I got my 8300 yesterday. I went to the Arrowood road location to pick it up. I was initially told that they didn't have any of the new boxes (even though I had called before hand and was assured they had plenty and that I could come pick one up). The lady said she could schedule an appointment in two weeks for a tech to bring me one out to me (a $21 charge). After arguing with her for about 5 minutes, she said "I guess I could check in the warehouse, but they are out on lunch on 2:00" (she was very rude). I waited for about 30 minutes until 2:00 and sure enough they had some in the warehouse. I asked her if I would need to call and activate it when I got it hooked up... she said no. Of course, I got it home and hooked it up and it didn't work. I called customer service and, explained my situation and asked her to balance the account before sending a hit to the box (I have had this problem with new boxes before and it is always a balancing issue). She sent a hit, but said she didn't know what I meant by balancing the account. :rolleyes: Of course that didn't wor, so she had to send a tech. to the house today. He was very nice and knowledgeable... he admitted that it was just a balancing issue and that the CS rep. I talked to must have been knew. He had it working in about 5 minutes. He also said the 8000 boxes were basically pieces of junk and there had been a lot of problems with them.

I love the box so far though. Miles ahead of the 8000. Picture is better (I use component), changing channels is faster, guide is faster, PIP works better, and best of all I have not noticed any studdering or dropouts yet! I'm not sure what the handshake problem is, but I haven't noticed it.

The 1080i/720p/etc. lights on the front are kind of neat, but you can't see which one is lit if you sit more than 5 ft. from the box. You have to enable all output formats for these lights to work. The recording light is the only red one, so it is still easy to see when it is recording.

In short: box good, TW customer service bad.

Your experience sounds somewhat like mine, except I had no issue obtaining the box. I too asked if it would work when I got home with it and was told that it would, but of course I got some message about Digital Cable has been disconnected and to call the cable operator.

First person I talked to also tried to send a hit, couldn't get it to work, and scheduled a technician, which would be two days later. I decided to play phone tech roulette, and luckily enough, the second tech was able to get the 8300HD working and canceled the service call.

The handshake issue that others have referenced is only related to the HDMI/DVI connection, and will not be a problem when using a component connection.

Correct, the handshake issue is discussed in the "twc sa8300 sara" thread in the hd recorder section of avs. I'm running hdmi and when i turn on the system the first time of the day, I get a message on the tv that says "your display is not HDCP compliant" or something like that. I have to fiddle with turning the tv, cable box off a few times to get it to work.

HDMI and the tv have to achieve an electronic "handshake" for the picture and sound to come on the screen. It's supposed to do it automatically but someone in that other thread stated it can be fixed by an update so it won't give that error message. Other than that this box is great.

One thing I have noticed with the 83000 is that I can not stop a recorded show during playback. The stop button only pauses for some reason. (Yes, the pause button pauses too.) I have to change channels to stop playback. Has anyone else noticed this?


Changing topics... Has anyone heard if/when TW will be adding ESPN2HD? Or other HD channels (Cinemax-HD, Starz-HD, PPV-HD, Bravo-HD, etc.)?

I talked to a rep "in the know" there at twc the other day and mentioned this. He stated HDStarz was in the works but nothing so far on cinemax or others.

Originally posted by chief17
Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes, the 8000HD did that as well. It is a minor annoyance that will hopefully be addressed in a future update.

Before I try -- anyone had any luck swapping out their 8000hd's for 8300hd's "just because it's better?"

I've got three 8000hd's and am more than willing to give it a shot but if anyone has any advice, pls let me know. I'd prefer to pick them up and just sign the waiver and, as always, expect to see the "digital cable service has been disconnected" message and am prepared to call to have them work their "magic" on them...

