TiVo Community Forums Archives - Motorola Digital Cable Box

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Motorola Digital Cable Box
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Posted by: ladybug

Hi all,

I saw a brief mention of this in FAQ, but thought I'd check for an update.

Is there any progress being made in having TiVo be able to control Motorola digital cable boxes that have a serial control? It just is very frustrating to me to have a serial port on the box and still have to use IR....

Dawn

Posted by: tabascojrc

I know series 2 tivos can, my grilfriend got the 40 hr and it is working perfectly.
don't know about the other boxes, but i sure would like serial control with my series 1
-jeremy

Posted by: OLdDog

quote:
Originally posted by tabascojrc
I know series 2 tivos can, my grilfriend got the 40 hr and it is working perfectly.
don't know about the other boxes, but i sure would like serial control with my series 1
-jeremy

Your girlfriend's TiVo may be working now but that will stop once it gets the latest software unless it is an AT&T TiVo with AT&T cable boxes.

There is currenly NO support for TiVos, except AT&T TiVos, to control any cable boxes via serial.

The option to enable this has been removed and there has been no anouncment that it will be reenabled.

Posted by: ladybug

quote:
Originally posted by OLdDog
Your girlfriend's TiVo may be working now but that will stop once it gets the latest software unless it is an AT&T TiVo with AT&T cable boxes.

I don't understand. Why would TiVo purposely subject me to I/R?

Posted by: tabascojrc

My girlfriend's tivo did stop working via serial, I guess it could have been the software update, but she exchanged it for another wthin a few days because some idiot thought it was a good idea to ship a box that had been sitting in standing water. All the manuals were warped from moisture. So she sent it back and got a new one. The new one is still working via serial. I will have to keep an eye on it though. If this one stops working I will be pissed, you could miss your favorite shows if they disabled serial and you didn't know about it. Not quite a smart move as far as customer satisfaction goes. They should never ship them out like that in the first place.

On a side note, I am surprised some of the more seasoned hackers haven't been able to install something to enable it on series 1.

-Jeremy

Posted by: BrianWJ

I was so excited when I got my TiVo last week and discovered that the back of my Motorola (Comcast) cable box had a serial connection. I just knew that I wouldn't have to mess with the IR blaster at all.

Man, was I disappointed when the TiVo told me that the serial connection wasn't functioning.

Honestly, I can think of no good reason why they would disable the serial control for other cable companies. Strange.

Posted by: Fuci

One word: Support

TiVo can't afford to support the multitudes of different types of cable boxes and serial interfaces out there, so they cannot support any.

AT&T has a business relationship with TiVo where they created support for their cable boxes which is enabled on a specific box with specific support. I'm pretty sure the only reason they don't call it an AT&T TiVo anymore is because of the Comcast merger.

But don't take it from me, I just lurk a lot :)

Posted by: BrianWJ

Well, Fuci, that does make sense. :D

Gee, maybe now that AT&T and Comcast have merged you think I might have a shot at getting my serial control to work?

Posted by: clonenode

Ironic that this topic has just come up. I've watched these boards for a while, but this one requires a post.

I got an SVR-3000 Sony TiVo for Christmas. It's fantastic. I previously had regular extended cable, but after I got my TiVo, I thought I'd splurge and upgrade to digital cable.

I live in Santa Monica, CA and Adelphia is my only choice. Two nights ago they installed my digital cable. I asked them to rework the cables because I felt the quality of my regular cable was not as good as it could be. They gladly rewired my apartment, and installed my digital cable box. I told them I would take care of hooking up the TiVo and the rest of my equipment.

Well, I hooked up the TiVo using the serial connection, which I had no reason to think wouldn't work, especially considering it came with my TiVo. I had no reason to think otherwise.

Part of my rant here is with the cable box itself. There is no s-video output, which really sucks. The Adelphia interface sucks, and channel changing is slow, clunky, unbelievably akward.

Now imagine that experience using the IR device. I change the channel on the TiVo remote, the adelphia box SLOWLY types in the 3-digit number, then the channel takes 2-3 seconds to appear and *flicker* into place. A fifth of the time, the cable box doesn't interpret the channels correctly and the channel does not change. Moving through channels is a chore, a very ugly, slow chore.

