I have a TW 8300HD DVR with Sara ver 1.89.????, connected to my Sony via HDMI. I have been having a problem for the last two months or so in which scheduled recordings don't record and it appears that the DVR thinks that it already has two recordings going so when the scheduled recording comes up the DVR just ignores it. I have tried to manually record a program and I get a message that you can't record three programs at once when I am only trying to record a single program. Rebooting sometimes fixes the issue for a while but it eventually comes back again. I was told by a tech to take the box in and exchange it for another 8300HD, he warned I shouldn't take one of the cable card boxes because they are more troublesome than the 8300HD. I exchanged the box a couple days ago and the same old problem is back. The problem seemed to start (although not sure) when TW added some new HD channels here in the Triad NC area and I was wondering if this problem could be associated with the migration to SDV. I don't know enough about SDV to know whether this could contribute to the problem.

I am at my wits end, the tech support folks at TW are almost worthless and the folks they dispatch aren't much better.

Has anyone experienced this kind of problem? Would one of the newer boxes give me a better result?

Is the software (Sara, Passport etc) in a particular box unique to a box model #. In other words my 8300HD has Sara; would the 8300 HDC have different SW or would the 8240HDC have still different SW?

Or rather is the SW the same throughout a TW franchise area and therefore the SW is the same on all boxes deployed within the franchise area?

All the boxes in your area will have the same type software - which will be moved to the new TW software in the near future.

SDV should have no effect on what you are describing, but then again, never say never.

Also, don't reboot the box. UNPLUG it completely for 60 seconds. I know it has been extremely hot in that area for the last month or so. How well ventilated is the area your DVR is in? I am also wondering about brownout possibilities.

All the boxes in your area will have the same type software - which will be moved to the new TW software in the near future.

SDV should have no effect on what you are describing, but then again, never say never.

Also, don't reboot the box. UNPLUG it completely for 60 seconds. I know it has been extremely hot in that area for the last month or so. How well ventilated is the area your DVR is in? I am also wondering about brownout possibilities.

Thanks for the response .... when the boxes are "moved to the new SW in the near future" is it something that is pushed to the box over the network or does the box get changed out?

When you say unplug it, do you mean to just cut the power to the box for 60 secs or to completely disconnect every cable on the back for 60 secs? I ask because someone suggested I needed to completely disconnect the box overnight to do a real reboot?

As for the heat, the house is air conditioned but when I did remove the box to exchange it, I did note that the case was pretty hot. Not too hot to handle but certainly warmer than I would have expected. I suupose heat could be the culprit but that wouldn't explain why the box performed flawlessly for the first year or so of it being installed in my home but only recently started acting up.

Do you happen to know if later version boxes such as the 8300HDC or the 8240HDC are more or less stable than the 8300HD?

Thanks again ...