Thanks, E.

ps: My trump card that I might try would be to have them look at the number of dead 8000's they've already had to swap with me (3 or 4, I've lost count) and also look at the "large" size of my monthly bill (>$200)... <g>

No waiver needed for this. Per TWC, if you ALREADY have an HD DVR you are able to swap it out for another hd dvr. Only the customers who don't currently have hd dvr's have to let twc come out to install as TWC is afraid they'll mess up the installation.

Originally posted by ericwe
Before I try -- anyone had any luck swapping out their 8000hd's for 8300hd's "just because it's better?"

I've got three 8000hd's and am more than willing to give it a shot but if anyone has any advice, pls let me know. I'd prefer to pick them up and just sign the waiver and, as always, expect to see the "digital cable service has been disconnected" message and am prepared to call to have them work their "magic" on them...

Thanks, E.

ps: My trump card that I might try would be to have them look at the number of dead 8000's they've already had to swap with me (3 or 4, I've lost count) and also look at the "large" size of my monthly bill (>$200)... <g>

As dvdguru mentioned, no waiver is needed since you already have HD service and equipment. Just make sure you call ahead to the location of your choice and reserve a box or in your case boxes so that you don't waste a trip. I called the Arrowood location and had them note on my account that I was coming to pick up an 8300 box. When I got there they were reluctant at first but once they looked up my account and saw that I had called ahead and that I had problems in the past with TWC keeping appointments, everything was fine. There is no need to take time off work or blow a Saturday waiting for some tech that may never show up. Hook up the box yourself and then call customer service so they can authorize on thier end or whatever it is they do. The 8300 is much improved over the 8000 in my opinion.

Originally posted by Davew0670
..I had to go the albemarle rd location to pick up the box.

I guess you got the one I was supposed to get this morning.:( I was at that office yesterday morning to pay my bill because I had a $50 cable bill rebate check from Panasonic from buying my PT-50LC14 and I wanted to make sure it was properly credited. I asked about the 8300 and she told me they had them and she would hold one for me to pick up this morning. I went by there on the way home from work this morning with my 8000 that I unhooked last night and guess what? "We're all out right now" What about the one you were holding for me? "I'm sorry, we don't have any and we don't know when we'll get more." :mad: This is the type of customer service, and I use that term loosely, that gives these people a bad name.

Originally posted by Bookworm
I guess you got the one I was supposed to get this morning.:( I was at that office yesterday morning to pay my bill because I had a $50 cable bill rebate check from Panasonic from buying my PT-50LC14 and I wanted to make sure it was properly credited. I asked about the 8300 and she told me they had them and she would hold one for me to pick up this morning. I went by there on the way home from work this morning with my 8000 that I unhooked last night and guess what? "We're all out right now" What about the one you were holding for me? "I'm sorry, we don't have any and we don't know when we'll get more." :mad: This is the type of customer service, and I use that term loosely, that gives these people a bad name.

That is what they told me initially as well (at the Arrowood Rd. location). I had to keep pressing her and arguing with her (I had called ahead too) before she finally decided to "do me a favor" and check the warehouse for more. I had to wait about 30 minutes, but of course they had plenty in the warehouse. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by doppler1
Yes, the 8000HD did that as well. It is a minor annoyance that will hopefully be addressed in a future update.

The stop button worked fine on my 8000HD.

Ooooooh, I just re-read your post chief17. So you can't stop any recorded program at all? You're right, that didn't happen on the 8000HD and does not happen on my 8300HD.

I thought you were referring to trying to stop a show that you started playing while it was still recording. In that case, if I press the stop button it just pauses. This is the behvaior that the 8000HD also exhibited.

If I play back a completetly recorded program, the stop button will pop up the options to delete or save.

Originally posted by doppler1
Ooooooh, I just re-read your post chief17. So you can't stop any recorded program at all? You're right, that didn't happen on the 8000HD and does not happen on my 8300HD.

No, I can't stop any previously recorded show that I am watching. I have to change channels or start something else from the list to stop it. Not really a big deal though. Strange that yours doesn't do the same thing. Maybe you have already gotten an update since I just put mine in yesterday. Or maybe my remote is just screwed up.

