Thanks. Good to know. It kinda got me thinking about the analogues. I run my 6200 with components and analogues have not been bad at all. If they are going to be the same with the 6412 I will have no complaints.

Just got my 6412 yesterday from the local Shaw office.

Here's a few details that may be helpful to others in future:

Model: Motorola DCT6412 / 2000
Firmware: 09.12 Software: 71.44 - 1203
RAM:128MB Flash:16MB NVRAM:256KB
HardDrive: Maxtor 120GB QuickView (http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/quickview_data_sheet.pdf) Model 4R120L0-QV (5400rpm 2MB ATA133)
Included Remote: Atlas DVR/PVR (http://www.uei.com/category.php?page_id=67&featured_product=46) by Universal Electronics (5 devices)
Included Cables: 6' RG59 coax; 10' component video (3 RCA); 10' stereo audio (2 RCA)

Thanks. Good to know. It kinda got me thinking about the analogues. I run my 6200 with components and analogues have not been bad at all. If they are going to be the same with the 6412 I will have no complaints.

I have the 6412 and also have the 2500 and find my 2500 cable box to be superior in analog. I find the analog channels on the 6412 grainy. However on digital channels I find the 6412 has improved over the 2500. As for high def, I am in heaven. Amazing quality!!! Just wish there were more channels.

I have now run analog channels directly through my rear projector and find the picture quality superior to the 6412 and I have to switch between the inputs on my tv off the remote.

Has anyone else noticed the 6412 inferior for analog channels? Here's hoping Shaw will upgrade all their analog channels to digital very soon.

Love my 6412, but already from my brief experience I have run into a couple of annoying quirks:

1) If a Series recording is scheduled and you try to schedule a recording of a single show in the same time period, it forces you to choose between the two. It should just accept the scheduling of the second recording because there are two tuners to record from. But instead it tells you there are existing events scheduled at the same time (the Series recording) and asks you if you want to record the new event or the old event.

2) Another thing, very annoying... I want to record "Call for Help" on TechTV as a Series. There is a new episode every weekday but each episode is repeated 5 times a day. And unfortunately none of them are marked as Repeats in the guide (a guide data problem). So even if you select to record only First Episodes, the DVR will still record all 5 per day. I could select to store only 1 episode, but then I'd have to watch it the same day it aired or it would get overwritten. To store a week's worth of programs (5) I'd have to record 5x5=25 episodes.

As an alternative I thought I'd just set up a manual recording from 3-4pm Mon-Fri. Any decent VCR can do this, but not the DVR. You can set a time period and pick a day, but there are no options for repeats... no Mon-Fri option, and not even an option for Every Monday. You get to pick a single date to record, eg. Jan 26th, and that's it. To record the show on an ongoing basis I'd have to schedule a new manual recording every single day of the year?!

Finally out of desperation I browsed thru the guide to find each episode I want to record (to the limit of the guide lookahead) and manually marked one episode a day for recording. This is something I'm going to have to do every 3 or 4 days because that's as far ahead as the guide goes.

I love the idea of Series recording, but given the limitations of the guide data it seems crazy for the PVR to not support the simple manual scheduling options that are provided by any VCR, like recording at the same time every day or week.

What are the manual scheduling options like on the 6208? I thought I remembered someone saying it supports setting up a repeating recording, right?

The remote control button with the counter-clockwise arrow (above the Rewind button) is a "Replay" button. Each time you hit it the program rewinds by 15 seconds.

It is also useful if you heavily overshoot the start of the program when fast-forwarding through the commercials.

And the button above that, the HELP button, appears the be programmed to do the same as the SWAP button, ie. it switches between tuner 1 and tuner 2.

I just wish Motorola would bring out an external hard drive (off the shelf dirve will not work because they do not have the right protocols). I don't need the dual tuner, since I have Star Choice and Bell ExpressVu. But I sure could use a larger hard drive!

I posted my lowest price experience on the a&b thread. My analogue quality on both 6208 and 6412 units was poorer than earlier non-pvr Hi-def boxes (from memory). Analogue PQ is very noticeably inferior to dct 2000 or direct cable. Series recording issue beyond the questions above in this thread: Tried various ways of setting series recordings to get West Wing. I want all HDTV episodes, whether new or repeats, as well as old episodes on other channels. By using "all episodes", I found a strange protocol. Last night, the 6412 recorded the standard def episode broadcast at the same time as HNBC, but not the HNBC. You would think that, given a forced choice, the protocol would give priority to the hi-def version of the same episode broadcast simultaneously. Alternatively, has anyone found a method to program the priority choice to favour hi-def version over standard def? I also tried creating one series recording for HNBC using "this channel only" and a second series recording on the other channel (for repeats), but the 6412 will not accept the second series recording. It recognizes the name ("West Wing") and only allows "modify series recording" or proceed. I am experimenting with whether it makes a difference what channel you are on when you create the series recording(s.r.) in the first place (i.e.- If you create the s.r. while tuned to the hi-def channel, will it give priority to hi-def in case of conflict?) Also, as above, a way to manually program by channel and time would help if all else fails. Any hidden menus/commands found yet? Thanks for any info. :confused: :p

Technut:

Did you try setting up a series record with "save 1 episode" only... or the other option "delete 4"? This should set it to record 5 times a day, but only save one? There must be a way around your problem.

