Motorola DTC2000 Plugin

[Bigfoot]

Here is a reply from our friendly Comcast service representative:

Thank you for contacting Comcast Cable.

The Serial port on the DCT cannot be used as a communication port.
Only RCA, Coax, or IR blaster. The serial port is used for diagnostics
only.

Thank you for choosing Comcast.

Sincerely,

Brett
Comcast Customer Care Specialist

[drinkmilk15]

must just be that way in your area...or they're liars. works perfect on my comcast dct...

[jennyfur]

They are liars... but you can't really call it lying when they're really just horribly misinformed.

I spent almost 2 weeks and countless phone calls trying to get info out of them, and their answer was always "no". I would have been happy if they'd even given me an answer as complete as the one above in bigfoot's post, but I never got anything even close to that. Just denial and claims that the serial port isn't used for anything at all and never could be.

After hours messing with it, and even going to the comcast office and swapping out my box for another one, I finally got it working on my own. I just updated it last night with the most recent version posted, and it's working great... no more popups or errors or anything. Kudos to everyone who worked to create this.

[trevorst]

MultiTuner works great for me. Thanks for all the work.

[snewman]

Originally posted by drinkmilk15
Awesome! finally. this works great. so glad to have that stupid popup gone.

edit: ok. it works sometimes. maybe for a few minutes after sage is started up, then it doesn't at all.

So when it quits working, can you restart Sage and have it work again? Also, can you stop Sage, delete the log file, restart it and post a copy of the log file here from when it stops working? (if that makes sense )

[Bigfoot]

Update on my problem getting dct.exe working.

It turns out Comcast sent an update in the Seattle area that screwed a bunch of Tivo owners and me. Nobody was able to control the STB with the serial port. Found this info searching the Tivo boards.

After calling Comcast and asking them to reset my STB I now have serial control of the cable box. BTW, the service rep at Comcast knew exactly what I was talking about and reset my box before I even finished the conversation. Woohoo. Thanks for everyone's help.

[snewman]

That's awesome Bigfoot. Glad it's working for you!

[themeister]

I thought the new DLL worked fine....no popups; however, I'm getting the wrong channel a lot. In fact, after a while, I get the wrong channel most of the time.

In addition, I have the following problem.

I have multiple tuners. When the cable box is "wired into" a wrong channel that is also available on the other tuner, it is impossible to get it changed. As I channel up or down over the bad channel, it switches between tuners versus actually changing the channel, leaving the only option to grab the cable remote and change it. As an example, one tuner thinks it is on channel 37. In reality, it has mistuned the cable box to channel 170. If I go to channel 36, it uses the non-cable tuner. If I go to channel 38, it uses the non-cable tuner. If I go to channel 37, it assumes the cable tuner is correctly tuned to channel 37 and keeps it on channel 170.

The bigger problem; however, is how frequenty I end up on the wrong cable channel...moreso than the pop-up version of the plug-in...and yes, I did not disable the feature to verify if the correct channel has been selected.

[trevorst]

I have started to get the wrong channel problem also. In addition today I could not change the channel at all. Rebooted and the channel changed a couple of times then refused to change again. I very much need this to work and I understand you do this for nothing so we can not ask for much.
But please someone we need this capability.

[snewman]

Sorry about your problems themeister. They have me puzzled though.

One of the first things that I'm usure about, is what you mean by "the non-cable tuner". It sounds like you mean you have 1 cable box, and 2 tuner cards? If this is the case, some of the stuff I've read indicates this configuration will not work for changing to digital channels because Sage only uses 1 guide and there's some confusion about which tuner it should use because of the difference in channels across the 2 tuners.

The next confusing part is how it can get to channel 170 if you're trying to tune to 37. I can understand if you're trying to tune to 37 and it goes to 3 or 7, but I've never seen or heard of it tuning that far off unless you were either just using that as an example, or there is a protocol difference and the cable box is mis-interpreting the information it's being sent. You might try playing with the "scale" setting in the config file and see if that helps. The scale setting adjusts how fast it sends commands to the cable box and if it's sending too fast, the cable box can miss something and it ends up on the wrong channel. Unfortunately in the current version, changing the scale setting means you will have to restart Sage because that's the only way the DLL will be unloaded and the config file re-read.