Anyways, I love the box so far.

Just got off the call with TW - "All centers are out of them now. Try back Friday"

Originally posted by Bookworm
I guess you got the one I was supposed to get this morning.:( I was at that office yesterday morning to pay my bill because I had a $50 cable bill rebate check from Panasonic from buying my PT-50LC14 and I wanted to make sure it was properly credited. I asked about the 8300 and she told me they had them and she would hold one for me to pick up this morning. I went by there on the way home from work this morning with my 8000 that I unhooked last night and guess what? "We're all out right now" What about the one you were holding for me? "I'm sorry, we don't have any and we don't know when we'll get more." :mad: This is the type of customer service, and I use that term loosely, that gives these people a bad name.


the guy behind me got yours.:) Sorry that happened. I dont handle things like that well. You would have probably seen me on the 6:00 news.

Originally posted by sbirnie
Just got off the call with TW - "All centers are out of them now. Try back Friday"

Yeah, they do appear to be out of 'em right now, and they never know when they'll get more in. Makes it difficult to swap them out when you need to watch everything you've already recorded on the "old" one before you take it in, and you don't know if they'll have any 8300's in stock when you get there. Wednesday's the biggest recording night of the week for me and now I've accumulated more stuff I gotta' watch before I swap it out. I see a vicious circle forming.... dang these things are addictive!

I must admit I got TWO 8300's :).
The HDMI connection supplies both video and sound (one cable solution).
HDMI is slower to resynch between formats though (480p-720p, etc.) than is the component.
The firewire appears disabled.
I can't believe no one has mentioned the SATA (serial ATA) jack.....hope it's not disabled.
SATA COULD be used to add an external SATA hard drive....IF it's not disabled. I'm not very hopeful though due to MPAA paranoia issues.
I will play with it more this weekend to see it I can make it work.
IF so I speculate it will require a special formatting that will require we access a service menu to do. I doubt they would make it so easy as a FAT, FAT32 or NTFS format via WindowsXP.
Anyone else has success with the firewire/1394 or SATA port?

SATA has been mentioned a few times...

Supposedly, all content that is stored on the 8300HD (whether the internal HD or any external SATA drive you add), is encrypted, otherwise, you would be able to remove the drive and copy content over to a PC, but it certainly would be easier to do with an external SATA drive.

No one really seems to know if it's active yet. Most people in the recorders forum seem to be waiting for Scientific Atlanta to certify certain brands/models for the 8300HD.

If you really wanted to give it a shot, you could pick up one of these SATA/USB 2.0 Drive enclosures (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-155-218&DEPA=0) and a nice big 250GB hard drive. (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-145-071&depa=0) If it doesn't work, I guess you could always use the drive for your PC with the USB 2.0 connector.

Originally posted by cajunlab
...Anyone else has success with the firewire/1394 or SATA port?

I'll test the firewire port with my D-VHS tape deck as soon as I can get hold of an 8300. I'm curious to see if the Copy Freely problem also manifests itself with the DVR as it does with the 3250. Hey cajun, why don't you give me one of yours since you apparently have a "surplus"? ;)

For those of you that have 720P Native Resolution HDTVs, have you found it better to disable 1080i on your 8300 (or other box) so that the box will send a 720P signal; or leave as is and let your TV do it.

Originally posted by Panzer948
For those of you that have 720P Native Resolution HDTVs, have you found it better to disable 1080i on your 8300 (or other box) so that the box will send a 720P signal; or leave as is and let your TV do it.

I remember someone saying that is usually better to enable all of the output modes on the box and let the tv do all the scaling.

I have a 720p set... I've tried both ways (tv scaling and box scaling) and can't tell a difference.

FYI


Time Warner plugs in S-A multi-room DVR

Karen Brown, CED

Scientific-Atlanta Inc. was quick to capitalize on the electronics bonanza at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, debuting its first- ever multi-room digital video recorder system and announcing that Time Warner Cable will deploy it in its Minneapolis division.

