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Official AVS Motorola DCX series HD DVR Topic! - Page 152

post #4531 of 4641
11/25/12 at 9:50am
I thought it was a moto3412. I do know it has only a DVI port on the back and 120gb hard drive.

I have had this DVR for about 5 years.
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Gear mentioned in this thread:

post #4532 of 4641
11/25/12 at 10:49am
It probably is the 3412. I wasn't sure they made those without an HDMI port, but I guess they did.

If I remember correctly, the difference between the 6412/6416 and 3412/3416 is that the 641x models have both analog cable and digital cable capabilities, while the 341x models can only deliver digital cable (Note: digital does not mean HD...there are digital SD and digital HD channels.)
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post #4533 of 4641
11/25/12 at 11:04am
Also: the 3412 and 6412 comes with a 120 GB internal hard drive, while the 3416 and 6416 comes with a 160 GB internal hard drive.

I think most DCX models have a 250 GB, 320 GB, or 512 GB hard drive. Some have a 1 TB hard drive, but my understanding is that those are the multi-room units and they are somewhat jealously guarded by the cable companies.

And, if you're willing to open up the DCX box, you can throw in a 1 TB hard drive and the DCX units will automatically accept it and format it giving you a full 1 TB of recording space (they will not accept drives larger than 1 TB, though you can run through manual steps that involve formatting larger drives with a 1 TB image...that requires using a PC to apply the 1 TB image to the drive and then throwing it into the DVR...you will have only 1 TB of recording space, so there will be some wasted drive space, but some people do this because they have a spare 1.5 TB or 2 TB drive sitting around.)

There is also evidence of the newer Motorola FIOS units accepting drives larger than 1 TB and auto-formatting them, but it is not known if those drives could then be transplanted into non-FIOS Motorola DVR's...I suspect it could work, but it is possible that a different file system is used for those FIOS units.

All of that may be a bit of a moot point now that the cable companies have enabled the use of external eSATA drives (I'm thinking that this was done begin addressing the satellite TV commercials that mock the cable DVR's as "conflict boxes"...I'm hopeful that they are also putting a renewed focus on fixing firmware and software bugs that have plagued the DCX units for years.). However, because the eSATA drives are limited to 1 TB, it could still be advantageous to switch out the internal drive in order to achieve a full 2 TB of recording space (1TB internal and 1 TB external eSATA)
Edited by TNO821 - 11/25/12 at 11:11am
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post #4534 of 4641
11/25/12 at 6:11pm
Have two TWC DCX3400's in our home, part of the signature-at-home package or whatever it's called. Two odd things are now occurring, wondering if anyone else has observed this:

1) Watching HD content (NFL Sunday Night Football at the moment, yes on the proper HD channel), and the DVR front panel is displaying "480p". l don't know how to determine what resolution I'm actually watching, but I'm confident it is either 720p or 1080i based on the picture quality and formatting (16:9).
2) In the recent past, I could access the DCX3400 user settings menu by turning off the front power button, then pressing Menu button within two seconds. Well, this still works, but now the menu that comes up is for adjusting the audio properties. There isn't a video settings screen at all (e.g., the screen allowing selection of video resolution, native mode, etc.). I've checked this on both DVR's and both exhibit identical behavior (480p indicator and strange user settings screen).

Anyone else observed this? It's driving me nuts. Spoke with TWC for an unrelated reason (audio kept dropping out on both boxes), tech explained that Motorola runs servers that connect to all these DCX boxes. Apparently due to Hurricane Sandy Moto was having some technical difficulties with audio, unplugging/re-powering the boxes seemed to fix the audio issues. I asked if these other issues might also be related, he had no idea and hadn't heard about either problem. The above problems weren't fixed and still exist.
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post #4535 of 4641
11/25/12 at 6:39pm
Never fails. Soon as I finally post something I find answers:

