How-to Get the Suscom DCT-6412 Digital Video Recorder to Skip Forward?

Short answer: no can do... yet.

If you don't know it already, the "skip forward" function has been hidden away in the Motorola DCT-6412 DVR. That's the DVR that Suscom leases to it's cable system customers.

Getting that function back has become a common quest among users DVR's in general and that box in particular. Comcast also uses the DCT-6412 and has had it in play longer than Suscom so much of the expertise about it comes from Comcast customers. Happily they have been generous in sharing.

Back to the question; how to get the skip-forward function back.

First: You need to get the "silver" remote -- the one that Comcast distributes.

The Suscom DVR comes with a non-programmable smoke gray (aka black or "DCR-800") remote and the Suscom folks won't have a clue what you are talking about if you ask about "the silver DVR remote".

So, a search of ebay turns up a few silver comcast remotes at reasonable prices. Everything works just fine on it, though to work with the Suscom guide you need to reclaim the "A"-"B"-"C" button function, but more on that below.

The reason for this post is to note that the "skip forward" code 173 doesn't seem to be working with the box. Anybody have any ideas what might be up here? Is the function disabled in the box? (and if so, how can I re-enable it?)

For other Suscom users who go the eBay route to find a remote here's a couple of things you'll need to know.

First: as noted above, the A-B-C buttons are used for Lock, Day+ and Day- respectively on the Comcast version of the remote. The A-B-C buttons are there, they're just assigned to these other functions. They can be reprogrammed to the ABC function but if you follow the function guides posted around you'll be trying to set "A" to 241 and getting bummed out. So:

Second: the codes you need for A-B-C are, respectively: 077 (A), 237 (B) and 114 (C).

Everything else on the remote works just as expected and the layout is actually a little easier if you are into the Guide and need those A-B-C buttons.