Motorola DCT3416 HDTV Cable Box and HDTV DVR

My Motorola DCT5100 died a few months back and I took the opportunity to go ahead and upgrade my Comcast package to include a DVR. When the installer came out he brought with him my shiny new box which happened to be a Motorola DCT3416. Of course I seemed to know more about installing the thing than the installer did and after a bit we finally got everything hooked up and working great. Like the old cable box page you may be wondering why I bother making a page about my cable box. The answer is simple, HDTV. If you haven’t jumped on to the HDTV bandwagon yet I highly suggest it. If your cable company offers HDTV take the plunge and order it (assuming you have a TV that can display HDTV, and if you don’t upgrade). HDTV simply looks amazing, if you think DVDs look good you are going to be absolutely blown away by HDTV. I realize that by now most people have seen HDTV so I may be preaching to the choir here but do yourself a favor and call your cable company and get yourself some HDTV.

The Motorola DCT3416 looks almost exactly like the Motorola DCT5100 that it replaced. It functions in the same way as well for the most part. It just has the DVR qualities which are nice. The 3416 has a 160 gig hard drive in it. I am currently recording 24 on it, I haven’t watch a single episode, I want to watch them all back to back and not have to wait. I have watched all the previous seasons on DVD and I can’t imagine having to wait a week to find out. Anyway, with the 160 gig hard drive I have around ~20 episodes of 24 recorded and they DVR is about 90% full. I am of course recording in HD. So, I should be able to fit 24 hours worth of programming on the DCT3416 but it’s going to be close. That should give you a good estimate though of how much HD material you can record, I would say somewhere between 22-26 hours would be a good guess.

For those of you familiar with my home theater setup you will know that I have a HTPC that allows me to record OTA HDTV and I have SageTV that allows me to record standard definition. Ever since I got the DCT3416 I have not used my HTPC for the recording of anything. While Sage worked ok for recording it was a bit flaky at times and just not as easy to use as this is. I actually just had to reinstall windows on my HTPC and I didn’t even bother installing Sage. I very rarely recorded HDTV with MyHDTV in the first place but now I doubt I ever will again. There is one advantage to recording with both MyHDTV and Sage though, you automatically have a copy in an easy to use format on the computer, the same can’t be said for recording with the Motorola DCT3416 unfortunately.

I have been very happy with the DCT3416 DVR, I love being able to record things easily in HD, I love being able to pause live TV, I love being able to rewind to a missed line, I love being being able to skip through commercials on recorded shows, overall I just love it and it has changed the way I watch TV.

I wrote a little guide on how to add a 30 second skip feature to your remote. This little hack is very safe and I absolutely love it. Check it out. Add a 30 second skip to your cable box.

Motorola DCT3416 HDTV DVR Cable Box Features

motorola-dct3416-2300-shaw-dual-tuner-dvr-hdtv-capable MOTOROLA DCT3416/2300 SHAW DUAL TUNER DVR/HDTV CAPABLE
US $76.00 (5 Bids)
End Date: Thursday Mar-18-2010 15:12:23 PDT
Add to watch list
motorola-dct3416-i-dual-tuner-dvr-hdtv MOTOROLA DCT3416 I DUAL TUNER DVR HDTV
US $102.50 (4 Bids)
End Date: Thursday Mar-18-2010 16:12:06 PDT
Add to watch list
motorola-shaw-dual-tuner-160gb-hd-pvr-cable-box-dct3416 MOTOROLA Shaw Dual Tuner 160GB HD-PVR Cable Box DCT3416
US $229.99 (0 Bid)
End Date: Saturday Mar-20-2010 20:30:33 PDT
Add to watch list
new!-power-cord-motorola-comcast-dvr-dct3412-dct3416-ac NEW! POWER CORD Motorola Comcast DVR DCT3412 DCT3416 ac
US $8.75 (0 Bid)
End Date: Tuesday Mar-23-2010 16:02:56 PDT
Add to watch list
motorola-hd-dct3416-160gb-hdmi-pvr-novus-access-amos- Motorola HD DCT3416 160GB HDMI PVR Novus Access Amos
US $295.60
End Date: Tuesday Mar-23-2010 18:43:27 PDT
Add to watch list

Comments & Questions

If you would like to make a comment, or ask me a question, please fill out the form below.

If you want a personalized image to appear with your comment you need a Gravatar.
Sign up for a Gravatar today. It's free and easy

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

12 Questions/Comments/Trackbacks so far

  1. Posted by: ERIC ZACOVIC
    September 24, 2009 1:30 am

    how do I make the picture in picture work with the Motorola DCT3416I. when I push the on button nothing happens.

    help

  2. Posted by: Moe
    September 24, 2009 3:25 am

    The DCT3416 doesn’t do PIP. Motorola uses the same remote for all/most of their boxes which is why the buttons are on your remote.

  3. Posted by: Rossifer
    September 25, 2009 2:49 pm

    Regarding your reply to Eric, you say the DCT3416 does not support PIP. Why then do you have in your features list as “HD Picture-in-Picture capable”?
    You might want to revise your list.

  4. Posted by: Moe
    September 25, 2009 3:22 pm

    I got the specs directly off of the Motorola website, apparently Motorola likes to brag about their boxes supporting stuff that they don’t actually support. I’ve removed the PIP from the specs on the site.

  5. Posted by: Wayne
    November 5, 2009 1:56 pm

    I have the Motorola DCT3416I also.
    I have some Speed TV programing on the DVR that I would like to copy to a DVD, only because my son was a crew member on a race team that got good camera coverage in the pit sequence.
    I purchased a Panasonic model DMR EA18 DVD recorder and attempted to copy the action but I only got video, no audio.

  6. Posted by: Moe
    November 5, 2009 2:07 pm

    Sorry, I have no experience pulling recordings off the cable box. You may be able to make your life a lot easier and see if you can find a torrent of the show and just download it.

  7. Posted by: Alan
    December 6, 2009 6:33 am

    Can I add an external hard drive to my dct3416 to increase it’s recording capability?

  8. Posted by: Moe
    December 6, 2009 10:37 am

    Alan, last I knew you could not add an external hard drive.

  9. Posted by: linksys1
    December 31, 2009 6:24 pm

    Yes, the DCT3416 (NOW) allows you the option of adding an external (eSata) hard drive. Firmware was recently updated to allow this feature.

  10. Posted by: Moe
    December 31, 2009 7:24 pm

    That’s cool, I wonder if all the cable companies will actually give out the firmware update though.

  11. Posted by: Eric Murphy
    March 9, 2010 1:15 pm

    Is there somewhere to find the firmware upgrade? I searched google to no avail? Thanks!

  12. Posted by: Moe
    March 9, 2010 2:25 pm

    As far as I know, firmware updates are done by the cable company. They can do them remotely.