1) Pulling out the original Motorola remote control (we use MX-900 and MX-950 universal remotes), I immediately saw a "Settings" button that I had completely forgotten about. That button pulls up a custom TWC menu that allows all kinds of things to be set, like clock display, parental controls, and ... High Definition output resolution. My DVR's were both recently firmware-upgraded, my guess is that the display resolution was reset by that process to 480p. Sure enough, changing to "Auto" ("Native" is no longer an option) fixed the resolution problem instantly.
2) The problem of accessing the old video resolution menu through the DVR front panel settings button is also now explained. You can't do this anymore, at least not with TWC DVR's. The only way to access the video resolution settings is as described above, unless someone has found another front panel way to do this. On these DVR's, the front panel Power Off-then-Menu sequence merely accesses the audio settings - which by the way are also now accessible using the TWC DVR settings menu noted above.

Frustrating but now I know what to do... add a custom "Settings" button to my MX remotes!!!
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post #4536 of 4641
12/5/12 at 3:33pm
Been a while since I've visited the forum and posted a question but Comcast's impending roll-out of activating their DVR's eSATA connector once the A30 Software hits my market area for using the "official" WD 1TB DVR expander external HDD has piked my interest.

I've read earlier in the thread that "pretty much any 1TB external HDD with an wSATA connector will work" .... so before I go out and spend $100+ on the Comcast approved HDD, I was wondering if Comcast's talk about that specific WD unit being "optimized" for AV recording, etc is mere rhetoric or actually has some merit?

The reason being is that I have a pair of 7200RPM 32MB Buffer Western Digital WD10000LSRTL 1TB SATA 3.0 Caviar high end "Black Series" 5 yr Warrantied units with "dual internal processers" inserted into Thermaltake external enclosures with eSATA connectors that came with high quality 2 foot long eSATA connectors which have never caused me any trouble over the last 3 years (used for both regular backups plus heavy day-to-day work). They also have switchable USB 2.0 ports, and internally the enclosures have both SATA and IDE connectors. These enclosures have no fan however, yet run cool to the touch plus have an on/off switch on the back that could possiblly be used if I don't need to make use of the extra storage for extended periods of time (I'm hoping). One downside that I see is they lack the "green" spin down feature of Comcast's "officially" supported unit which might be an energy savings issue here.

So what say you all regarding trying one of these once my area is activated? Will the potentially harder work requirements of DVR extender service require a fan, an "optimized" HDD for AV service and "Green" spin down features?

The "official" WD units are only $100+ so it's no big deal one way or the other for me ..... just thinking I could put back into service one of my current 1TB WD units presently sitting in my spare parts drawer if there are not potential negative consequenses.

Thanks wink.gif
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post #4537 of 4641
12/5/12 at 6:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by George-O View Post

Been a while since I've visited the forum and posted a question but Comcast's impending roll-out of activating their DVR's eSATA connector once the A30 Software hits my market area for using the "official" WD 1TB DVR expander external HDD has piked my interest.
I've read earlier in the thread that "pretty much any 1TB external HDD with an wSATA connector will work" .... so before I go out and spend $100+ on the Comcast approved HDD, I was wondering if Comcast's talk about that specific WD unit being "optimized" for AV recording, etc is mere rhetoric or actually has some merit?
The reason being is that I have a pair of 7200RPM 32MB Buffer Western Digital WD10000LSRTL 1TB SATA 3.0 Caviar high end "Black Series" 5 yr Warrantied units with "dual internal processers" inserted into Thermaltake external enclosures with eSATA connectors that came with high quality 2 foot long eSATA connectors which have never caused me any trouble over the last 3 years (used for both regular backups plus heavy day-to-day work). They also have switchable USB 2.0 ports, and internally the enclosures have both SATA and IDE connectors. These enclosures have no fan however, yet run cool to the touch plus have an on/off switch on the back that could possiblly be used if I don't need to make use of the extra storage for extended periods of time (I'm hoping). One downside that I see is they lack the "green" spin down feature of Comcast's "officially" supported unit which might be an energy savings issue here.
So what say you all regarding trying one of these once my area is activated? Will the potentially harder work requirements of DVR extender service require a fan, an "optimized" HDD for AV service and "Green" spin down features?
The "official" WD units are only $100+ so it's no big deal one way or the other for me ..... just thinking I could put back into service one of my current 1TB WD units presently sitting in my spare parts drawer if there are not potential negative consequenses.
Thanks wink.gif

