Recovering video from a Motorola DCX3400-M

[glrider]

My sister received a letter from her cable company stating that her Motorola DCX3400-M equipment would eventually have to be updated. We scheduled an appointment but when the cable company arrived we did not allow them to upgrade, because we found out the new equipment did not have RCA phono plugs, and therefore would not be able to transfer programs to her Toshiba DVD recorder.

One day in the future her cable stopped working, as well as any access to the PVR, and had not finished moving all the recordings from the PVR to some other medium. Her cable company came and updated her equipment. At this point I am not sure if the problem was the company pulling the plug on her hardware, or if the PVR developed a defect.

I have found a friend who has cable with the same cable company and has the same PVR and her PVR is still working. Assuming the PVR is okay, does it make sense that I can take my sisters PVR to my friend's place and at least recover the programs we didn't get?

[october262]

My sister received a letter from her cable company stating that her Motorola DCX3400-M equipment would eventually have to be updated. We scheduled an appointment but when the cable company arrived we did not allow them to upgrade, because we found out the new equipment did not have RCA phono plugs, and therefore would not be able to transfer programs to her Toshiba DVD recorder.

One day in the future her cable stopped working, as well as any access to the PVR, and had not finished moving all the recordings from the PVR to some other medium. Her cable company came and updated her equipment. At this point I am not sure if the problem was the company pulling the plug on her hardware, or if the PVR developed a defect.

I have found a friend who has cable with the same cable company and has the same PVR and her PVR is still working. Assuming the PVR is okay, does it make sense that I can take my sisters PVR to my friend's place and at least recover the programs we didn't get?

are you able to play back any of the recorded programs on the cable box ??
see if this older thread will help - https://www.avsforum.com/threads/how-to-get-dvr-videos-off-a-motorola-dcx3400.1452200/

[glrider]

that posts has a few suggestions so let me answer your question first. At this point I can't do any playback because when I press the menu button which should give me an option to go to PVR, I don't get a menu. Instead I get a message saying this;

One moment please

This function is being restored and should be available shortly

Thank you for your patience

few seconds later a screen comes back with the following;

One moment please

This channel should be available shortly

ref code: s0a00


Under that is shows the channel number with To be announced in the description

[october262]

that posts has a few suggestions so let me answer your question first. At this point I can't do any playback because when I press the menu button which should give me an option to go to PVR, I don't get a menu. Instead I get a message saying this;

One moment please

This function is being restored and should be available shortly

Thank you for your patience

few seconds later a screen comes back with the following;

One moment please

This channel should be available shortly

ref code: s0a00


Under that is shows the channel number with To be announced in the description

if see page 2 in that thread, it may need a cable connection for it to have access to your recordings.

[glrider]

Okay I will try take it to my friends tomorrow and connect it to her cable. I am not sure if it will help cause the box is no longer registered with the cable company I am guessing but it is worth a shot.

[glrider]

So as I expected, it didn't work. It seems that the box has to have an active cable connection to even read the recorded programs. How insane is that.

[glrider]

I did see another post somewhere where someone had success using some software to read the drive and transfer the files to their PC. Maybe I can give that a try.