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DCH3416 not talking with AVCVideoCap 1.06

9790 Views 25 Replies 13 Participants Last post by ralnraln, Oct 30, 2012

QuasiKoz

Discussion Starter · Jan 2, 2009

Hi Everyone,

I haven't had this problem before, but all of a sudden AVC Video Cap 1.06 from Apple's FireWire SDK 26 is no longer "talking" with my Motorola DCH-3416 cable box.

I'm wondering if anyone else is having this problem. Is it...

- an AVC Video Cap problem? Do we have to wait for SDK 27?

- was there a firmware update for the DCH-3416 that would cause a problem?

I double checked my connections and powered down/up the DCH-3416. Still nada. Any help would be appreciated.

1 - 20 of 26 Posts

GameDayDog

· #2 · Jan 10, 2009

I don't have a solution, but I wanted to let you know that you are not alone.

I have a Mac PowerBook G4 and a Motorola DCH3416 with Comcast Cable in Florida. I was recording shows both live and from my DVR. But I just tried it today and AVCVideoCap is not working.

I'm not sure what the previous firmware for the DCH3416 was ... but going thru the setup it is now - 18.43.

I disconnected everything as well with no avail... I also reprogrammed my the DCH3416 to broadcast in 480i again, because I changed the settings to 1080i after I purchased my television. That didn't help, either.

It's definitely comcast trying to control us... I can't wait for another fellow genius to crack it.

Peace..~G

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HTH

· #3 · Jan 12, 2009

I have noticed that AVCVideoCap's "Defer Record Start Until" function does not have a setting for 2009. The year field initializes to a blank value and choices are only 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Leaving the field blank causes it to complain that the "pecified record start time is in the past". Non-deferred recordings still work for me. It clearly requires an update or patch.

I've never gotten FireRecord (nee iRecord) to work with my SA Explorer 3250HD.

HTH

· #4 · Jan 13, 2009

Figured out that I needed to download the SDK 26 before I could modify the Xcode project (the SDK 25 project would beachball indeterminably). Some changes to year handling have to be made to AVCVideoCapController.mm (r/2004/2008/, r/2010/2014/, and r/2005/2009/) and to English.lproj/MainMenu.nib's Window1 object to display the new year range correctly (now 2009 to 2012 in my build).

I'm not seeing an easy way to redefine the values in the combobox without editing the MainMenu.nib with Interface Builder. I could change them to read "This year", "Next year", "In two years", and "In three years", enlarging the combobox and redefining the base year at startup simply enough, but it's not as neat as just displaying the year. Plus you'd need to know what year you started it in. Why not just let me type in the year with the pre-filled presumption of this year?

I also made some (unnecessary) changes to the MainMenu object in MainMenu.nib so it says AVCVideoCap instead of NewApplication under the AVCVideoCap and Help menus (it just bugged me).

I may yet patch the "Specified record start time is in the past!" error to just record anyway and treat any passed start time as already elapsed recording time. If I'm one second late for starting the recording, I'd hate to miss the whole first minute!

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hondo21

· #5 · Feb 3, 2009

Two things -

1. I don't know if your problem with the moto box talking to AVC Video Cap 1.06 is the same problem everyone is having with DVR recordings, but that is the result of a broken firmware update, see discussion here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1032148

For me, it works fine for "live" recordings straight to the box. But DVR recordings (or running straight from the box after it has been paused, which is similar to using a DVR recording since it comes from the hard drive) are problematic. There is a workaround which sometimes works but often there is no audio PID and thus you get no sound. Supposedly there is a firmware fix for this, but who knows when Comcast will implement it, if ever.

2. I just ran into the "defer recording start" time issue for the Super Bowl. I normally don't use this feature so I didn't know there was an issue with the year choices running out at 2008. But I was leaving home about an hour before the Super Bowl and wanted to defer a direct recording until gametime and found that I couldn't because of this. I tried to see if a newer version of the program was out there, but it wasn't (that I could tell). So I had to record that extra hour before the game (couldn't just use a DVR recording because of the problem in #1 above).