IMO since you already have your own 1TB drives, I'd say go ahead and use what you've got. I don't think there really is anything magical about the specific model Comcast recommends - they themselves state (on their own forums) that you can feel free to use another model drive, as long as it is no larger than 1TB.

Unfortunately, the eSATA rollout has been limited to Indiana and Michigan to date. The A30 software has been rolled out in other areas (some places have had it for a couple months now), yet those other markets still have the eSATA port disabled at this time. I have no idea why this is, but they are assuring us that "eventually" we will all get it.
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post #4538 of 4641
12/6/12 at 10:18am
They still don't have the DCX 3400 on the list of approved DVRs for this either. I wonder what the problem with that model is.
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post #4539 of 4641
12/6/12 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BSTNFAN View Post

They still don't have the DCX 3400 on the list of approved DVRs for this either. I wonder what the problem with that model is.

http://forums.comcast.com/t5/XfinityTV-and-Equipment/External-Hard-Drive-Support-for-Motorola-Scientific-Atlanta/td-p/1463565
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post #4540 of 4641
12/6/12 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by George-O View Post

http://forums.comcast.com/t5/XfinityTV-and-Equipment/External-Hard-Drive-Support-for-Motorola-Scientific-Atlanta/td-p/1463565

I've read that forum previously. Absolutely no real information about what is different with that model as to cause a problem or a timeframe to fix it. As all of my current DVRs are DCX 3400s, I'm very interested in when this will be fixed. We already have the A30, so it will be very disappointing if I have to swap out boxes (and lose the current recordings) to take advantage of the expanded recording capacity.
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post #4541 of 4641
12/6/12 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BSTNFAN View Post

I've read that forum previously. Absolutely no real information about what is different with that model as to cause a problem or a timeframe to fix it. As all of my current DVRs are DCX 3400s, I'm very interested in when this will be fixed. We already have the A30, so it will be very disappointing if I have to swap out boxes (and lose the current recordings) to take advantage of the expanded recording capacity.
Yes me too although I'm still probably several months away from getting A30.

What I'm really curious about is when one's extender HDD loses power (like if it's off switch is used), will the main DVR operate revert to a stand-alone unit placing new recordings on it's internal drive? ..... and then later on when one powers up the extender HDD, will the whole system will still be "intact" on both HDDs and new recordings will revert to being placed onto whichever HDD has the most room available?

If so, this could be one method to semi-control which HDD a special recording is sent to, etc.
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post #4542 of 4641
12/8/12 at 12:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BSTNFAN View Post

They still don't have the DCX 3400 on the list of approved DVRs for this either. I wonder what the problem with that model is.
I might go back to one of the mega OLD units. I'm on my 3rd 3400 and still have the occasional Black Screen recording problem.
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post #4543 of 4641
12/10/12 at 10:01am
Last night, for the second time in a week, the DVR failed to record a program that I had set up as a series recording. It was a new episode, so it should have recorded. But there was nothing listed at all. When I went to the history, there was a line item for that program that said something like "program not recorded because of system cancellation." Both of the not-recorded programs had that message associated with them in the history listing. When I called Comcast, I got what you'd expect from them, "we need to send a reset to your box." I pissed and moaned about that being their standard answer to everything and what will happen after the reset to prove the problem is resolved, but eventually I let them reset the box.

