XfinityTV and Equipment

[JonH]

With the upcoming Olympics I want to be able to record all events for later viewing. By 'all' events, I mean everything - and in HD of course because with the large TVs now days, HD is the only way to go. 

Why? Because a family member is leaving the country for two years, won't have any TV access and REALLY wants to see these Olympics.

Really? and 500gb isn't enough space? No. It isn't. Even without the Olympics, we have had the DVR up to 75% full. When recording HD programming, a few ball games and movies and before you know it, BAM!, the thing is getting pretty full.

Why don't you just watch the other shows, leaving space for the Olympics? Because I leave town for weeks at a time, come home and look at my series that I like.

So, now that I hopefully weeded out all the people that would have questioned why I want to record so much television, only those people that will actually be able to post helpful information will reply

The easiest/quickest solution to this problem that I've read would be hooking up an external HD to the cable box. But, from what I've been reading, it sounds like the Firewire/IEEE 394 port is disabled on the box? I've had an account since February of 2012, but I don't know how long the RNG200N had been sitting on a shelf before being used. (I mention this as - maybe - later models DO have those ports enabled.) 

Are there any other solutions to this problem? My needs would be something that would be set up and left alone to work on its own. The house will either be empty or have people that aren't "mechanically inclined" around who would otherwise be available to push buttons or switches at the appropriate time.

Thanks in advance,

Jon in American Fork

[JayInAlg]

No matter the age of DVR, none of the Motorola DVR's have the esata port enabled, rumors are later this year.  Two tuners might not be enough to record all the Olympics.

Only the Scientific Atlanta / Cisco regions have the esata port enabled now.

Your should look into a retail 4 tuner Tivo Premier XL4 which has a 2TB drive and a esata drive still can be attached for anther 1TB.  The XL4 will give you the ability to record 4 HD channels at once. On a Tivo, you can off load the programs on the Tivo to a PC or storage server for even more storage.  Pick up a cable card at your local Comcast office and get it all setup.

[MPython]

First off, the RNG200N is a Cisco box.  And to use an external HD, you use the eSATA port.  I've been doing this since I got the box quite a while ago (more than a year ago).  I use a Fantom 1TB drive.  It works OK most of the time.  I do get audio drop-outs and quite a bit of pixelation.  But I don't know if that is due to the source, the Comcast cable plant, my DVR, or my eSATA drive.  When I lose power, it is not always recognized upon boot.  Sometimes, my DVR even says "DVR service not available at this time", and then have to reboot again.

I've read elsewhere (avsforums, IIRC) that this DVR won't accept more than a 1TB external drive.  Maybe that has changed since I read that.  And I totally get wanted a huge amount of space.  If I could have put a 100TB drive out there I would have.  I would have kept memorable sports events and great movies archived.

[JayInAlg]

You are 1/2 Wrong, RNG200's are branded by Comcast as both a Cisco DVR for Cisco area's and as a RNG200 on a Motorola DCX3501 in Motorola equipped area's.

There's been many posts that the esata port has always been enabled on the Scientific Atlanta & Cisco DVR's.

The OP was specifically asking about the availability of any drive expander on the Motorola DVR's, which is rumored to be enabled by the end of 2012.

[MPython]

Forgive me then.  My mistake.  I don't read these forums that often, and so didn't know Cisco would sell them to Motorola (or just rebrand them).  What's an OP?

[JayInAlg]

The boxes just have the same model that Comcast puts RNG200 on both of them, there is no sale involved, they are totally different DVR's.

OP = Original Poster.

[JonH]

Thanks for the help, guys. I guess I'll have to go to Plan B.

But first I will have to figure out what Plan B is.

Thanks again,

Jon in American Fork

[JamesJJK]

Another option is setting up/building a HD HTPC (Home Theater Computer).with Windows 7, a TV tuner, & Comcast supplied/rented CableCARD. With a HTPC you have the possibility of unlimited recording storage/capacity, if you have the hard drive hardware to support doing so.

"A TV tuner is a device that makes it possible to connect a TV signal to your computer. With Windows Media Center and a compatible TV tuner, you can watch live TV shows and movies on your computer, and record programs for future viewing."