Just a guess. A found surplus of P2 6412s that, when discovered, Moto decided have a new 6416 label slapped on?

OK, perhaps the 6416 isn't a new box. Motorola sure seems to do odd things though... why make the 6416 at the same time as the 6412? To see if companies were interested in it? Or just made more sense from an R&D standpoint? I assume that they had some logical decision in this? I'm curious as to where you dug these 6416 dvi boxes up though? Even if they were made, what would the interest level be in them? it can't ever of been very much, or else they would have shown up somewhere in the past I'd imagine.

I would imagine that Motorola made the 6416 and the 6412 for the same reason that they made variations on the DCT2000 or the same reason that they made a DCT2500 and a DCT2500e; to give their customers choice. Motorola has always made multiple variations of their set-tops in order to serve different markets/demands. Instead of asking, "why make the 6416 a the same time as the 6412", why not ask why did the MSOs choose the 6412 instead of the 6416? The main reason why you are starting to see more x416s now is that Motorola has discontinued the x412 line of boxes.

As to where I dug up these boxes, I got them from the same place I got all of my set-tops: I bought them from Motorola. As a lab, we have to test our stuff on as many different variations of set-top as possible to ensure compatibility.

Do you know if Motorola is planning on releasing a new model at some point, or is it just going to be firmware upgrades? Just curious if you had any insight as to what future plans Motorola may have. Especially given the rumours that we may actually see moto compatiable HD boxes this year...

Motorola has many new set-tops in the works. As to when and where you will see them in general availability I can't comment on.

Just a guess. A found surplus of P2 6412s that, when discovered, Moto decided have a new 6416 label slapped on?
I'm pretty sure that would be considered fraud. Up until the cancellation of the 6412, the 6412 and the 6416 have always been available in parallel. It's just a case of the MSOs choosing the cheaper alternative until it was no longer offered to them.

Motorola is promising a firmware upgrade this year for larger drives and external drives.
The word I'm hearing is sometime in late summer or early fall. As to when the MSOs would deploy it after that is anyone's guess.

Just upgraded the HD in my 6412 III. It was a maxtor, I went with a seagate 320G. Hopefully there is a firmware upgrade so I can use more of it. The extra 34% will definately help during the winter->spring season.

Of course I broke the plastic clip, has anyone been able to find a source for a replacement yet?

PS: thanks for the info in this thread, especially cavu.

Even if they do release new firmware, you'll most likely need to reformat your drive to see the extra space.

I recently replaced a bad 120 gig drive with a brand new unformatted 250 gig hard drive. How long should it take to format the new drive? I ask this because the 6412 didn't seem to do anything different and the receiver is still not working properly. If I disconnect the power from the hard drive the 6412 works like a DCT6200 would. With the hard drive connected the guide doesn't work properly and after a few channel changes the unit freezes up, and if I turn it off and on the picture and sound disappear along with the LED channel display on the front.

I am guessing my DCT6412 is not able to set up a new hard drive because it is damaged in some way. If I took a working hard drive from another 6412 and install it into this one would it work?

And does anyone know what the push button on the front of the main PCB is used for?

Are there any other Newsgroups on the net that may have more technical information to give me?

The machine doesn't like the 250GB HD. Try just using a 120GB HD. I don't recall it being confirmed anywhere that you can put a larger drive into a non phase iii model.

It does recognise the 250GB HD as 160GB. But it may not like anything bigger than 160GB. I'll have to find a 120GB drive somewhere to try. Thanks.

I don't recall it being confirmed anywhere that you can put a larger drive into a non phase iii model.

I've got three non-Phase III DCT6416s running on my desk so Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 hardware can definately work with 160 GB HDDs. But these are factory-installed drives so I can't say with any certainty that a non-Phase III 6412 will work with *any* 160 GB HDD.

According to Wiki info :

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Firmware_and_Software#Hidden_F.2FW_Feature

The capability for DCT6400 series to support 160G drive is simply based on whether the box has F/W higher than v12.31 or not. Hardware phase difference is not the actual limitation.