So, question, has anyone else had this happen lately? Why does the system decide not to record something? Does a reset actually magically fix things? Is there anything else one can do to troubleshoot further (I did test doing two simultaneous recordings to see if one tuner was faulty, and that worked fine)? I'm with Comcast in Portland, OR, and I believe we're still on some version of the A28 software. The unit is the Anyroom version of the DCX3400. I have not been getting any black-screen misrecords lately, and I wonder whether this is what that underlying problem has evolved to.
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post #4544 of 4641
12/10/12 at 11:07am
Crossbeaux -
For the first time in a long time, Comcast failed to record a preset series (Thee Daily show last Wed. and Thurs.). We have it set to record only new shows - and they were new. Same thing happened in both Comcast locations we have - Oakland and Miami. My guess is that the system didn't reflect these as being new shows.- altho the description did have "NEW" on the top line. It showed/shows the upcoming shows set to record.
Wonder if this happened with your show?
We had a Black Screen recording on our 3400 a couple weeks ago. (Oakland) We have the 3501 (think that's the number) in Miami. Never had a problem with that having bad recordings.
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post #4545 of 4641
12/10/12 at 11:16am
Daily and Colbert both had the problem on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I believe it was a guide issue of some sort. When I saw that it wasn't recording Thursday night, I noticed that the guide was listing those episode numbers for this week. The incorrect guide data somehow put a hiccup into the series recording.
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post #4546 of 4641
12/10/12 at 11:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snidely View Post

Crossbeaux -
For the first time in a long time, Comcast failed to record a preset series (Thee Daily show last Wed. and Thurs.). We have it set to record only new shows - and they were new. Same thing happened in both Comcast locations we have - Oakland and Miami. My guess is that the system didn't reflect these as being new shows.- altho the description did have "NEW" on the top line. It showed/shows the upcoming shows set to record.
Wonder if this happened with your show?
We had a Black Screen recording on our 3400 a couple weeks ago. (Oakland) We have the 3501 (think that's the number) in Miami. Never had a problem with that having bad recordings.
Look in your DVR history and see if the line items for those shows on those dates and times list the reason for their not being recorded. If the line says something like "Not recorded because of user preference," that means the system thought the show was a rerun. However, if it says "Not recorded because of system cancellation," then that's the same problem that I have.

I also seem to have missed some Daily Shows last week too, now that I think of it. I'll have to check.
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post #4547 of 4641
12/10/12 at 11:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BSTNFAN View Post

Daily and Colbert both had the problem on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I believe it was a guide issue of some sort. When I saw that it wasn't recording Thursday night, I noticed that the guide was listing those episode numbers for this week. The incorrect guide data somehow put a hiccup into the series recording.
The problem shows I noticed were The Mentalist (no big loss) and the season finale of Sons of Anarchy (a bigger problem and that episode isn't on On Demand yet).
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post #4548 of 4641
12/10/12 at 11:42pm
I had the same guide problem with The Daily Show on Wednesday and Thursday, on Comcast in SE Michigan. I had noticed that it wasn't showing in the "scheduled recordings," even though I have a series recording programmed. So, I hit "Rec" for both of those eps. The problem with the following Monday and Tuesday shows being mislabeled in the guide was corrected.
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post #4549 of 4641
12/13/12 at 10:42am
Native is now holding on my box since the latest firmware upgrade!
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post #4550 of 4641
12/14/12 at 5:08pm
I see the DCH series Moto boxes discussed in this thread so I hope this post isn't misplaced. My issue is with stopping a recording while it is is progress.

I am house sitting at my daughter's and they have a DCH3416 with Comcast. Last night I set a recording for the hour following the scheduled end time of the Blazer/Spurs game on TNT. I did that by selecting the Guide listing for that hour and hitting the record button on the Comcast remote. That worked perfectly. While the game did last into that space for about 12 minutes I thought it would be a waste of disk space to keep the recording going after the game concluded. I tried every which way I could think of to cancel the remaining recording time, with no luck. I come from a FiOS setup with a 7216 box and you can stop a recording by pressing either the record button again or the square stop button. There are other ways by entering the guide or the DVR menus, too. But none of those worked in the Comcast setup.

