Comcast Motorola DCT 6412 - DVR unit

[lacywest]

I have the Comcast Cable Box ... the Motorola HDTV DCT 6412 [DVR]... in my living room with a USB 1.0 on the front panel.

... but I added a second one in my bedroom and it's a DCT 6412 III and it has a USB 2.0 on the front panel.

The one in my living room is screwing up ... doesn't record correctly anymore.

I play a show and it plays for 2 minutes and stops ... screen goes black.

And besides these problems ... even if I'm not recording a show or watching a recorded show ... it actually does this as I'm trying to watch the show ... even when I'm using the "Live" button.

A Blue message box appears saying ... blah blah ... contact Comcast.

This has been going on for a quite a few weeks now and as soon as I remove what I recorded in the beginning when I first got it ... I will return it. It worked just fine for several months but now ... crap ... I'm afraid to use it to record anything for fear I wont be able to watch when I get home from work or from some other outside the home event.

We got a second one for the bedroom ... the newer model ... and when I record a TV show ... Smallville ... the playback quality is terrible ... squiggly lines and bad reception is what it looks like ... even though it looks just fine as I am viewing it live.

Weird ... huh ?? .... I'm now recording to the Panasonic DMR EH50 ... good ol Smurf ... will probably speak out ... but ... at least it works better then the unit Comcast gives us to use ... ugh !!

I want to say ... about 3 weeks ago all this was happening really bad ... but lately ... no ... the living room unit has not misbehaved ... but it is not a reliable source for recording something to watch later.

I started wondering if the Hard Drive inside was needing a Defrag ... but how is that done ??? ... and when it is messing up ... the Comcast Service message pops up.

Anybody else having this problem with these Motorola units ?

I took the bedroom model back and they gave me another one ... didn't help ... the recordings from the Hard Drive still look like crap.

It was the Bedroom unit I used to record a new Smallville episode and the quality of the video was absolutely terrible ... I ended up getting the episode from some where else ... never mind ... where ?? This was a few weeks ago back in late January.

Oh and I'm paying almost a $150 bucks a month for this service ... this crappy service.

My wife and I ... are talking about canceling and trying out Directv HDTV [at least the Sci-Fi channel will be clearer than what Comcast does with it] ... but I will still need Comcast for my high speed Internet connection. DSL is not available in the area where I live.

[Conquest10]

I have the same box and have not experienced any problems with it (except those bastards are now flagging channels so I can't record certain ones to my computer). What's the message that comes up?

[edDV]

Local conditions vary widely. My local Comcast went from very poor noisy 55 channels to a hybrid fiber/cable (HFC) 750MHz system in the past year. It is very good quality.

[lacywest]

I have the same box and have not experienced any problems with it (except those bastards are now flagging channels so I can't record certain ones to my computer). What's the message that comes up?

Well if this was on my computer I'd do a screenshot but ... I will need my ... pen and paper or have my digital cameras ready to take a picture of it.

It's 6:12 AM ... March 5th Sunday morning and I have to be at work at 8AM ... 40 miles to my place of work.

Messages have been several ... some say ... in so many words

this request not available ... please wait ... will be available shortly

some say something similar with a code ... looks like ... -not play- ... but its abbreviated

The thing is ... as a channel is being displayed ... the unit is recording inside a 45 minute buffer ... whatever your watching and allows the viewer to hit the rewind button to see that scene over again ... and if I decide to hit the rewind button to see what ... I didn't hear them say or to see her tits again ... oh crap ... everything becomes screwed up.

And this happens when I'm simply watching a show.

A few Mondays ago ... Surface ... Vegas ... Medium ... all three shows were recorded but ... when I tried to watch them ... only about the first 2 minutes played ... and then it stopped. I usually set the unit to record a show or a movie ... 2 minutes early and 2 minutes after it ends ... just to make sure I record all of it ... so actually don't get to see it at all.

I've tried hitting the fast forward button to get past the bad part but ... nope ... still stops.

And on the other unit in the bedroom ... the new model ... the HBO East channel ... in my area ... CH 550 ... it wont display ... [message says ... please wait ... will be available shortly] at all ... but in the living room ... that older model ... it's there ... Geez ... totally crazy.

[edDV]

You need a visit from a senior Comcast tech.

[maxxtor7]

Hi Everyone,

I have stored some shows on my DVR but I would like to put it on my PC but I am totally lost on how to do it. I called Comcast to get some help, they said to call Motorola, and they said they could not help me contact my cable company. I have bought the fire wire cable so I could connect it to my laptop and down loaded the shows CapDVHS to see if I could get it to work but I only get an error. Do I have the wrong program or do I need something else???

Thank you for taking the time out to help me.

Jeffery

[lacywest]

Hi Everyone,

I have stored some shows on my DVR but I would like to put it on my PC but I am totally lost on how to do it. I called Comcast to get some help, they said to call Motorola, and they said they could not help me contact my cable company. I have bought the fire wire cable so I could connect it to my laptop and down loaded the shows CapDVHS to see if I could get it to work but I only get an error. Do I have the wrong program or do I need something else???

Thank you for taking the time out to help me.

Jeffery

I switched to Directv ... plus SBC/ATT finally brought ... DSL to my my neighborhood ... so I am no longer subscribing to Comcast at all.

The Directv HD-DVR ... the HR10-250 [High Def with a 250 GB Hardrive] doesn't have any working outputs that connect to my computer. But I do have my Panasonic EH50 connected and it is not difficult to record my shows to DVDs.

[sherman01]

Hi Everyone,

I have stored some shows on my DVR but I would like to put it on my PC but I am totally lost on how to do it. I called Comcast to get some help, they said to call Motorola, and they said they could not help me contact my cable company. I have bought the fire wire cable so I could connect it to my laptop and down loaded the shows CapDVHS to see if I could get it to work but I only get an error. Do I have the wrong program or do I need something else???

Thank you for taking the time out to help me.

Jeffery

Check out this link with very detailed instructions on how to capture from Motorola 6412.
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/index.html

CapDVHS is the right app to do it, just follow the guide exactly. There are a lot of things to check like: install the drivers for the DVR first, cable is in the correct port on DVR (there are 2 on backside of 6412), make sure it is a channel that Comcast hasn’t blocked, make sure to change the default settings mentioned at the above link. When I first captured I couldn’t get it to play back in any of my low level video editers or playback apps. So to verify that the .ts file (mpeg transport stream) is good you can use mpclassic (Media Player Classic). If it plays the .ts files then you captured them correctly. Editing is another issue.