Firewire Cable Box Compatibility

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This is a compatibility list for using Firewire with Mythtv. If you use firewire and it works (or doesn't) please fill in the table below.

Date Name Cable Co Cable box Location Channels Notes
m/d/y My name My cable co Cable box Earth All! This is an example.
4/6/07 t0ny CableOne DCT6416 III Caldwell, Id All. Except maybe premium channels. I got every tested channel to work.
4/12/07 Bill Comcast DCT6416III GR, MI ALL This unit is comcast PVR and I have everything working although HD is having quality issues.
5/19/07 Dave Comcast DCT3416 Portland, Or Some Some 5c encrypted HD Channels at the moment... oddly, PBS for one..
5/19/07 Josh Comcast DCT6200 Chicago, IL Broadcast channels + CSPAN I could get MTVHD when I had a better package (when I first signed-up)
12/02/07 Matt Comcast DCH3200 Pittsburgh, PA Standard Cable, Digital (some), HD (some) I get the basic cable channels, the Digital Classic, Digital preferred. I do NOT get Digital premium (HBO), and only some of the HD (one local HD - NBC), TNT, ESPN, Discovery...
2/12/08 Suresh Comcast DCT6200 Atlanta, GA All standard cable, most digital, all basic HD I can tune to any channel that is active on the box. Some channels are always problematic, some give no problems. I prime the port twice an hour if nothing is recording from the box, and get very reliable recordings from known good channels. Without priming it would get mostly failures when recording.
2/12/08 TugBoat Shaw DCT6200 & DCT6412 Edmonton, AB, Canada Standard Cable, Digital (some), all HD After trying a variety of firewire chipsets, the ones that work the best are the latest Agere chips FW323 v61 with no priming ( More Details Here) As for tuning, some SD channels simply will not work, for example all the Galaxy music only channels between 401 and up (we use our low def tuners via svideo for those). All our HD channels work including the "HD Plus" channels like Discovery HD, National Geographic HD, A&E HD, HD Movie channels, etc. However the 5C flag has been on in the past and maybe in the future.