I did try First Run Only, it still recorded all 5 per day. I believe if I set it for "Save no more than: 1 Episode" it will just overwrite the current episode immediately, and if I set it for 4 or 5 episodes I'll just end up with a single day's worth of episodes. What I'd like to do is keep one showing a day, for up to a week.

Series recording just won't cut it in this case. Browsing ahead and manually selecting one episode a day is the only way I've found to make it work so far. But thanks for the suggestions.

Had it for 2 hours. Love it so far. Taping some HD tonight, to watch on the new TV tomorrow. Can't complain. Good PQ through composite at least, so far, both analog and digital, even WS HD. Love live pause and rewind. No complaints right now. Any problems, I'll post on here.

Had the 6412 for a couple of days now, so far it's been great. The only bug that I have found is that when I turn on the box and TV when it is already recording a show (set to record earlier). The box is muted, there are no sound from the tv or my receiver. "mute" is displayed in the middle top of the screen. I believe the mute is from the box itself and not my tv. I don't know why it does this but in order for me to get any sound, I have to cancel the recording and turn the box off then on again. Anyone else experience this? Or anyone has a solution for this problem?

TIA

Had the 6412 for a couple of days now, so far it's been great. The only bug that I have found is that when I turn on the box and TV when it is already recording a show (set to record earlier). The box is muted, there are no sound from the tv or my receiver. "mute" is displayed in the middle top of the screen. I believe the mute is from the box itself and not my tv. I don't know why it does this but in order for me to get any sound, I have to cancel the recording and turn the box off then on again. Anyone else experience this? Or anyone has a solution for this problem?I posted this issue and the "fix" for it earlier in this very thread.. right here:
http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?p=148264#post148264

Found another case where neither Series recording nor manual programming works for me.

I'd like to regularly tape the 6pm news from two different stations so that I can check it out when I get home. The guide lists both of them as "News", and several other newscasts are also listed as simply "News".

Series programming treats all of the various newscasts throughout the day as one series. And if I say "This Channel Only", it won't let me create a second series for the other channel, instead it asks me if I want to modify the original series because it still thinks it's the same program (because it has the same name).

A workable alternative would be to allow me to manually program a schedule to tape a particular channel at the same time every day, but unlike a VCR, the DVR has no way to schedule repeating recordings (other than the ~broken Series recording feature).

This is definitely getting under my skin enough that I'm going to write to Shaw and Motorola to encourage them to fix this in the next code release.

On the 6208 when you select a show to record on the next screen that appears is an option called "recording options". On this screen you can select "repeat" and choose from options such as "every day", "once per week", and "MON - FRI".

This doesn't exist on the 6212? Sure seems like a shortcoming. Obviously the code exists as it's in the 6208, I don't see why they wouldn't have it on the 6212.

Technut, thanks for the solution, I don't know how I missed that.

This is definitely getting under my skin enough that I'm going to write to Shaw and Motorola to encourage them to fix this in the next code release.

You may want to add the folks who generate the i-guide (TVGuide?) to the letter writing campaign. The poor description in the guide is the problem. Evidentally the i-guide is also notoriously bad for not identifying repeat programming which messes up series recordings. Good thread here regarding these issues:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=464986

On the 6208 when you select a show to record on the next screen that appears is an option called "recording options". On this screen you can select "repeat" and choose from options such as "every day", "once per week", and "MON - FRI". Thanks for that Marks, I knew I had read something like that elsewhere.

No, the 6412 doesn't have that feature. I just went back and dug around some more and there's nothing like it. I guess they thought that the new Series recording feature made that obsolete, but I could sure make use of it!

Phil T, I agree that having better guide data would help a lot, but I think there will always be some reason or other for needing to be able to manually set up a repeating recording, and that's why I'm going after Shaw and Motorola first.

If you are having any problems with short range or sporadic response from your remote control, throw out the batteries that came with the remote and try a fresh set of batteries.

I was using the "Universal Electronics / Heavy Duty" batteries that came packaged with the DCT6412 remote control and getting very spotty performance from just 10 feet away. Even though the batteries were unopened when I got them, they must either be old or just very poor quality.

As soon as I put in some fresh alkalines (takes 2 AA's) the performance of my remote was greatly improved.

Tuner 1
Channel 301 - 60 - 130
SNR 33.9dB 35.4dB 36.1dB
AGC 54% 52% 53%

Tuner 2
Channel 301 - 60 - 130
SNR 32.1dB 35.1dB 34.8dB
AGC 43% 44% 42%

http://digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showpost.php?p=158795&postcount=140
New LG and the 6412....why doesn ti have to be silver when eherything else is black?

What is everyone using for 4:3 override? 480P, 480i, stretch, of off and let the TV do it?
Right now I'm on 480p with my LG running on Horizon (stretches the sides to fill the TV)