Is there any way to expand the Hard Drive on a Comcast Motorola DHC 3416 HD-DVR?

[TommyHolly]

Hey everyone,
I looked through about 30 pages of stuff on the web before posting...

I have (2) Comcast High Def DVR boxes at my house and I want to be able to expand the recording time of HD TV shows. The larger box has a 160GB capacity which equates to only 20 hours of programing.

Here are the 2 models I have:

Motorola DCT 3412I (The "12" at the end means 120 GB version)

Motorola DHC 3416 (The "16" means it is the 160 GB version)

Here are some problems I've read about which may or may not be true:
1. According to all the stuff I've gone through, it looks like on Motorola products, the USB and eSATA ports are disabled? ...So you can't use an external hard drive!
2. If you swap out the internal hard drive for a larger one, the firmware just reformats the Hard Drive to the same size as the old one and no extra room is able to be used. (Most Hard Drives don't work at all apparently?)
3. The eSATA port could possibly be used but you need to change the firmware to activate it and I don't know how to do that?
4. The firewire port can be used, but only to transmit to a PC for direct recording using video capture. (I don't care about recording stuff like that, I just want to expand the Hard Drive space on my Comcast DVR.)
5. Both Comcast and Motorola are no help at all if you call them or e-mail them.
6. There might be a way to use my computer, (which I have sitting right next to my Comcast box, and connected to my AV Receiver with a HDMI cord) to act as a DVR... That would be my last option because there would be complicated issues with anyone else in the house who wants to watch TV...(learning how to use the computer, how to use the software, how to switch over the AV receiver and inputs.)

Any ideas anyone?

 

[kevlar93]

#4 seems the easiest to do. Upgrading firmware is not usually that complicated. then you could get an esata external.

 

[TommyHolly]

#4 seems the easiest to do. Upgrading firmware is not usually that complicated. then you could get an esata external.

The Firewire can only be used for Video Capture... So basically anyone wanting to use it must be extremely knowledgeable in both the computer, the comcast box, and the AV equipment... Then you gotta switch back and forth a few times to set everything up and then again to view. I can do that, (which I dont want to go through the trouble) but nobody else in my house can, now would I trust them not to mess anything up pressing all those buttons.

The eSATA external is a GREAT option. I even looked up the instruction manual for my Motorola DCH 3416 box and in the manual itself, it talks about how the DVR is designed to work with a external hard drive and otehr devices!! However, every single cable company out there has these features shut off intentionally it seems? To change this, I need to change the firmware of my DVR box but I don't know how?

 

[Enablingwolf]

Not sure how correct I am. Are you allowed to modify the Comcast equipment/firmware or do you own them boxes?[Honest question] So if the external hookups for expanding storage are disabled, sounds like your boned.
If this line of thought is correct. I would look for a cable card, which is easy to use. And a simplified GUI PVR distro, like MythTV or even Media Center Edition. there is many many differing products for this type of media tv use.

Which the controls are not that tough to figure out and use. Least once the basic use is shown or is setup to your liking.. It is no harder than using a Comcast based front end. Which it fully replaces the Comcast box. Plus you can have some nifty HiD options. I think I read someplace about motion sensing remotes.

The big drawback about cable cards is the some features are not available using them. Or least used to be that way.

With a PVR distro, you can also easier stream the media to other parts of the home later on. Or make it into cleaner compact formats.

 

[mage_x]

Are you allowed to modify the Comcast equipment/firmware or do you own them boxes?

No, if it's being rented (most likely is) then Comcast does not allow any modifications. If the box is ever returned and it's found to be modified, then the user would probably have to pay full price for it. Also, if there's ever any issue with the box in the future, Comcast would normally replace it free, but if a tech comes and finds a modified box, then again, the user would be charged full price.

I would also suggest getting a cable card for your PC if you can't find some external solution. Don't modify the box.

 

[Enablingwolf]

I would also suggest getting a cable card for your PC if you can't find some external solution. Don't modify the box.

Another easy option is to subscribe to TiVo and buy a box for the service. Then you can mod the heck out of it to your hearts content.

 

[TNO821]

There is now a method to upgrade to a 1 TB hard drive for any Motorola DCT or DCH (6412/6416/3412/3416) and probably all of the DCX cable boxes too.

It is discussed at the AVSforum:
Motorola DVR hard drive upgrade

This was just perfected a few days ago.

 

[don256us]

Reviving an old dead thread. I have Comcast without the X1 OS. I had been renting a second HD box without DVR for ~$10/mth. I can buy a Motorola DCH3416 for $145 and swap out the 160 GB HDD for a terabyte. Comcast provides one cable card per account for free. I would save ~$15/month if I rented an HD DVR so my payoff or ROI would be about 10 months.

I'll post more if I do it and tell you how it goes.

http://www.hddvrtv.com/