[mythtv-users] FireWire: Comcast removing 5C, channel changing now 100%

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Tue Apr 3 13:00:44 UTC 2007


On 4/3/07, Donald Webster <fryfrog at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have comcast in Atlanta, GA along with a pair of DCT6412s (yeah, the
> stupid DVR).  None of the channels have ever been 5C'd, but I am not
> sure if that is due to the device (I have had 3 different DCT6412
> boxes) or the area itself.  I *tried* to swap my original single
> DCT6412 for a pair of DCT6200s (the plain old tuners), but when the
> tech came and took my DVR... he walked right back in with a pair of
> newer ones.

My dad's cable has never had 5C enabled either, they've gone thorugh 4
companies in about 10years, so I don't really remember if they have
Time Warner or Comcast right now, but he does have a DCT6412.

> I have ... a fair amount of trouble with them.  Usually they will
> simply fail to send anything out and so nothing works.  In fact, I
> wrote http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Firewire_Priming#Fryfrog.27s_Multi_Tuner_Version
> because I was having so much trouble.  This script seems to make it
> work pretty well, but it will go for stretches where it can't tune a
> channel to save its life.  Some channels it seems like it will get
> easily and consistently, but others it will barf on for 3 or 4
> (manual) attempts in a row... then, spontaneously work for many
> repeats of the script.

I noticed on my dad's 6412 the same problem, which I've not seen on
any of the 6200's I've seen, so I'm betting its an issue with the 64xx
series that the 62xx doesn't have, perhaps its software (since from
what I understand the hardware in the 6xxx series is all the same
except for the inclusion of a harddrive).  I'd say try to pick up one
of the 62xx from your local Comcast and see.


> Sometimes I get glitching, sometimes I lose a few seconds at a time
> and a lot of the time it works perfectly.
>
> Aside from writing a complicated script, I have also separated each
> box onto its own firewire controller.  I have one built in, and one
> pci card.  This is because while they were on the same port, they
> would randomly pick nodes, then... spontaneously pick *new* nodes.
> Now, they both tend to *boot* up onto node 1, then after a few
> firewire port resets and firewire_tester broadcast attempts, they will
> move to node 0 and stay there.
>
> I would *like* to use the new firewire features like node tracking,
> but I'm not sure if everything will work okay w/o actually having my
> script which tries like hell to make sure firewire is working before
> turning it all over to myth.

It may be worth trying, there were a lot of changes. I used to have to
run the firewire_test Jim wrote to fix the connection after every
channel change, so far with SVN I haven't had to run it once.

> The only thing I can think of is to some how get comcast to swap my
> 6412s for 6200s

tell them you don't want to pay for the DVR service? Or get an extra
box, ask for the 6200, then return one of your 6412 if it works.

> I used to be using gentoo, but after like 4 years I decided I would
> see if not compiling new stuff every few days would make for a better
> server.  I switched to Ubuntu and was happy for a while, but now I am
> wishing for gentoo back.  I just know how to do everything :)

ain't that always the case in switching distro's? I've stuck with
Debian for the last ~5 years and even going from Kanotix to Kubuntu on
my laptop has been a bit strange, though overall an improvement. I
just don't like the idea of having to compile *everything*...

> In your FC6, can you show the versions of some of the relevant
> libraries and utils?  I don't think there are more than 2 or 3 and
> they should have "1394" or "ieee" in their name I think?

-- 
Steve
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