they thankfully had).

Good choice. Now you should mod it with a 1 TB hard drive! At that point, other than the remote control commands being a little slower to resond, you'll enjoy the benefits of the DCX models without those horrid recording problems.

I've had a DCX3400 for awhile now, maybe a couple years. It used to have those black screen recording problems, but it's hard pinning down why they don't happen anymore. I've noticed my provider, TWC, increased the show guide from 7 days to about 12 in the last couple months. Doubtful that had an impact on recording errors but not recording two shows at once, flipping back and forth between them, overlapping recording times, jumping to live between consequetive recordings and playing a third recorded show (in short, driving the cable box like a NAScar) may have stopped the trouble.

I'm not doing anything that violates Comcast's terms of service. I don't want to run the risk of getting charged an arm and a leg down the road. If capacity were that important, I'd get a Tivo or some other third-party solution.

I would be leery of that too, although it seems like many people are not. Has anyone heard of anybody who has got into trouble over replacing the hard drive in their Comcast DVR?

This is most likely due to a software upgrade that got pushed out.

TWC had long been been sticking with their initially released bug-laden version of the A28 iGuide software (which was in fact a very big change from the previous A24 software several years ago when A28 first first pushed out) seemingly forever, even though Comcast Motorola/iGuide users throughout the country had gone through maybe four later updates to the software to fix many of the bugs present in the initial release. That original A28 release was dated August 2009 I think, and was pushed out in Feb 2010 I think. And it's been in use for several years... same original release, even on newer hardware with newer firmware. The iGuide A28 software remained the same.

One of the bugs was that 7-day Guide. Previously, with A24, it was 12-13 days. Then with A28 it suddenly dropped to 7 days. That was a SOFTWARE BUG, not by design.

It was eventually fixed, and all Comcast users benefited when Comcast upgraded everybody's software back in early 2011 with the corrected A28 release. But not TWC. They just stuck with that original A28 from mid-2009, with its 7-day Guide!

So, if you have a DCX box that now is back up to 12-day Guide, then TWC must have FINALLY rolled out upgraded iGuide software. It may be an upgraded A28, or perhaps the significantly changed A29 (with "Start Over") which I think I read about somewhere. I myself don't have a DVR from TWC any longer so I can't check for myself, but can you please get into the Setup -> display configuration menu on your DCX and post here what exactly is the software and firmware versions in your equipment? That would be very interesting to see.

Software version is 79.41 - R29.0.r-4

Firmware is 24.35

Does that help?

Yes it does. R29 means "A29".

So the original 7-day Guide bug which appeared in early 2010 and was fixed and generally available to all Comcast users by mid-2010 but never fixed for TWC users has now been rolled out to you not with a fixed A28 but with a new A29 (which obviously includes that Guide bug fix from A28).

This must be the new software/firmare to support the new features (e.g. "Start Over") in the DVR's I've been reading about.

You know, until I saw your post I hadn't realized there was anything newer than A28 from I-Guide. Now, having looked at the DVR wiki, I see that there are two new versions - A29 (for Time Warner) and A30 (for Comcast).

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Firmware_and_Software#Software_Details

From what was posted earlier, it sounds like A28 was the software that introduced the blank screen recording problem. Maybe A29/A30 fixes it?

I also noticed that they finally did something they should've done, like, 15 years ago - they finally added Closed Captioning to the I-Guide menu!

I thought the FCC mandated CC to be included in all boxes years ago, just like they did for TV sets. It's been in the Moto boxes, but you have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to access it.
What is "I-Guide"? Are there two diff. guides? We are on Comcast in both Oakland and Miami. Our guide seems to go out about 11 days. How would I know which guide we have?

I-guide is software TWC and others use with STBs. CC used to be turned on and off by going into the STB's (Moto in particular) menu settings (rocket science) but can now be flipped from the software in I-guide (at least in some locations with updated software/firmware.


Rovi i-Guide is the industry's most widely-deployed interactive program guide (IPG):

http://www.rovicorp.com/products/discovery/guides/i-guide.htm

I "guess" we have the "i-guide" you mention. At least the Comcast guide screen we have in both Miami and Okld. look like the screen pictured on the web site you gave. I see no way to switch to CC via the guide. I wonder if any Comcast systems have upgraded to make CC available?