2/23/08 Kelly Time Warner DCT6200 Dallas, TX All non premium or Pay for view channels until last spring. Now only digital channels...and only sporadically For about a year or so, MythTV worked amazingly well for me under Fedora 4 using the Firewire on my DCT-6200. Then, without warning, it became sporadic. It seems that they introduced a firmware update (I don't remember the version number) that broke it for me. After that point, all analog channels could only be accessed if I first changed the channels with a remote. Even then, they would crop off part of the picture. Digital channels still show up, but only when the firewire hasn't randomly shuffled nodes on me. It's almost impossible now to have a stable DVR with it, but I can still record digital channels from time to time. Before Time Warner took over from Comcast, several channels were 5c'd. Examples include: Discovery HD and ESPN HD. However, that is no longer the case. I don't use any premium channels, and so 5c has become a non-issue for me most of the time. I eagerly hope that the firewire code will recieve an overhaul soon to be compatible out of the box with the new kernels, and I hope that that will solve the firewire shuffling problem. (Unfortunately, I think that problem is TWC related. Might try getting a new box if I can ever get over my laziness about it) Incidentally, I am now running it under Ubuntu 7.04. (I switched after it stopped working)
3/1/08 John Comcast DCH3416 Santa Clara, CA Some Initial tests seem good. Able to get major networks in standard and HD.
4/10/08 Dejan Comcast DCH3200 Mountain View, CA Most Non-premium (both SD and HD) are available and recording since Oct 2007 has been mostly reliable. Due to some oddity an OTA HD station is 5C'd (channel 705 - the local CBS affiliate).
4/12/08 Jamie Comcast DCH3416 Seattle, WA Most Non-premium (both SD and HD) are available and recording reliably. Had to use broadcast mode.
4/12/08 Joe Comcast DCH3416 Pittsburgh, PA Most SD and HD are available and recording. Had to use broadcast mode.
7/26/08 Daniel Rogers SA3250 Stratford, ON, Canada Some Most major networks available in HD
8/18/08 shadowlordkt Shaw DCT6416 Phase 3 Vancouver, BC, Canada HD channels only Capture via PCI firewire card, Sunix FW3010C (VIA 6206 chipset) using broadcast mode. Also works with a Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 firewire chipset. However, for both firewire chipsets, the box seems to require periodic firewire reset & stabilization using (firewire_tester).
8/26/08 Chris Charter SA4250 Pepperell MA Digital only? Some brief testing with the OSX FireWire SDK and VLC. Changing channel via remote. The only channels that appeared to be available were the local networks, the live video portion of the TVguide and PPV preview channels, and the music channels (with slideshow).
9/20/08 Kris Rose Cablevision (iO) SA4250HD Westchester, NY SD+HD Using the SA4250HDC/Point-to-point/100MB setting in Myth. Only works with one cable box: recordings revert to noise as soon as two boxes have been used. All SD and HD channels (including premium) work. Update (6/1/09): Cablevision seems to have disabled firewire for all premium channels...investigating.
10/06/08 rhpot1991 Comcast Motorolla DHC3200 Harrisburg, PA Most HD I have no idea about HBO or any pay channels. A few that I don't get are MojoHD, MusicHD, and FxHD.
9/20/08 tafypz Cablevision (iO) SA4250HD Westchester, NY SD+HD Using the SA4250HDC/Point-to-point/400MB setting in Myth. Works with 4 cable boxes. Most SD and HD channels (including premium) work (3 HD channels with 5c, about 15 SD channels with 5c).
12/2/08 Dillwead RCN DCT 5100 (I think) Chicago, IL All SD and HD channels that I pay for Cable box is set up in MythTV as a Motorola DCT 6200 using a Broadcast connection. I don't subscribe HBO or other premium channels but HD channels like ESPN and Discovery come in fine. Connecting via point-to-point was flaky and not as reliable as broadcast.
1/9/09 jumpfroggy Verizon FiOS QIP 7100-1 RI N/A Haven't gotten audio/video to work, but channel changing works via 6200ch script. Had to modify script to send 4 digits instead of 3, since FiOS has >999 channels.
2/16/09 ntsecrets RCN (Boston) DCH3200 MA All Using the 62xx box I had lots of trouble with glitches every 60 seconds, but this box has been rock solid even with the VIA firewire chipset. I had to modify 6200ch to work with it, I also added the option to power it on and off. No 5c channels YET.
2/16/09 noahbeach Cox Communications DCH3200 Hampton Roads All, except Comedy Central HD Working great in Broadcast mode (P2P works just not as solid). The only channel I've come across that wont function is Comedy Central HD (SD works fine). This is a relatively new HD channel in the lineup too, so I'm hoping that 5C encryption on new channels isnt a new thing with Cox.
7/16/09 Daniel Mediacom Pace DC757x Iowa, USA All non-premium Worked out-of-the-box with "generic" firewire STB setup. Channel changing works with 6200ch.c, if you pass it the firewire node using the "-g" flag. Don't know about 5C encryption on premium channels, but works fine with "standard" HD channels (HGTVHD, etc.) that Mediacom decided to scramble for some stupid reason.
9/10/09 andreasch Cox SA3250HD Chandler, AZ So far most SD and OTA HD channels but no HD premium channels Using the SA4250HDC/Point-to-point/400MB setting in MythTV. Still testing/investigating.
9/14/09 Mihanson Verizon FiOS QIP6200-2 Los Angeles, CA 52 in all (35-ish which are probably relevant) plus locals and music Rosewill RC-501 firewire card / p2p / 100MB / generic STB / disable firewire bus reset / channel changes with 6200ch patched for 4 digit channel numbers. Use the firewire_primer.sh script for channel changes. Verizon uses CCI and as long as CCI is set to 0x00 or 0x01 and DRM is set to 0x00 or 0x01 the channel seems to work. Tune channel, press power button the put box in standby and then press "OK" twice to bring up menu or use scanfw from mythbuntu. scanfw is also available in the KnoppMyth/LinHES R6 repos. UPDATE:Changed hardware to use onboard TI TSB43AB22/A firewire controller and it works well too.
9/20/09 Jamoody Comcast DCT6412 Poughkeepsie, NY All HD (no premium channels) MythDora 10.21 plus libiec61883 1.2.0-1.fc10 and libraw1394 2.0.1-1.fc10. During card setup selected Generic firewire since 6412 is not listed (6212 is).
10/02/09 Loopy123 Comcast RNG200/SA8540 Arlington, VA All HD/SD (no premium channels) Mythbuntu Mythtv-0.21-fixes dv1394. During card setup selected SA4200HD.
02/12/10 Nausser Comcast RNG-150 Jupiter, FL All HD/SD (no HBOHD, SHOHD, etc) Mythbuntu 9.10 Plug and play. During card setup selected SA4200HD and set bitrate to 400MB/s.
10/21/09 Jwbrown77 Cox DCX3200-M Irvine, CA All HD/SD (no premium channels) Mythbuntu 9.10 Beta MythTV-0.22-RC1. Had to add new model and vendor IDs to 6200ch.c and define /usr/bin/6200ch as the external channel changer. Patch with new IDs submitted to Myth dev team.
11/06/09 Johnnyjboss TimeWarner DCX3200 Dallas, Tx only a Very Few Basic and local Channels seem to work Mythbuntu 9.04 2:0.21.0+fixes-22228-openglvdpau2-0ubuntu0 - used patches for /usr/bin/6200ch to compile with DCX3200 support. Broadcast is only option (no p2p) and the channels that work are so few I'm probably going to buy the HD-PVR.
12/01/09 Kronic.Deth Charter DCT6200 Rochester, MN All HD/SD except some Digital View Plus Everything appeared to be working, but The Science Channel is encrypted and MythTV can't acquire a LAM Lock on the channel.
12/12/09 Dave.9 Novus DCT6200 Vancouver,BC All analog, HD/SD digital, and music-only channels Works on Mythbuntu 9.10 and 10.04, mythtv 0.22/0.23: Power-on, tuning/viewing/recording, and channel changing all work using Broadcast 400Mbps. FireWire card is Agere FW322/323, rev 61. DCT6200 menu shows 5C=no and Copy Control: Copy Free. Can't test premium channels as I don't subscribe to them.
02/28/2010 Mark Comcast RNG110 Boston, MA All HD/SD digital stations Fedora 14 running MythTV 0.24. Channel change using 6200ch. Recording and LiveTV viewing. I don't have any premium channels, but all others tested work. Firewire PCI Dynex DX-FC103, Agere Systems FW322/323 (rev 61) using P2P at bitrate of 400MB/s.
03/01/10 Lbecque Charter SA8300HD New Fairfield, CT Not yet tested Found the following link on Charter's website indicating that it should be functional: http://www.charter.com/customers/support.aspx?SupportArticleID=17 will let everyone know how it turns out.
05/11/2010 Bumpy Finklestien Cox Cable DCX3200 Virginia Beach, VA Everything I've tried so far Screwed with this for days to no avail. Called cable company who said 1394 ports are disabled. I let them know they were in violation of FCC ruling and would be filing complaint. My 1394 port started working. Like MAGIC. MythDora 10 P2P 400MB/s.
06/14/2010 Erik Sejr Northwestel DCX-3200-M Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, CA All channels in the "Essentials" (SD+HD) package at a minimum Had to add new ID "DCX-3200" to firewiredevice.cpp and recompile. Internal channel changer did not work. Added model ID 0x0000f760 to 6200ch.c and used 6200ch as the external channel changer. Working P2P @ 100Mbps and 400Mbps but most of my testing was done with it set 400Mbps. Running Fedora 13 mythtv-0.23-fixes.