I don't know anything about using the SDK tools to modify and build the program as you are describing. I'm kind of an Apple newbie who hasn't done any programming stuff. If you or somebody could provide a step-by-step tutorial for dummies (like me) on how to do that I'd appreciate it. Or, if there's a way to just download a modified version somehow that would be okay too.

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swbuehler

· #6 · Feb 27, 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by HTH /forum/post/15540272

Figured out that I needed to download the SDK 26 before I could modify the Xcode project (the SDK 25 project would beachball indeterminably). Some changes to year handling have to be made to AVCVideoCapController.mm (r/2004/2008/, r/2010/2014/, and r/2005/2009/) and to English.lproj/MainMenu.nib's Window1 object to display the new year range correctly (now 2009 to 2012 in my build).

I've noticed with the project that it starts the recording before it does a channel change. How can this be modified so it does the channel change, pauses a second or two for the channel change to take, then start recording? I'm not a C person.

swbuehler

· #7 · Feb 27, 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by swbuehler /forum/post/15925409

I've noticed with the project that it starts the recording before it does a channel change. How can this be modified so it does the channel change, pauses a second or two for the channel change to take, then start recording? I'm not a C person.

I figured it out myself... there's a usleep(1000000) further down that needed to be changed from 1 to 3 (3 seconds) to allow the channel change.

brooklodyte

· #8 · Mar 12, 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by HTH /forum/post/15540272

Figured out that I needed to download the SDK 26 before I could modify the Xcode project (the SDK 25 project would beachball indeterminably). Some changes to year handling have to be made to AVCVideoCapController.mm (r/2004/2008/, r/2010/2014/, and r/2005/2009/) and to English.lproj/MainMenu.nib's Window1 object to display the new year range correctly (now 2009 to 2012 in my build).

I'm not seeing an easy way to redefine the values in the combobox without editing the MainMenu.nib with Interface Builder. I could change them to read "This year", "Next year", "In two years", and "In three years", enlarging the combobox and redefining the base year at startup simply enough, but it's not as neat as just displaying the year. Plus you'd need to know what year you started it in. Why not just let me type in the year with the pre-filled presumption of this year?

I also made some (unnecessary) changes to the MainMenu object in MainMenu.nib so it says AVCVideoCap instead of NewApplication under the AVCVideoCap and Help menus (it just bugged me).

I may yet patch the "Specified record start time is in the past!" error to just record anyway and treat any passed start time as already elapsed recording time. If I'm one second late for starting the recording, I'd hate to miss the whole first minute!

Could you (or anyone else) please post a link to this fixed build? I don't know anything about software development, xcode, or interface builder... I just want to schedule recordings in 2009. It sounds like an easy fix, but it's still all over my head. Thanks.

HTH

· #9 · Mar 26, 2009

I expect it to be a bit popular and I'm not sure if I can handle the bandwidth for hosting it on my own domain. I could maybe do a torrent, but I've never set up one before. How do I choose and register with a tracker?

koltron

· #10 · Apr 7, 2009

@ HTH

which part of the .mm file are you're referencing with 'r/2004/2009'

I follow everything you say except I cannot locate the year handler in AVCVideoCapController.mm

do I need to add these llines are modify existing code?

thanks

-koltron

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koltron

· #11 · Apr 7, 2009

@HTH

sorry for the post and message, I figured it out. I was confused on the notations

HTH

· #12 · Apr 7, 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by koltron /forum/post/16215118

@HTH

sorry for the post and message, I figured it out. I was confused on the notations

I should have ended it with a "g" to indicate "global".

For others who might still be confused, r/xxxx/yyyy/g means (r)eplace instances of xxxx with yyyy (g)lobally (i.e. throughout the file).

