Comcast HD DVR Mute Fix
If you have Comcast, and an HD DVR you might find that there is a weird mute issue that makes everything not so Comcastic! If you come home and had set the DVR to record, and then turn on the TV, the DVR has muted itself. Unfortunately the Comcast remote will not disable the mute by default. Here is how to do it. Thanks’ to Adam Howitt’s Blog for this info.
I have a DVR from Comcast and it has a software bug (they all do apparently) where the remote isn’t pre-programmed to handle the muting of the cable box, just the tv itself.
This becomes a problem when you leave your DVR powered off when it needs to record something. It will happily power on and correctly records the show but when it turns itself on, the volume is muted on the cable box. I can see the engineers thinking – we don’t want to wake people up in the middle of the night when it starts recording so we’ll start it in mute.
Jeff was able to find a tip which I’ll share below for resolving the issue:
Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.
Enter code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice.
Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button.
Enter code 00141.
Press whatever button you want to map the mute function to.
The Picune Blog 
Thanks!!! Works like a charm.
Actually, the Comcast remote doesn’t appear to be disabling mute by default; it appears to map the remote’s “Mute” button to send a mute signal to your TV. Which could be useful if I, say, used my TV’s speakers. And the Motorola HD-DVR didn’t auto-mute itself when it powers on for a scheduled recording…
Thanks for the tip! It did work…
[…] I have gotten a lot of great response from a post about how to fix a problem with muting and the Comcast DVR. So I thought that I would share another great tip about the cool box, how to get the video off of it and onto your Mac. I currently have two of these DVR boxes, interestingly enough both are a little different. The good news is this technique works on both. The second box that I got, has a eSATA port on it, which I find very interesting. I have not tried to do anything with it yet, but I will let you know when I do. […]
Record Shows from your Comcast HD DVR onto your Mac « The Picune Blog said this on October 13, 2006 at 10:48 am |
This is great unless your remote has no setup button. The cheap remote adelphia provided us with seems to be lacking that little gem. Any suggestions other than throwing the box out the window?
Yea, unfortunately this trick only applies to the Comcast branded remote. I assume you have searched high a low for a solution, so your only option may be to get a nice universal remote, that you can self program. Sony makes some nice touch screen models that let you do groups of tasks at once. They are not that expensive either.
[…] I have gotten a lot of great response from a post about how to fix a problem with muting and the Comcast DVR. So I thought that I would share another great tip about the cool box, how to get the video off of it and onto your Mac. I currently have two of these DVR boxes, interestingly enough both are a little different. The good news is this technique works on both. The second box that I got, has a eSATA port on it, which I find very interesting. I have not tried to do anything with it yet, but I will let you know when I do. […]
Record Shows from your Comcast HD DVR onto your Mac at Geeky Mac said this on November 14, 2006 at 11:30 pm |
This worked great, except for that I accidentally hit “Menu” as my assign button instead of mute. Now when I hit the menu button, it mutes! Can anyone guess/help me how to un-program the menu button from muting?
I called Comcast and they had no clue what I was talking about. They said I could just swap my remote with a new one, but I’d rather not drive 40 miles to do this.
Any help?