[mythtv-users] Analog firewire recordings end early due to 25% fewer frames

Sam Logen starz909 at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 5 01:10:10 UTC 2009


--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> wrote:

> From: Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com>
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Analog firewire recordings end early due to 25% fewer frames
> To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 3:35 PM
> David Brodbeck <gull at gull.us> says:
> > My guess is your box actually is getting the 2-99
> channel signals
> > from a digital source.  Otherwise it would have to
> have an MPEG
> > encoder in it just to provide firewire output on those
> channels,
> > which seems like a needless expense.
> 
> That makes sense. I do wonder what, if anything, I'd
> see if I owned an
> analog TV or capture card and plugged the cable coax into
> it. Even if
> any analog channels were scrambled I'd be at least able
> to tell that
> they were there, right?

If I'm understanding your concerns correctly, it's easy to check whether a channel is analog or digital.  Though Motorola makes the DCT6200 able to process both analog or digital channels, I have never seen an analog channel processed through the DCT (this is through Comcast in Marin, Ca).  

I'm assuming you all are aware about how to enter the diagnostics screen of the DCT unit? (pwr off, then OK button)  I've done this on an "analog" channel, and the menus report the channel as having a QAM source, ruling out the possibility that the channel is actually an analog signal being transcoded to mpeg in the DCT box.

If there are problems with the SD channels, it's possible it's a corruption somewhere along the line in the mpeg stream, probably due to comcast's poorly implemented firmware.  I suppose for the FCC, they allow firewire connections, but they don't have to make it easy for anyone (one comcast tech actually tried to replace my STB with a DCT6200 WITHOUT any physical firewire ports whatsoever).


      


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