What have I missed? Or is it not possible at all to do what I wanted? Just glad I don't have to live with this for too much longer.
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post #4551 of 4641
12/14/12 at 6:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ridgefamus View Post

I see the DCH series Moto boxes discussed in this thread so I hope this post isn't misplaced. My issue is with stopping a recording while it is is progress.
I am house sitting at my daughter's and they have a DCH3416 with Comcast. Last night I set a recording for the hour following the scheduled end time of the Blazer/Spurs game on TNT. I did that by selecting the Guide listing for that hour and hitting the record button on the Comcast remote. That worked perfectly. While the game did last into that space for about 12 minutes I thought it would be a waste of disk space to keep the recording going after the game concluded. I tried every which way I could think of to cancel the remaining recording time, with no luck. I come from a FiOS setup with a 7216 box and you can stop a recording by pressing either the record button again or the square stop button. There are other ways by entering the guide or the DVR menus, too. But none of those worked in the Comcast setup.
What have I missed? Or is it not possible at all to do what I wanted? Just glad I don't have to live with this for too much longer.

While you are watching a program that is recording - hit "stop". You will then be given a choice to simply "stop" or "delete". If you hit stop, it will keep recording. This probably isn't what you want. What you can do, which won't help either, is add 1 minute to a couple hours on to the original end of the program.
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post #4552 of 4641
12/15/12 at 6:44pm
I've been having problems with my DCX-3400 lately. One time, I was watching a show and wanted to record it to finish it later. When I pressed record it said my recording started but the box didn't show it was recording and the red light didn't turn on. I had to turn off the box then turn it back on to record but once I did that the beginning of the program wasn't recorded since the buffer is deleted once you turn the box off. Another time, I tried to rewind a show while I was watching and the progress bar was white instead of green and I couldn't rewind. A few days ago I also noticed that the hard drive has been making a loud whurring sound like it's about to fail.
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post #4553 of 4641
12/15/12 at 6:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaCHooKa Man View Post

I've been having problems with my DCX-3400 lately. One time, I was watching a show and wanted to record it to finish it later. When I pressed record it said my recording started but the box didn't show it was recording and the red light didn't turn on. I had to turn off the box then turn it back on to record but once I did that the beginning of the program wasn't recorded since the buffer is deleted once you turn the box off. Another time, I tried to rewind a show while I was watching and the progress bar was white instead of green and I couldn't rewind. A few days ago I also noticed that the hard drive has been making a loud whurring sound like it's about to fail.
Yeah, that doesn't sound good. I wonder if this DVR has any SMART sensors, logging, diagnostics, etc. Time to start think about replacing it from those symptoms. frown.gif
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post #4554 of 4641
12/15/12 at 7:15pm
Many of us with the 3400 suffer from the "Black Screen Recording" syndrome. (It shows as recorded, but just a black screen, or will start playing for a while in a recorded program and then freeze.
I am on my 3rd box. Still have occasional problems like that. We have had a 3501 for a few months - but haven't been in that home to use it enough to pass judgment. So far, no problems. If it turns out it works ok, will turn in the 3400 for a 3501 if they have it. Both boxes are on Comcast. 3400 in Oakland, 3501 in Miami.
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post #4555 of 4641
12/16/12 at 7:58pm
DCX 3400m
Time Warner Cable Austin TX
WIndows 7 Ultimate
EaseUS Data Recovery Pro