My CC setting is from the Main Menu>Setup>CC. It became available a month or two ago after an I-guide update.

Thanks. Nothing on Comcast. Some other TWC user posted on this thread many months ago his Black Screen problem disappeared. Guess TWC is ahead of Comcast in a couple of areas.

I wish that is all it would take on comcast. Having to turn the cable box off, delve deep into the rather obscure user settings menu and then power the box back on in order to turn on closed captioning is absurd! Moreover, if your cable box is a DVR and you are recording, you're screwed. Is that a motorola thing or a comcast thing? Is it possible for comcast to do something that will allow turning closed captioning on/off without having to turn off the box?

Arvy said he is on TWC. At least one other TWC has posted on this site that he no longer had the black screen problem either. Comcast is simply way behind on fixing faults that at least one other has corrected.

Yeah, like two years behind.

Here's a thread at DSLReports about the upcoming A30 software. It appears some people with Comcast in Ft. Wayne, IN have the new software, and it's also in testing in a couple of other markets.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27468977-iGuide-A30

Software rollouts on cable take a long time (over a year in some cases), so I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

Any mention of activating the SATA port to use external storage?

I can't imagine this will ever happen with US cable companies.

The SATA port is actually already active and available in Canada with these machines and has been for many years, on Shaw Cable. In fact Shaw will sell you an external SATA hard drive (of size of your choice) for you to use or you can just build one yourself and use it.

But the US cable companies seemingly have no interest in this particular revenue model, and have had the feature turned off in the firmware ever since these Motorola boxes were first available many years ago.

I have newbie questions since I am spoiled by my old DTV Pal DVR and computers (Windows XP Pro. SP3's DVB Viewer Pro) for OTA (over the air) from my old home and using this new DVR DCX3400 DVR for a few months with TWC:

1. Is there a way to resize the closed captionings (CC) font and its size? They look ugly. How about turning it on/off easily without going through the annoying DVR menus? They still show up in DVR menus too and should only show in the video!

2. Is there no way to enter manual dates, times, etc. quickly for manual recordings? I wanted to enter 10/1 and 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM without using its TV guide. I should be able to enter the numbers from RC easily.

3. After setting up a recording for Sunday night, I noticed my future recording list is blank for the day (Saturday). I have to go to Sunday to see that future recording I just added. Is there a way to show ALL of my future recordings of all time?

4. With the supplied 1056B03 remote control, can it skip 30 seconds at all? I only can fast forward (FF) at different speeds.

5. Let's say I recorded something for over three hours. I don't want to watch the whole thing, but I would like to skip/start half-way or to/at its second hour? Do I really have to use fast forward at maximum speed (seems to be skip every two minutes per second)? That takes forever.

6. I noticed I had missing recordings and looked at the cancellations in my DVR's recording history logs. What happened to my scheduled recordings? I had a lot of the recordings and remotely cancelled ones. I can understand my manual canceled ones, but what about these "Not recorded due to a cancellation by the system." and "Not recorded due to the status of the channel." messages? Does this happen a lot to others with this DVR?

7. Is there a way to go to a specific channel (CNN, ComedyCentral, KTTV, etc.) with DVR's iGuide without entering its numbers (use names and/or call signs)? There are so many channels, it's difficult to remember their numbers to enter, and tedious to look them up.

8. How long does it usually take to update DVR's iGuide? Let's say there's a power outage or I had to manually disconnect the Motorola DVR-DCX3400. Does it take hours long to update them? I wonder why DVR doesn't keep it in its memory until the old data is outdated.

9. A few weeks ago, I think I had my first DVR crash and automatic reboot. I was deleting a bunch of my recording histories (had a bunch of cancellations from me on purpose, system, and channel status in its logs), and then all the sudden the Samsung SyncMaster T22B350 HDTV said it lost HDMI signal from the DVR for almost 15 seconds or so. DVR's LED screen said dUI (drunk under influence? :P), and it seems to have rebooted. That's not good. Does this happen to you guys often? It seems like a reboot would mess up iGuide too and have to wait for it to be updated. Does this DVR keep logs and stuff like cable modems do? I did not see one except for recording histories. I did see the technical specifications like firmware version (24.35).

Thank you in advance.

It sucks. TWC's videos on demand (VoD) does this. I will just record the new episodes myself. I hate ads.