My box is out of luck at this time, cause Shaw doesn't upgrade my 6412P1 F/W (still v10.12).

Don't believe everything you read in Wikis either.

In the Motorola world, TCL 10.xx is not necessarily older than TCL 12.xx. They are simply two different brances of the TCL development. In your case, 10.12 *is* older than 12.31 but that's not my point here.

According to the actual Motorola release notes, TCL 10.12 *DOES* support the DCT6416 P1 and DCT6416 P2.3 (as well as the P3 which wasn't actually a field released product at the time that this TCL was field released but was in PPR release.)

The TCL 12.xx track, on the other hand, is a code base that only supports only the 7038 processor based DCTs (in other words, P3 hardware: DCT64xx P3/DCT34xx and DCT3080) so you will never see 12.xx on your P1 or P2 hardware. But that *doesn't* mean that you must have a P3 to use a 160 GB HDD in a P1.

MacTVJunkie,

Thanks for explaining those hidden secrets within the Moto world, you're always excellent on those things! (I think if you could edit those Wiki pages a bit, that will be very helpful to clarify some of our poor mis-concept.) Now, with your info, I might be brave enough to try putting a 160G drive into my 6412P1 F/W10.12 to see if it will expand the space ....

BTW, do you have info regarding to the processor model difference between DCT6400 P1 and P2,3 (as mentioned in your post that P2,3 use 7038, what about P1?)? I would like to dig deeper into that to see if different processors in different boxes will have different performance and temperature/heat level. Many people say their newer DCT models have less heat, could the processor or hardrive be the key factor?

- Trust No One

I am very curious too if you can put a 160GB drive into a 6412P1-DVI with F/W10.12. Let us all know what happens!

Okay so the reason I started to look into an external SATA drive is that a SHAW TSR told me ALL about he uses one on his box, and takes it to his friends house etc...seems pretty strange now that it seems that no one on the entire web has been able to find success with the external SATA port.

So now I have a 160 Gig External Sata drive (same as in my box) and a Vantec Nexstar 3 External SATA enclosure. So here's my thought....

The Vantec comes with an 'intenal SATA to External Sata' cable/bracket, this means I could open my 6416 box, and remove the harddrive and internal sata cable. Now instal the 'internal to external' cable with bracket(bracket can easily be modified to just replace the existing external SATA port on the back of the 6416 box). Now I'll have a box with no internal hard drive but an actual functioning port on the back of the box.

Next, take the hard drive from my 6416, mount it into the Nexstar 3 external enclosure, and plug it into the back of the 6416 SATA port. My thoughts are that the 6416 won't even know the difference of being inside the 6416 or inside an external enclosure.

If this would work it would solve the the whole non-active sata port problem, and give users the option of using specific external drive enclosures to suite their needs. (the vantec has USB connectivity for Computer access to video stored on the drive)

Does anyone have any reason why this might not work before I void warranty, and possibly wreck my new box?

I like the idea, and I think it should work. But I don't know if you'll have much luck reading the drive on your computer. So far as I know, nobody has been able to read the file system used by the Motorola boxes. But you'd certainly be in a good position to try to poke at it with some utilities.

The content on the drive is encrypted using keys that tie it to your particular set-top. So even another DCT64xx won't be able to use the content on your HDD. And a computer is right out.

But, assuming that works, it would allow us to use multiple drives on the same machine (obviously not at the same time) to increase storage capacity.

Well, it should work as long as the drive within the sata enclousre is connected to the internal sata port.

I don't quite get how you can easily modify the bracket to replace the existing sata port.

MacAdict, that's a pretty sweet case. Here's a review:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-332-1.htm

I like your idea as a way to double (or more) your recording space. But I'm curious if your series recordings settings etc are in flash in the DCT (I hope, most likely), or if they are stored on the drive (and will disappear when you swap drives). Basically, when you swap drives how much work is it... all settings retained, just a reboot? Or a big hassle?

Please let us know how it goes!