I removed the hard drive from the DVR and connected it to my windows 7 machine. I can see the drive and all of its partitions in the disk management console. I used EaseUS data recovery pro to image the drive partition by partition. The bulk of the data (recorded programs) are located on one 450gb RAW format partition. Upon recovering of said partition, it contains four folders; GZIP compression file, which contains sequentially number .gz files (tried to unrar them, that didn't work). HTML Documents file, which contains one .htm file that will not open in a web browser. MOV Multimedia file, which contains one .mov file that will not play in any multimedia player. And finally Shockwave flash file, which I believe contains all the recorded shows, all sequentially numbered, in .swf format, ranging in size from 250mb to 4gb. Again I cant get any multimedia player to play the .swf files or get them to open up in a web browser. I put the hard drive back in the DVR and all the recordings are still there and playable. Any suggestions on how to get these files to play on my windows 7 machine?
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post #4556 of 4641
12/17/12 at 11:02am
How to play .swf files ?
Mar 18, 2009 6:37 PM

I have some .swf files on my WIndows PC that I want to play.

The instructions on a website said to:

". . . play your flash files using the Adobe Standalone Flash Player. For this you will first need to Download the Windows Flash Player 9 Projector content debugger from the Adobe Site [Freeware].
There is NO installation needed. Just open the downloaded .exe and open your .swf from within the Projector.
In order to associate all .swf files to open using the Projector, right click the .swf file and "Open with" option. Once there, choose the location of your Projector.exe and you are done."

This worked ONCE. The next time I logged on, the computer could not play the files.

I'm thinking that this is because the programs referred to were not running.

So - how do I (i) find the programs on my PC and then (ii) create shortcuts so I can run them when I want ? I prefer not to have them automatically load at startup.

Thank you.

Bob
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/213239
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post #4557 of 4641
12/17/12 at 4:29pm
DVR content is encrypted and can only be played on the box. There is no way to play back recordings on your computer.
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post #4558 of 4641
12/17/12 at 4:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvfan2005 View Post

DVR content is encrypted and can only be played on the box. There is no way to play back recordings on your computer.
Exactly.

That is the purpose of the locked-behind-a-plate M-Card (cablecard) which you'll notice is in the back of every DVR. These cablecards provide the decryption capability that allows all "copy-protected", aka "copy-once" programs to be viewed (either live or previously recorded to hard drive). This includes ALL HD programs from virtually the entire gamut of channels delivered by TWC/LA aside from local OTA channels which you could also get from a roof antenna which are marked "copy-freely" over TWC's system, aka "clear-QAM". SD programs (480i) are almost universally marked "copy-freely" as well, as "The Suits" don't care about protecting non-HD.

It is the same M-Card which is installed into HD Tivo's, Ceton InfiniTV HD tuner cards for PC, and Silicon Dust HD HomeRun Prime boxes, all of which support live/recorded capability for the same copy-protected programs/channels.

It is simply impossible to play back encrypted recordings from the hard drive on a computer, without the involvement of an "authorized and paired" cablecard which is required for the necessary decryption technology.
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post #4559 of 4641
12/24/12 at 9:00pm
This is a first time for the family with TWC service. Its Motorola DVR-DCX3400 had very slow responses to its 1056BC03 RC. They were only a few months old from summer 2012 (London's Olympics were happening). I couldn't figure out what was wrong. So I decided to do the old fashion technical support's method. Power cycle to reboot it and wait. It worked!

However, it forgot the HD stuff since the pictures looked wrong. I couldn't figure out until I pressed "Format" button on the DVR's front panel. Also, some stations were still in SD even though TV Guide said HD like on 406 (KDOC), PBS (408), etc. I don't know if that is a station problem or something else.

What the heck was that? A bad crash? Does it happen often to others with this DVR too? Obviously, we had to wait for the darn TV Guide to redownload and some features weren't ready. frown.gif

Thank you in advance. smile.gif
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post #4560 of 4641
12/28/12 at 4:14pm
^ Yes. There are quite a few bugs in the firmware and software of the Motorola DCX series.

Some people prefer going back to the older Motorola DCH or DCT series. A primary drawback to that is the smaller (120 GB or 160 GB) hard drive size, but there's a thread here that shows you how to hack them to accept a 1 TB hard drive...it's titled something like "DCT6416 upgrading hard drive"
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