HTH

· #13 · Oct 11, 2009

I've done some more tinkering, first replacing deprecated classes with current ones (except for cString and stringWithCString as I haven't found the supported equivalents (though it does use fopen which takes char * and doesn't complain about it)) to re-familiarize myself with the code, and then decided I really hated the pop-up boxes for the date and time (scrolling through minutes 00 to 59, really?) and how it would yell at you for specifying a start date in the past. So I put two NSDatePickers in instead for start and end times, got rid of the "Recording Time in Minutes" and made it treat a start time in the past as an immediate recording (won't work if you run this before Midnight January 1, 2001 GMT, time travelers and clock fidgeters) eliminating the need for the "Defer..." check button.

Bonus: you can specify recordings down to the second (great for padding start and end by 30 seconds), have them span years without converting to minutes first, and not requiring updates every four years to enable new date ranges.

Drawback: start and end are initially equal. I apparently need to use dateWithTimeIntervalSinceReferenceDate to convert from NSTimeInterval back to NSDate. It also needs some general preferences for certain constants like default duration, rounding start to next minute/15/30/hour, with or without n seconds lead/tail.

Quote:
Originally Posted by swbuehler /forum/post/15925464

I figured it out myself... there's a usleep(1000000) further down that needed to be changed from 1 to 3 (3 seconds) to allow the channel change.

I think I'll add a field for that too, though I know it doesn't work with my SciAtl box. That's something else that should be a preference setting so you don't have to remember every time.

I'm working on finding a host for the newly patched application. According to the original code, I can distribute it.

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HTH

· #14 · Nov 9, 2009

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IHateScreenNames

· #15 · Nov 19, 2009

Have you found anywhere to post your updated avcvideocap app? I sure could use it right about now

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craiginsd

· #16 · Dec 27, 2009

I believe I could use HTH's modified version as well, but I'm now getting a failure to even allow "Capture From Device". Not sure if this is the date range issue, or something else. Eternal gratitude to whover can steer me in the right direction.

Also tried iRecord, FireRecord, and Capture Magic, but NONE of these record nor preview the DV stream from my Cox SA8300HD.

I REALLY need to clear off some space from the DVR, so help is needed soon!

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leejacs

· #17 · Mar 26, 2010

Hi

so i have been playing around for this for a while, trying to get the date problem (ie year 2004 - 2009) to read 2009 - 2012 (at least to get 2010 so i can do some scheduled recording).

i have edited the files as above in HTH post - (cheers) but i can only find the files in the example folders - editing these dose not make any difference.

help - please - love to show my PC mates how cool this is

leejacs

· #18 · Apr 1, 2010

well, if anyone is interested here my fixed (for the date problem) executable.

AVSVideoCapp.app

qz3fwd

· #19 · Apr 1, 2010

Quote:
Originally Posted by craiginsd /forum/post/17794983

I believe I could use HTH's modified version as well, but I'm now getting a failure to even allow "Capture From Device". Not sure if this is the date range issue, or something else. Eternal gratitude to whover can steer me in the right direction.

Also tried iRecord, FireRecord, and Capture Magic, but NONE of these record nor preview the DV stream from my Cox SA8300HD.

I REALLY need to clear off some space from the DVR, so help is needed soon!

I dont think my DVR lists DV, DV is the wrong format. That may be your problem. Try pulling the power plug on your DVR and rebooting. (Not power off/power on buttons)

HTH

· #20 · Apr 24, 2010

OK, I'm going to try to attach my version to this posting. It doesn't have the user-settable delay for the channel changing included yet as I've been busy.

I have found that having the AM/PM at the end of the date choice is a bit cumbersome when setting up an afternoon recording in the morning. Neither control will allow you to set a date-time in the past and are initially set to the moment the window came up. If in fact the start time has fallen to the past, it will treat the start as "now".

I have had some problems recently with the capture aborting after only a few minutes. As I have made no changes to the software to account for this recent development, I can only assume it's the cable company doing things with my box (it's been turning itself off at inopportune times lately).

Update: turns out the capture aborts were due to the UPS to which the cable box was connected failing.

AVCVideoCap.zip 430.3037109375k . file

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1 - 20 of 26 Posts

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