[pepijn]

So I just had my Comcast service installed today here in Ann Arbor. No problems, the HD offering here is pretty nice, 13 channels in total right now. After setting the whole shebang up I was curious what kind of action I could get out of the firewire ports on the DCT-6200 Comcast gave me, figuring that it wouldn't work after reading posts here. We're an all-Mac household here, so the obvious first step was to try VirtualDVHS and see what happens. The Powerbook picked up on the 6200 and listed it as a properly connected device called "6200" in the System Profiler (hardware manager for the Win-heads.) Initially, I could click the record button but nothing much happened, it created an empty .m2t file but not much more. Then I realized I didn't actually have the 6200 tuned to an HD channel (duh) and as soon as I changed to InHD and hit record, *boom* it started writing something to disk at bitrates anywhere between 8 mbit and 15 mbit or so. 10 seconds yielded about 16 megs of material and anxious as I was, I went to VLC to play the .m2t file back. Lo and behold, it worked!

Playback was a little too much for my poor 867 mhz PB G4, but it seemed to be all there. Mind you, I haven't yet figured out a way to play the recorded material back through the 6200, but I'm gonna keep tinkering some more. Short story, it seems that at least over here Comcast is rolling out 6200's with at least partly enabled firewire ports. Good news, I'd say.

 

[Jeremyfr]

Damnit now I'm gonna have to buy a firewire cord and hook mine up to my PC. I've been putting it off but hey I'll just get a cheap cable and try it I suppose.

 

[jamoka]

Great news, pepjin. Who'd have thought Comcast would be the first to allow HD archiving.

Joe

 

[jamoka]

On the pc side, there is video card hardware acceleration of MPEG2 playback, so the CPU requirements are not so steep. Is that available for the Macs too?


Joe

 

[Kipp Jones]

Great news. I have Comcast available in my area. My in-laws have thier DTC-5100 box. I am going to see if I can get them the 6200 w/firewire.

 

[hugenbdd]

Pepijn

Can you tell us what firmware version your system is on?


you have to power on, power off, then select on the front of the box. This will let you know what version your running along with some other specs about the box.


Thanks

Dave

 

[PVR]

Are you able to record all HD channels, or just some of them?

 

[potus]

Quote:

Originally posted by jsb_hburg I tested an .M2T stream I recorded from the MIT ProHD MDR-200 to my iMac G4 800 MHz over FireWire using the VirtualDVHS program. I networked my iMac with my Dell P4 2.52 GHz to move the large file. I used VLC for playback on both systems. Both dropped frames. CPU speed is very important. The Dell dropped fewer frames, perhaps a 2.8 plus GHz system would play the file smoothly.

Can't you just play back the .M2T stream through the MDR-200 via Firewire? Doesn't VirtualDVHS have a "play" function?

 

[pepijn]

hugenbd: I should have posted the firmware version last night, my bad. It appears to be at FW version 07.07 as reported by both the diagnostic menu and the regular "About this box" through the user setup menu.


PVR: I was able to record all of the HD channels on offer here, including the InHD channels and other pay channels.


jamoka: There are several hardware mpeg2 solutions for the mac, Elgato just came out with a nifty little box as well: and I'd post the URL if the system would let me. Ah, the joys of noobness: double you x 3 elgato.com/products/eyehome.html


Pepijn.

 

[pepijn]

I was mistaken in thinking I can only record HD content. I just did a test record of a regular SD local channel and this too recorded fine and as a nice benefit my Mac was actually able to play it back with no dropped frames.


Pepijn.

 

[balazer]

Am I to understand that this 6200 box outputs programs unencrypted? How come it's not using 5c?

 

[pepijn]

Quote:

Originally posted by balazer Am I to understand that this 6200 box outputs programs unencrypted? How come it's not using 5c?

I haven't come across any obvious limitations when it comes to recording. I get all the premium HD channels here and they all come in over firewire and as is apparent from other people, play back without a hitch. Obviously, this might change once we see some official firewire support. As a sidenote, when looking at the diagnostics menu it said the 1394 ports were not active.

Whatever that means, they obviously work very well. Now to find a way to play back through the cable box...

 

[Ed Barclay]

Quote:

Originally posted by jamoka Great news, pepjin. Who'd have thought Comcast would be the first to allow HD archiving. Joe

They are not the first. Cablevision on Long Island has offered it for about 10 months now.

 

[rogo]

Is there any reason to doubt the 5C is active?

 

[balazer]

I'm pretty sure that software running on a PC (or Mac) with an ordinary FireWire port cannot do 5c.

 

[PVR]

If the MAC D-VHS emulator were to speak 5C to the STB, then let you take the decrypted data and play it somewhere else, it would be a major breach...


Whatever the reason, I can't imagine this scenario is going to last too long.

 

[PVR]

(You might have been better off keeping the news to yourself!)

 

[shannonv]

I believe that 5c ("high value digital content" has to be turned on by the content provider so if it's not enabled, the programs are sent out in the clear.

 

[rogo]

That's gonna be bad.... It cannot last for long at all.

 

[Sevenfeet]

Now we just have to see if Firewire on the 6200 will work with a Firewire equipped TV. I might have to go down and get one and se if my Mits RPTV will talk to this thing...