Some of what you're describing is Sage behaviour. Assuming you have 2 tuners, you should have individual names for each tuner in your Sage config file. There should also be entries in the DLL config file for each tuner. Sage will then tell the DLL which tuner to change and depending on the settings in the config file, it will communicate with the COM port and attempt to change that tuner. So the alternating between tuners sounds like something Sage is doing.

Sage will also not try to change the channel if it thinks it's already on that channel. It won't even tell the DLL to try to change it. When the DLL get's an order to change the channel, it first verifies the channel the cable box is currently on, then attempts to change the channel if it's different. You will see entries to this effect in the log file where it will report the current channel before changing it.

I'm gathering a list of code changes to make and will release a newer version after making the changes.

[snewman]

I've updated the DLL to more aggressively attempt channel changes and also include more debug output in the log file. The new version is available at the same Sourceforge link.

Some other changes:

• More debugging output including outputting when it was told to change the channel, but the new channel is the current channel.
• It will not attempt to change the channel if it cannot read the current channel. However, it will try to increase the scale delay and re-initialize the DCT box before giving up.
• The scale delay is reset to the setting specified in the config file on every channel change now. Any time the scale delay is changed, the new value is logged in the log file. So if you notice the scale delay being changed to a higher value in the log file, you might want to change that to be your default value.
• If an error is detected after trying to change the channel, it will attempt to re-initialize the communication with the DCT box before attempting a power on.

These updates are directed mostly at people having trouble with channel changing. Other users might want to upgrade for the increased checking and in case any problems pop up in the future.

[trevorst]

Thanks Smewman I will try it tonight. We very much appreciate your efforts.

[themeister]

Snewman....

Thanks.... I'm going away for a few days. Will try your new release when I return.

Regarding your questions... I have 2 tuners. Only one is attached to the cable box. The other is direct to the cable.

For clarity, let's call the cable tuner CT and the other just T.

The issue I was describing occurs when a selected channel is within range of both tuners. So, assume CT is mistuned and actually on any other channel. Sage thinks it is on 37. As you go up and down around this channel, it is using T for channel 36 and channel 38. Whenever you want 37, it uses CT (since it is already tuned to the correct channel - so it thinks). It just presents what is currently being broadcast. At this point, you're stuck. There is no way to tell Sage to change the channel.

The only way around this would be if you had a "force channel change" capability.

I believe this is more of a Sage issue.

The problem I had with the Plug-in was that it appeared to have lost control of the cable box and quit changing channels altogether. I rebooted the system, recycled the cable box, removed and reinstalled the tuner and still had the problem. The only way around it was to install the old version of the plug-in.

[trevorst]

Snewman, Still had one wrong channel recorded today, it recorded 413 instead 401. So far 401 is the only channel I have had problems with. I'll keep monitoring and let you know if there is any pattern to the problem.
Thanks again for trying to get this working for us.

[snewman]

Can you post a copy of the log file the next time the channel changes incorrectly trevorst? Maybe we can see better what's going on from that and get an idea of how to fix it.

[trevorst]

I just tried to upload the file from today but i am getting an invalid file message, even though it is a text message. Tried pasting it but it was too big. I'll send a Private email with the file and hope you get it.

[trevorst]

Snewman, It looks like the problem I reported is my error... I had the same problem last night so I checked your log and notice the channel change was not to the one I expected. Went back and checked my favorites setting and relized it was set to allow any channel. So Sage had picked one of the Fox Sports channels I don't receive, hence the wrong channel numbers. Your DLL has been working perfect all the time, it's the dumb user that wasn't.

[snewman]

Glad to hear it's working! I've had similar issues where Sage would try to record something from the High Def version of Fox instead of the regular broadcast. Since it's not plugged into the high def receiver, it records nothing. But it was my fault because I didn't go remove the channels from the channel list it uses.

Thanks for the info.

[themeister]

Snewman....

I've had your Beta2 version installed since Monday. Working like a charm.

Thanks a bunch.

[bizarro]

I have the DCT2224 box. What do I need to connect to it with.