Shaw DCT6200 Firewire

[viperdiablo]

Just wondering if any fellow Canadian with a shaw DCT6200 HD box can confirm that changing channels via firewire works. Or even if the firewire port is activated? Thanks

[soul_stalker]

I am using 2 shaw dct6200's with VMC (not sage but I'm thinking about switching) The firewire port IS active and will work for channel change and capture.

Oh ya I forot to mention that the only only only channels shaw 5C's are 5 of te premium HD channels (HD discovery, HD national geographic, HD Speed channel and HD Net). Thats it... all otehr HD channels work including the 2 movie channels and all time shifting channels (plus all 200 SD channels).... pretty sweet to use firewire with shaw.

[viperdiablo]

Soul Stalker what area of Canada you live in. I am wondering if different areas shaw has deactivated the firewire port.

[soul_stalker]

Originally Posted by viperdiablo

Soul Stalker what area of Canada you live in. I am wondering if different areas shaw has deactivated the firewire port.

I'm in Metro Vancouver.... The last time I spoke to Shaw support I got the impression that they actually use the firewire port quite extensively during testing and trouble shouting because it can be used to isolate certain problems....

Also when I was speaking to support about an issu with my box I was explaining tha I could only recorde via the firewire (under mce) and not use a live tv stream.... but she intterupted me with "yes you can draw a live stream from the port" before I could explain the limitation of MCE. This means they know it works... they know the firewire capabilites and they expect it to be active on all boxes. Just a hunch

[viperdiablo]

I am in the same area as well. The customer service rep told me that the firewire port is not active on the dct6200. Probably just dont want me to try and record via firewire to pc.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by soul_stalker

Also when I was speaking to support about an issu with my box I was explaining tha I could only recorde via the firewire (under mce) and not use a live tv stream.... but she intterupted me with "yes you can draw a live stream from the port" before I could explain the limitation of MCE. This means they know it works... they know the firewire capabilites and they expect it to be active on all boxes. Just a hunch

I am schocked that any CSRs even know that this capability exists!

[johnyc]

whoa so are you telling me that I wasted $200 buying a hauppauge hd pvr just so I could record shaw HD from the component outs on my DCT6200?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by johnyc

whoa so are you telling me that I wasted $200 buying a hauppauge hd pvr just so I could record shaw HD from the component outs on my DCT6200?

I doubt it. There are very few people getting a decent firewire output out of a major Canadian cable co's (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron) STB - it often doesn't work consistently and even when it does many of the channels may not be recordable due to 5C restrictions.

[soul_stalker]

Originally Posted by wayner

I doubt it. There are very few people getting a decent firewire output out of a major Canadian cable co's (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron) STB - it often doesn't work consistently and even when it does many of the channels may not be recordable due to 5C restrictions.

Actually. I'm using firewire with sahw in vancouver and ALL sd channels and 90% of HD channels are 5C clear (including HD timeshifting channels). Only HD Net, HD national geographic, Sports Net HD, and Speed HD are 5C encrypted. It just so happens that those are the only channels you dont get unless you get the premuim HD package. I dont subscribe to the premium HD package so every channel I get is 5C clear. Including the standard 15 or so HD channels. And... I havent checked the premium HD channels in a very long time for 5C (as I no longer subscribe to them) so they may not all be 5c anymore. Since 2005 Shaw has been scaling back 5C one channel at a time (I have no idea why) but over 2 yrs ago twice as many channels were 5C like the time shifting ones.... but not anymore.

I have reliable, perfect firewire tuning of 217 channels with dual DCT6200's with no mods %100 of the time... no guessing no problems, it just works every single time! So if you live in metro van.... I'd forgo the HD PVR unless you really , really want one of the four 5C protected channels.

P.S. - I forgot to mention a little bonus.... the DCT6200 digitally encodes even the low anologe channels so you get every channel pumped out via the firewire... even those peasy remaining anologe ones. No tuner card needed at all!

EDIT: Some time around January 2009 It appears all 5C was removed from Metro Vancouver SHAW. I don't get the HD movie channels anymore but they were clear as well when I did subscribe to them.

[wayner]

soul_stalker - You are lucky! It looks like the Moto boxes work much better than the SA boxes for firewire output. Here in Ontario I only get a handful of HD channels via firewire. Some channels have 5C issues, others are really blocky with huge green blobs across much of the screen. I am not sure if that is a driver issue or a box issue but I think it may be the way that the drivers interact with the SA box because people with Macs seem to have more luck than those of us with windows.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by johnyc

whoa so are you telling me that I wasted $200 buying a hauppauge hd pvr just so I could record shaw HD from the component outs on my DCT6200?

You've probably figured this out by now but firewire has nothing to do with the HD PVR, unless you want to use firewire to change channels. But you always have the IR blaster as a backup.

[Skaught]

I am in Calgary with a 6200.

I have not run in to any problems with 5c whatsoever. I have not checked ppv but all the "premium" channels I have work fine. In fact they tend to be the most stable for me.

I have had massive problems with getting reliable recordings tho.

I can watch Discovery HD for hours then drop to a low channel to check the news or something, then try to go back to the HD channel. I just get No Signal and have to power cycle EVERYTHING. Then it will work again until I change channels at some point.

