On Feb 7, 2008 3:10 AM, William Munson <<a href="mailto:w.munson@comcast.net">w.munson@comcast.net</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I recently got a DCT6416 III cable box and want to connect it to my myth<br>box which has a built in firewire port however I am confused by the<br>various pin options. The DCT has a pair of plugs labeled IEEE 1394 which<br>
I understand are 6 pin and on the back of my pc there is a plug that<br>looks like a stretched letter D. Is this a 4 pin plug?<br><br>Also I know the DCT6416 III is a dvr box, my local comcast store is out<br>of the basic HD settop boxes at the moment. I am hoping that I will<br>
still be able to control the box with the firewire code in SVN. Has<br>anyone had any luck with this box?<br><br>TIA,<br>Bill</blockquote><div><br>Bill, <br><br>I have successfully recorded off a DCT-6416 via firewire. It works exactly the same as a DCT-6200 box. I'n not sure about the type of firewire cable (it's been a long time); but I know the ones I'm using have the same connector on both ends. I think they are 4 pin - but I'm not sure.<br>
<br>Initially I started by renting two DVRs from my cable company. I was frustrated at the lack of features (especially the inability to view recordings made on a different box - which resulting in physically swapping boxes between rooms in order to watch recordings).<br>
<br>That led me to search and find MythTV. My wife loved the cable DVR. My first attempt to covert her was going well, until I took a business trip and the firewire connection stopped working on day 1. That set the migration back six months. I had to keep a DCT-6416 in the bedroom as a fallback for a number of months.<br>
<br>Now she loves Myth and boasts about it to all of her friends.<br><br>I WAF (wife acceptance factor) is important to you, then I would recommend that you implement a couple of key features.<br><ol><li>Program one of your buttons to kill and restart mythfrontend. This allows a quick "reboot" of the frontend application if anything goes wrong. I modified <a href="http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/tips.php">Jared Wilson's mythpowerbutton.sh script</a> (which turns mythfrontend on and off) for this purpose. <br>
</li><li>Use monit to monitor mythbackend and, if it dies, to automatically restart the backend process. See the <a href="http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Status_Monitoring_How_To">wiki </a>for details.<br></li><li>For whatever reason, the DCT-6xxx boxes stop responding to firewire commands. They seem to work best when you keep them "primed". So I have a cron script that runs every 30 minutes that checks to see whether the box is busy, and if not, then primes the box using firewire_tester. See <a href="http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_flat;post=277073;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;list=mythtv">this thread</a> for details.</li>
<li>Be sure to install openssh server and to open a hole in your firewall to permit you to ssh in when you are away from home - just in case you need to.</li><li>Last but not least, make sure that everything is rock solid stable before "moving it to production". And only upgrade when there is a good reason to do so (that includes upgrading the OS or other applications).</li>
</ol>I'm sure others may have tips to improve the WAF.<br><br>Good luck.<br><br>Tom<br></div></div>