06/15/2010 jjohns63 Comcast RNG110 Atlanta, GA "Digital Premium" SD+HD Mythbuntu 9.10 (0.23-fixes)-set up as a DCT-6200 P2P at 400Mbps. LiveTV seems to have some instability but regular recordings work a treat. Did not add an external channel change script. Music choice channels and Encore do not work, I don't subscribe to anything premium. Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A. Update: I have since switched to an HD-PVR as the LiveTV was too unstable for my liking.
06/27/2010 Ozite Comcast DCH3200 Jacksonville, FL All channels in HD Digital Starter Ubuntu 10.04 (0.23-fixes). Using a VIA PCI firewire card from monoprice and firewire tuner setup as Motorola DCH3200 using P2P at 100Mbps. LiveTV works well and box automatically powered on and changes to desired channel for a recording. Did not need add an external channel change script.
06/30/2010 Tarpie Cox SA4240HDC Fairfax, VA Only OTA Channels Kubuntu 10.04 (0.23-fixes24158). Using motherboard intel chipset firewire and default settings when adding firewire capture device. Channel changing works. Almost all non-OTA channels have EMI:once.
09/06/2010 Jamoody Comcast DCT6412 Beekman, NY All HD Channels Records Fedora 10.21 out of the box. HD channels 2.1-13.1 are in the clear and record with tuner card fine. Channels above 13 record fine via STB. 2 STBs daisy chained record fine.
09/12/2010 Chrismurf2900 Comcast RNG-150 Elkridge, MD All (no HBOHD, SHOHD, etc.) Using Mythbuntu 10.04, Plug and play ready. Make sure that during setup you select SA4200HD and set the bitrate to 400MB/s (I utilized nausser's notes to help get setup. Same process as theirs).
09/27/2010 jmleddy Time Warner Cable SMT-M3050 New York, NY Nothing Using gentoo. Wasn't able to change bcast_connection=63. Got weird error messages from firewire_tester
10/21/2010 akant Cox Motorola DCX-3200M Omaha, NE All Works in Broadcast Mode at 100 megabits. Using Mythbuntu 10.04 . Channel change works great with 6200ch script no modifications required except to specify the node id in 6200ch source before compile. I have seen stability differences between external FW card and internal FW. Ptp does not work. Firewire on STB seems to not want to "come on" right away. Play around with different methods of booting the box with FW attached. Worked through this guide: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/FireWire
10/25/2010 Kisak Verizon FiOS QIP 7200-2 Harrisburg, PA About 60% Using gentoo. Setup tests were erratic but broadcast mode at 400MB/s is mostly stable. P2P mode is a dud on this model's firmware. Subscribed movie channels with Pacific offset capture as expected. About 130 channels do not complete the channel change / signal lock process. Capture of these channels die with the PAT too large error. Strangely, this appears to be mostly SD channels and possibly east coast originating channels (speculation). Use 6200ch -G <guid> -4 for decent results.
11/06/2010 dbavatar Comcast Pace RNG110 - firmware 78.73-A28p0-4.1005.r-8 Boston, MA 0 (see notes) STB doesn't send a valid PAT/PMT. Mythbackend will not get a lock and capture without modifying firewiresignalmonitor.cpp to create a fake PAT/PMT table. Even then some channels are not usable because mythfrontend may get confused when trying to playback the non-compliant transport stream. Research on the mailing list confirms that there are several other users with similar problems with the RNG110, whether they know it or not. If it does work for some people for 100% of channels I wonder if they have a different firmware. However mplayer will playback all channels/transport streams I have tried to capture, it doesn't seem to care that there is information missing.
2/7/2011 brentm Comcast Pace RNG110 Seattle, WA All non-premium channels Set up as a DCT6200, Point to Point, 400Mbps. Works perfectly, and even seems to be stable with live TV. Firewire chipset seems to be very important. I initially used a VIA VT6307-based Firewire card; the resulting video was unwatchable. I then swapped out that card for an NEC PD72874-based card, and it started working right away. Your mileage may vary, but if you're having trouble, definitely try a different Firewire controller.
2/16/2011 launcher Comcast DCX-3200M Palo Alto, CA All non-premium channels HD+SD Fedora 14 x64. Using onboard LSI FW323 card. Point-to-point at 400Mbps is very stable (broadcast works also). Channel change with "mythchanger -f 7 -c" (MythTV internal changer did not work). Before getting DCX-3200 I had DCH-3200 - which worked only in in broadcast mode, and would refuse changing channels after every few days (required power reset and re-priming to fix, very annoying). DCX-3200 works much better!