All very random and glitchy. I tried several firewire cards and even blew my system away and tried Myth TV with the same result. I have put hundreds of hours into trying all sorts of settings.

[baudfather]

I too had problems with tuning channels, although on a somewhat random (~50%) occurance. I finally, after hours of toying and grumbling, found that setting the tuning delay in sgraphrecorder.ini to 8000 gave me glitch-free tuning (free of the spinning circle o' death) - the only downside would be 8-second channel changes, but the STB only tunes the digital and HD channels, the SDTV tuner cards capture all the others and have quick channel changes. Try that and see if that makes any difference. For me, all HD channels are 5c clear, might try PPV HD tonight to see?

[MickMcGeough]

I've got a Moto 6200 in Calgary. Firewire channel changing works perfectly; haven't had any issues whatsoever.

Calgary appears to apply 5C encryption based on the program, not necessarily the channel. For example, anything MMA related on HDNet appears to be protected but I've recorded several of the concerts without problem...

TSN2HD is always 5C protected, but TSNHD isn't? SportsNetHD is fine. I get several premiums (DiscoveryHD, National Geographic HD) with no 5C anytime.

NFL Network is 5C protected though

johnyc - Even without many channels being 5C restricted, the hardware h264 encoding of ANY video source should make the HD-PVR worthwhile. I'm thinking about getting one anyway so that I don't have to ever worry about 5C channels and can record HD movies off the premium channels, VOD, etc.

[MickMcGeough]

Correction: It looks like what I thought was 5C protection was really just unstable channel changing. My TuningDelay in SGraphRecorder.ini is set to 4500ms but it's not looking like that's quite enough.

I get all the HD channels except the movie channels and none are 5C protected as far as I can tell

[cclayton]

Thanks for posting the info MickMcGeough - I had everything configured (firewire moto 6200 for channel changing and recording) but gave up because of the difficulty of figuring out what was 5C and what wasn't.

When something was 5C, the resulting file would choke ShowAnalyser and eventually crash my system. I now have renewed interest in seeing if this is reliable.

I have Basic HD in Calgary and channels 200-209 came in fine. No Signal for the other HD channels (as expected) I have my delay set at 7000. Recorded Scrubs and Nova last night (Scrubs was fine - haven't checked Nova).

Comments on playback:
- This was displayed on and STX-HD100.
- Had to force the aspect to "Zoom A". When it auto-detected the source it was letter and pillar boxed. Anyone know how to get Sage to always display like this for specific channels?
[edit] looks like there is a customization to do it here.
- Playback was fine but if I skipped around too much the sound would drop and playback would be erratic for a few seconds until the system caught up.

Cheers,
Corey

[Xiphoid]

I had a very hard time making the channel changing work through firewire....I eventually stumbled on the solution, and I recall not really knowing what I was doing to make it all work.

Is there anyone out there who would help me make the capture work via firewire, as I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to make it work myself (I could barely decipher the instructions to make the channel changing work). I live in Vancouver....

And if I go through the effort of setting it up, it works with SageTV, right? How would it know if a tuner is present?

[xterrastrial]

Originally Posted by soul_stalker

I am using 2 shaw dct6200's with VMC (not sage but I'm thinking about switching) The firewire port IS active and will work for channel change and capture.

Oh ya I forot to mention that the only only only channels shaw 5C's are 5 of te premium HD channels (HD discovery, HD national geographic, HD Speed channel and HD Net). Thats it... all otehr HD channels work including the 2 movie channels and all time shifting channels (plus all 200 SD channels).... pretty sweet to use firewire with shaw.

Hi soul_stalker. I am currently a MC user still too (W7RC). Can you tell me or point me to a thread that describes how you set up your 6200's to your VMC through firewire? Is there any additional software (firestb?) required/any specific installation instruction? I live in Vancouver as well and am strongly considering this as I've just upgraded to an HDTV (have been running VMC with SD cable for 2 years now).

Also, did you make the switch to Sage or do the r5000 mod and why? I ask because you obviously know much more than me on the subject and I'd appreciate your opinion.

Thanks.

[viperdiablo]

Just letting you know, I tried firewire a few weeks ago with Shaw in Vancouver and was only able to record a few hd channels ( I subscribe to all) and no digital channels. Just thought I would give you a heads up.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by xterrastrial

Hi soul_stalker. I am currently a MC user still too (W7RC). Can you tell me or point me to a thread that describes how you set up your 6200's to your VMC through firewire? Is there any additional software (firestb?) required/any specific installation instruction? I live in Vancouver as well and am strongly considering this as I've just upgraded to an HDTV (have been running VMC with SD cable for 2 years now).

Also, did you make the switch to Sage or do the r5000 mod and why? I ask because you obviously know much more than me on the subject and I'd appreciate your opinion.

Thanks.

AvsForum has got a MASSIVE thread on this. My last crack at it is what made me switch to Sage and I'm glad it did.

As I recall VMC does need a tuner card installed, and recording via firewire was a nasty hack. You need to have an app running in your system tray that intercepts VMC channel change commands, execute it via firewire, and start recording. I don't think you could watch a show live in HD via firewire though, there was some hackery that would delete the SD recording via your regular tuner card and replace it with the firewire HD recording after it was done.

This was months ago though, it might be better now (though I doubt it'll be anywhere near as good as Sage).