[mythtv-users] determining power state of firewire cable box

Sam Logen starz909 at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 4 22:58:09 UTC 2009


--- On Wed, 12/31/08, William <william_munson at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: William <william_munson at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] determining power state of firewire cable box
> To: starz909 at yahoo.com, "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 5:40 AM
> Sam Logen wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I've got a motorola DCH-3200 attached to my mythtv
> setup via a firewire cable.  The way I've set up my boot
> process, it primes the firewire port before mythtv starts
> up.  However, if the DCH unit is powered off when the
> machine turns on to record, then the priming process hangs
> and I won't be able to enter mythtv.
> >
> > I've downloaded and compiled the latest
> "6200ch" from svn.  I noticed that this script has
> the capacity to toggle the power state of the cable box.  So
> I modified its source to include my box's vendorid, then
> compiled it.  Toggling the power of the cable box with
> "-w" works, but all it does is toggle.
> >
> > That means that if the box is on, "-w" will
> turn it off instead.
> >

Ok, so I had an interesting chat with a guy from Comcast who came out to fix some issues that were degrading my cable signal.  He mentioned the cable box I had, the DCH-3200 might look pretty, but includes a few design flaws from Motorola.  He told me specifically that these boxes are likely to fail or malperform after about a year or so.  He recommended instead that I switch to the DCT-6200 - he called it the 'workhorse'; not pretty, but it is much more reliable.

I still have the question as to whether it is possible to derive information from the cable box through the firewire, such as its power state and, if possible, what channel it is on.  Though the power state is what most concerns me.

One other thing - if anyone switches back to the DCT model, make sure to have a look at the back first.  Some were designed without any firewire ports at all.  That was the first one the cable guy tried to push on me.

Best of wishes this new year,
Sam


      


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