Cannot capture Discovery HD (5C is off, but DRM is enabled), but Discovery SD works.

6/22/2011 bibendum59 Click! Network DCX-3200M Tacoma, WA All non-premium channels HD+SD Using Point-to-Point everything works perfectly. I originally tried broadcast, but kept getting errors. I had to add the info for this cable box to 6200ch and use it to change channels, but everything is working very well now. Fedora 14 x64, Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 motherboard w/ on-board firewire.
12/17/2011 Mark Verizon FiOS CHS 435HDC Boston, MA All HD/SD digital stations (non-premium) Fedora 14 running MythTV 0.24. The box only supports channel +/- with stb-command via firewire, so I am IR Blasting via an Hauppauge HD-PVR. Recording and LiveTV viewing OK. I don't have any premium channels, but all others tested work. Firewire PCI Dynex DX-FC103, Agere Systems FW322/323 (rev 61) using P2P at bitrate of 400MB/s.

After a week of viewing, LAM lock on premium channels seems to be hit or miss. Locals achieve LAM lock 100% of the time.

3/12/2012 Crow Verizon FiOS CHS 335HDC Boston, MA Only broadcast stations (SD and HD) Using P2P at 400Mbps, it provides a solid picture on broadcast channels, but does not include basic cable channels (though they are picked up with a cable card tuner). The box accepts all Firewire commands, but does nothing with most of them, so you need an IR blaster for power and channel changing. The "USA Set Top Box Test Specification" at http://www.1394ta.org/developers/specifications.html shows which commands the FCC requires to have working. It is supposed to have power on, power off, and tune working. The status query works, so at least you can check to see if it needs a power command. I spent a long time on the phone with Verizon tech support, and their Cisco firmware person reported back that they are only required to provide video out. I filed a complaint with the FCC, citing http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol4/xml/CFR-2010-title47-vol4-sec76-640.xml
5/17/2012 W1ll1am Insight Communications Motorolla DCT-6412 Newport, KY Only OTA channels SD

all other channels are encrypted and get a partial lock error (error occurs with every setting I have tried only) Using P2P at 400Mbps or Broadcast at 400Mbps it provides a okay picture but I do not have HD, picture is the same quality when view from cable box to tv. The box accepts Firewire channel changing.

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