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
- Supports standard-definition (SDTV),enhanced-definition (EDTV), and high-definition (HDTV) television
- Out-of-band (OOB) data receiver
- Integrated DOCSIS-compliant 2.0 cable modem
- IR Blaster port
- On-screen diagnostics
- Dolby® Digital, Pro Logic, and stereo audio
- Digital Video Recording (DVR)
- Video On Demand (VOD) programming
- Macrovision copy protection
- DES-based encryption
- DigiCipher II access control
- Pass-through of VBI data services (closed caption,V-chip, and CGMS-A)
- USB 2.0
- HDMI digital audio/video interface (replaces DVI)
- SATA connector (provides additional DVR capacity with an external hard drive)
- IEEE 1394
- 160 gig hard drive
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Comcast Motorola DVR Cable Remote For DCT3412 DCT3416 US $14.16 End Date: Sunday Sep-05-2010 15:17:43 PDT Add to watch list |
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MOTOROLA DCT3416 I DUAL TUNER DVR HDTV HDMI CABLE BOX US $0.99 (1 Bid) End Date: Sunday Sep-05-2010 19:14:54 PDT Add to watch list |
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Motorola DCT3416 DCT3412 PVRCable Box LED Display Panel US $49.00 End Date: Tuesday Sep-07-2010 12:14:29 PDT Add to watch list |
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BRANDNEW MOTOROLA DCT3416 DL/T DVR/HDTV CABLE BOX 560GB US $499.99 End Date: Monday Sep-13-2010 1:32:52 PDT Add to watch list |
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Comcast Motorola DVR Cable Remote For DCT3412 DCT3416 US $18.88 End Date: Sunday Sep-19-2010 7:41:04 PDT Add to watch list |
Filed Under Equipment | 19 Questions/Comments |
Comments & Questions
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
December 6, 2009 6:33 am
Can I add an external hard drive to my dct3416 to increase it’s recording capability?
December 6, 2009 10:37 am
Alan, last I knew you could not add an external hard drive.
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.
December 31, 2009 7:24 pm
That’s cool, I wonder if all the cable companies will actually give out the firmware update though.
March 9, 2010 1:15 pm
Is there somewhere to find the firmware upgrade? I searched google to no avail? Thanks!
March 9, 2010 2:25 pm
As far as I know, firmware updates are done by the cable company. They can do them remotely.
March 21, 2010 9:58 pm
Using 3416 from Comcast. I set a record once yesterday for the period 12noon to 6 PM today for channel 116. There was also a scheduled program that happened to start at 12:30 for channel 119. Today I only had the 17 minutes of the channel 119 program recorded. Should I have left the 3416 on to get the channel 116 program? I usually use the remote to turn off the TV and the cable box (3416).
April 11, 2010 9:23 am
Can an Infrared Receiver Extender Cable be used with this box? Comcast provided such with their little digital converter boxes recently sent to me. I found such a cable on Amazon but it was stated it would NOT work with the DCT 3416. So, do you know if one exists?
Thank you.
May 17, 2010 6:52 pm
How do I set my Motorola DCT3416 to record a show/use the DVR feature? It came with no directions!!
May 18, 2010 10:37 am
Becky, it should be pretty intuitive to figure out how to set up recordings. If you can’t figure it out your cable company may have some onDemand videos that explain it. If not, call your cable company and ask them to send you some literature.
June 23, 2010 9:35 am
I have FIOS with the DVR HD box Motorola QIP6416-2. The box is in a spot where I could use an IR extender for more convenient use. Does such a thing exist and do you know where is can be obtained?
thank you
Marty Harrington 805-375-3845
June 23, 2010 9:53 am
Mark, http://moesrealm.com/home-theater/equipment/hot-link-pro-ir-distribution/
July 11, 2010 10:03 am
I have a Motorola QIP6416-2 box with my FIOS but I need instructions to hook-up a DVD player. Can someone help, please