30 second skip for Motorola DVRs

I have some friends with Tivo and one thing that I really love about it is the ability to press a button and skip ahead thirty seconds. Most commercials run around 30 seconds long so a single button press gets you pretty much through each commercial, press the thirty second skip button 6-8 times and you are back to your recorded show. My Motorola cable box only had fast forward buttons. I found myself constantly going past the commercials and into the show. The fast forward either seemed to slow or too fast and it was hard to make it stop exactly when I wanted it to.

I went searching around the net for a fix and I finally found one. This little hack allows you to program a button of your choice on your remote to skip forward thirty seconds. The choice of button is entirely up to you but I personally use the stop button. Why the stop button? It’s right above the ten second rewind on the remote which makes the location perfect. If you should happen to skip forward a bit too much into the show just slide your finger down a tiny bit and hit the rewind button once or twice and you are good to go. I found myself never using the stop button much anyway, I have now lost the stop button functionality but it’s no biggie, the exit button pretty much does the same thing anyway.

Enough blabbing, here is how you program your remote to do a thirty second jump:

  1. Put the remote in cable box control mode by pressing the “Cable” button at the top of the remote.
  2. Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.
  3. Type in 994 on the number pad. The “Cable” button will blink twice
  4. Press, but do not hold, the “Setup” button
  5. Type in the code 00173 (This is the code for the 30 second Skip)
  6. Press whatever button you want to map the skip function to (In my case, the stop button)

That’s should be it, enjoy your 30 seconds skip. I take no responsibility if you should happen to blow up your cable box, TV, small children or other devices in the near vicinity if you happen to follow these instructions. Do this all at your own risk. I have had this for months now and it works great and has given me no trouble.

Filed Under Guides | 3 Questions/Comments |

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

3 Questions/Comments/Trackbacks so far

  1. Posted by: Liz
    January 26, 2010 1:54 pm

    We have tried the above directions but it does not seem to work. Our Cable box is a DCT 3416 not 3412 so I think that might have something to do with it. Thanks

  2. Posted by: Moe
    January 26, 2010 3:11 pm

    My box is the 3416 as well, I don’t have the 3412. Don’t know why it’s not working for you, sorry.

Trackbacks

  1. A keen Comcast DVR remote hack « The Computer Psychic