Yes, this is more of a reason to watch less LIVE TV, but I'm still a surfer, and both TiVo and Adelphia have really made this a painful experience. I'm almost ready to go back to regular extended cable. At least there the usability was excellent.

TiVo, please allow the use of the serial connector on Motorola cable boxes.

Thanks,

c l o n e n o d e

Posted by: tubedogg

quote:
Originally posted by Fuci
TiVo can't afford to support the multitudes of different types of cable boxes and serial interfaces out there, so they cannot support any.

Seems to me if they can handle doing it for controlling TVs and audio systems they could handle doing it for (relatively limited) number of cable boxes...

Posted by: trojanrabbit

quote:
Originally posted by tubedogg
Seems to me if they can handle doing it for controlling TVs and audio systems they could handle doing it for (relatively limited) number of cable boxes...

But that's not the real issue. If you've got the time, read this epic thread.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...&threadid=61828

The story basically is that the serial ports in most of these digital boxes (like the phantom SVideo & Dolby Digital ports) don't do anything, they were used for test purposes. AT&T & TiVo worked with Motorola to make the serial port do something useful. For that AT&T got exclusivity on their cable systems. But AT&T rolled out the firmware the cable boxes needed slowly, in certain areas only.

The biggest mistake was that TiVo let some test code out that allowed any of the series 2 machines to control the few cable boxes that had the firmware. When those TiVos upgraded to later software, that test code was removed without warning the poor user that his serial control was now gone, and the howls of protest grew.

That's where we're at now. Supposedly this AT&T deal is running out soon, no one here knows (or is able to tell) when, so at least the Series 2's will work serially eventually (maybe).

At some point, the AT&T exclusivity will run out and enough cable boxes will be out there that support serial control that enabling it and dealing with questions as to why it doesn't work will be better for TiVo than explaining to the few with working boxes why it did work and now it doesn't (or something like that).

Posted by: CrispyCritter

quote:
Originally posted by tubedogg
Seems to me if they can handle doing it for controlling TVs and audio systems they could handle doing it for (relatively limited) number of cable boxes...

It's not that simple. In addition to Trojanrabbit's excellent summary, I might add that it's not only a hardware problem. All these modern cable settop boxes (STB's) can have their firmware "updated" by the cable company. So just with AT&T cable (with supported serial control), you presently have the following situation:
1. Some AT&T customers don't have the correct hardware.
2. Some AT&T customers have the hardware, but don't have the correct firmware.
3. Some AT&T customers have the hardware, have the correct firmware, but AT&T hasn't updated their head ends, so nobody in their area has serial cable control.

So not only does TiVo have to worry about the different STB's, they have to worry about all the different firmware versions, and even then some cable companies can just ignore TiVo and not enable it. Not a pretty picture for TiVo support!

Posted by: Convert

Interestingly enough, my 40hr ATT Series 2 serial works fine with my Motorola digital box, but the TiVo doesn't know what firmware is being used. This according to the System display.

Posted by: tabascojrc

how is the different cable boxes, different firmwares etc, any different than the different models of tv's and stereos the remote can control. So what if there are cable boxes with serial ports that don't actually "do anything." So a person might have to test, one by one to see if the serial control works with their box, wait that sounds alot like what i had to do to get ir working, yes i do remember now, I remember going through one by one, each of the codes and seeing which ir code worked, if at all. It would be a real; shame to have to try a couple more options for a typoe of control that would be not only tons faster, but most importantly more reliable. So yes some people might get their tivo and find out that their box doesn't happen to have the capability to be controlled by serial, that doesn't mean tivo can't support the ones that do. And it certainly isn't that much different than providing ir emitting control or control of other devices. Yes the process of might be a tad more complicated, but all together it is not much different.

I am really not that hyped up about the subject, it is just more entertaining to write that way

Posted by: trojanrabbit

The problem is, that person who can't get their box to work will either

a) call TiVo and complain or (worse)
b) call their cable company & complain they want a new box (when it probably won't make any difference).

TiVo doesn't want to listen to the cable cos. whining and bitching that they are getting working boxes returned.

Posted by: mstroh

I understant the concern about complaints to tivo and the cable company that serial control doesn't work, but if it remains an undocumented feature what problem is there? Its not like everyone that owns a tivo knows that undocumented features exist and the ones that do should know that undocumented means unsupported!

-mike