Connecting Digital Cable Box through FireWire

[skye3000]

A friend of mine has a Motorola dct6412 DVR from Time Warner. He currently has a firewire hookup to his computer so he can rip his recorded shows. He is trying to set up the dvr so he can change channels using windows mce. I'm trying to get him to make the switch to gbpvr. Is there anyway to make gbpvr recognize the dvr as a tuner source and give him some control over the channels? He can change the channels if you uses the command line utility that came with the driver pack but mce doesn't recognize it as a tuner device, even though it should. Thanks for any help.

[wtg]

It seems unlikely but if so, it'd probably be via the WDM Recorder that is a sticky topic at the top of this forum.

I appreciate the post. I didn't know HD capture was even possible with the Motorola DVR. I have one and after doing a little googling, I see I have something else I need to play with now.

[Ted the Penguin]

if there is an executable that accepts the channel number as an input then yes he can change channels using GB-PVR, no problems.

I was also interested about the firewire capture source myself, let us know how it works out

[skye3000]

I was surprised too about the firewire connection. apparently he uses the firewire to rip the recorded files off of the dvr. I don't know what kind of executable the drivers use to change channels but it does have a command line tool you can start to test the connection. maby I just need to right some small programs to interface with gbpvr when he presses a button. I'll check out the wdm posts too. thanks.

[wtg]

Yeah, being able to capture HD content from my cable box without so much as a capture card is really intriguing. I've long bemoaned the fact that I can't get my HD recordings off my cable box, but this gives me hope. (Actually, it'll probably just lead to a new bunch of headaches, but you know... )

For anyone else interested, here's the best link I found on how to do this: http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/

[skye3000]

The software he uses is called capdvhs. he found it at videohelp.com. good luck with that and keep us posted if you find some way to integrate it into gbpvr easily. I'd like to get digital cable but I don't want to lose my pvr for a limited functioning dvr.

[madcat]

If possible to get the HD content over FireWire, then why bother having a HD PVR from the cable provider at all? all you would need is a basic HD STB (assuming there's a Firewire port, and it's active). Right?

That would be, in my mind, the perfect solution - HD capable (simple) STB, GBPVR controlling it (external proggy, whatever), and recording HD shows over the Firewire (and possibly SD shows over the S-vid-in?). How's that sound? the best (and cheapest ) HD-PVR solution!

[dark_half]

I do use the firewire ports to change channels and I started playing yesterday with the external recording plugin to capture from firewire. I tried having it launch vlc to do the capture with some very limited success. I only had about a hour the other day but hopefully I will try again soon. I think the parameters I was using was something like

Code:

dshow://:dshow-vdev="Motorola AV/C Tuner Device":dshow-adev="":dshow-size="":no-dshow-config:no-dshow-tuner :sout=#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ps,url="{fullname}"}}

[dark_half]

If possible to get the HD content over FireWire, then why bother having a HD PVR from the cable provider at all? all you would need is a basic HD STB (assuming there's a Firewire port, and it's active). Right?

Most content in my area is encrypted and the firewire output has 5c encryption so you can not capture it. However my local hd and some other stuff(not sure what all yet) is not encrypted. Another thing I noticed was that the analog was also being encoded and available from the firewire port. My box is a Motorola 6200?? but is not the dvr. Apparently it does have an encoder just no drive.

[shuot]

I do use the firewire ports to change channels and I started playing yesterday with the external recording plugin to capture from firewire. I tried having it launch vlc to do the capture with some very limited success. I only had about a hour the other day but hopefully I will try again soon.

. . . but were you able to play your recordings using GBPVR ?

These recordings are coded as "Transport Streams" and as GBPVR (unless misunderstanding from me) can't play them.

Bye!