I'm pleased to report that I found a Moto DCT6200 waiting for me when I arrived home from work today.<br>
<br>
The install guy was confused enough that he called me, but I just told
him that I was going to hook it up to a computer and he was fine with
that.<br>
<br>
I am also pleased to report that I get ESPNHD, TNTHD, and DiscoveryHD
even though I am only paying for basic cable (OTA channels only).<br>
<br>
Now I just need to wait another week for my firewire cable to show up in the mail...<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/7/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Patrick Watson</b> <<a href="mailto:patrick@patrickwatson.org">
patrick@patrickwatson.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Brad Benson wrote:<br>> On 10/7/05, *Marc Infield* <
<a href="mailto:marc@infielddesign.com">marc@infielddesign.com</a><br>> <mailto:<a href="mailto:marc@infielddesign.com">marc@infielddesign.com</a>>> wrote:<br>><br>> I was also impressed that they only charge $5 more for their DVR, are
<br>> they any good? I hope not, by the time you add up what I have<br>> invested in parts for all my Myth learning it would end being DVR<br>> rentals for about 10 years. :)<br>><br>><br>> No, the Comcast HD-DVR is crap. My sister has one and the storage
<br>> space is severely lacking. I don't recall off hand how many hours it<br>> can store, but it's not much more than 10, if that. Also, they seem<br>> to have a serious bug in them. If the DVR is powered off and it is
<br>> scheduled to record a show it will actually begin the recording, but<br>> not display to the user that it is powered on and working. If you<br>> then hit the power button while it is recording it will turn on and
<br>> display video so you can watch TV on the second tuner. However, the<br>> second tuner is MUTED. I have yet to find a way to get it to unmute<br>> other than turning off the DVR (which kills whatever recording was in
<br>> progress) and then turning it back on. Also, it clearly has two<br>> tuners since you can record and watch at the same time, but I also<br>> haven't yet been able to get it to record two shows at once. If
<br>> there's two tuners in there I see no reason why it shouldn't be able<br>> to record two shows if I'm not using either of the tuners to watch TV.<br>I agree that the Comcast DVR isn't the best of them, but it really isn't
<br>all that bad once you figure out its quirks. To help with your sister's<br>problems I'll share my experiences.<br>First, there are several versions of their HDTV DVR out there that look<br>almost identical from the outside. The three I know of are, in order
<br>from oldest to newest: 80GB single tuner, 80GB dual tuner, 120GB dual<br>tuner. They'll upgrade your box (or at least they did for me) without<br>any hassle if you ask. The 120GB dual tuner device hasn't given me any<br>
trouble about recording two shows at once.<br>Second, you must realize that the different encodings use different bit<br>rates and thus take up different amounts of room. You probably already<br>knew this, but just in case: HDTV uses the most space followed by SDTV
<br>analog. SDTV digital takes up the least space. I get a heck of a lot of<br>SDTV storage, analog or digital. I'm not sure how many hours of HD the<br>120GB will hold.<br>The mute-on-wakeup problem plagued me for a very long time. However, I
<br>eventually realized that it isn't the DVR's fault, it's the universal<br>remote that is causing problems. You see, Motorola designed the DVR to<br>be polite when hooked up to non-TV sound systems, which people quite<br>
often can forget to turn off. It mutes itself to prevent you from being<br>startled out of your mind when a show starts up in the middle of the<br>night or something. Anyway, by default Comcast sets up your remote to<br>control the TV's volume no matter if the rest of the remote is on Cable,
<br>TV, or Aux. To unmute the cable box, you have to disable this so that<br>you can control all the volumes separately. After unmuting, I usually<br>switch it back to TV controls all mode.<br><br>To enter independent volume mode:
<br>1. Press cable (the cable button blinks once)<br>2. Press and hold setup until the cable button blinks twice<br>3. press 9, press 9 press 3, press VOL-. The cable button will blink 4 times<br>4. You can now control the cable box audio when in cable mode and the TV
<br>audio in TV mode.<br><br><br>To enter "global mode" (TV volume is always controlled):<br>1. Press TV (the TV button blinks once)<br>2. Press and hold setup until the TV button blinks twice<br>3. press 9, press 9 press 3, press the TV button. The TV button will
<br>blink twice.<br>4. Any time you press the volume buttons it will now control the TV volume.<br><br>I made myself a tiny little label and taped it to the back of the remote<br>so I don't forget how to do it. Also, there's a timeout between each of
<br>the steps above; I think its three seconds.<br><br>The problems I have with the DVR is that it seems to forget to record<br>shows in a series sometimes. It also sometimes has trouble telling if a<br>show is "first run" or a repeat. Some shows it doesn't even identify as
<br>a series. For example, The HDTV version of the Simpsons never records as<br>a series; I have to do it manually. The muting problem really stinks,<br>but I can work around it.<br><br>Patrick<br>_______________________________________________
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</a><br></blockquote></div><br>