Based on the Explorer 8300 series DVRs, the MR-DVR uses coax in the home to simultaneously access three additional sets that have attached non-DVR S-A boxes.

S-A has offered DVR set-tops since 2002, but the addition of multi-room capability is an important step, according to Michael Harney, S-A's corporate senior vice president and president of Subscriber Networks. The 8300 MR-DVR has been in trials up to now, and this is the first major deployment.

"With Scientific-Atlanta's Multi-Room DVR solution, we have made it incredibly easy for our customer's subscribers to watch their DVR recorded content throughout the home," he said, in a release. "For operators that deploy, market, and bundle Multi-Room DVR service in their service packages, they are setting the stage as the provider in the marketplace for the connected home."

S-A also unveiled a new stand-alone media terminal adapter. Aimed at voice-over-IP telephony service, the stand-alone MTA converts a telephone's analog voice signals to digital IP data for delivery via a cable or digital subscriber line modem.







Broadband briefs:

• Time Warner sets store by Maxtor
Time Warner Cable has ordered its first shipment of external digital video recorder hard drives from storage specialist Maxtor Corp. With drive capacities ranging from 40 Gigabytes to 300 GB, the Maxtor QuickView Expander is initially designed to be compatible with Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer 8300-series DVRs. Versions fitting other brands are in the works. It will be made available in select, and as yet unannounced, Time Warner markets.

DANG! :D

Welcome, David.
Don't be a stranger....your presence here is appreciated.
You are one of the few at TW that aren't "in the dark" regarding HDTV technology.

Which non-DVR boxes will work as clients?
Should be cheaper than 2 8300's, no?

Thanks

Welcome David :) Yes, this guy knows TWC HD to say the least. Any price on these yet? thanks

GRRRR - first time I when to Arrowood I got the same bogus "we don't have any more" story.

Going back tomorrow!

How do you know it's a bogus story? Sure, their customer service isn't perfect, but do you think they go out of their way to annoy customers?

Oh well, I guess I can't really blame you - I'd probably be pretty anxious to get one too if I didn't have one already.

I'm noticing the analog channels look better thru HDMI too which is nice. Nor great but better than on the 8000HD thru component. I hardly get any stuttering or audio dropouts anymore and the picture on everything is much sharper. This box is the best yet by far and the multiroom stuff sounds really promising as well.

Originally posted by archiguy
Yeah, they do appear to be out of 'em right now, and they never know when they'll get more in. Makes it difficult to swap them out when you need to watch everything you've already recorded on the "old" one before you take it in, and you don't know if they'll have any 8300's in stock when you get there. Wednesday's the biggest recording night of the week for me and now I've accumulated more stuff I gotta' watch before I swap it out. I see a vicious circle forming.... dang these things are addictive!

That's why I was so aggravated when I went back on Wed. to swap out my 8000. My 8000's drive had nothing on it so it would have been the perfect day to make the swap. Now its got six one hour shows on it.:mad:

Originally posted by dvdguru
I'm noticing the analog channels look better thru HDMI too which is nice. Nor great but better than on the 8000HD thru component. I hardly get any stuttering or audio dropouts anymore and the picture on everything is much sharper. This box is the best yet by far and the multiroom stuff sounds really promising as well.
I was looking forward to using the HDMI connection when I read about this box a few months back but in the meantime I purchased a Panasonic S97 DVD player which upconverts DVD to 720p but only over the HDMI connection. Now I would have to choose between the two or buy an expensive (~$200) HDMI switcher. I wish someone made a simple HDMI y-connector but I guess the signal is too complicated for that.

Yeah, you'll have to get a switcher from gefen for that :( They're the only ones I know that make them currently which is why the price is so high. I have the panny th50phd7uy so I just swapped out the boards on mine which is a great feature of the commercial plasmas. I swapped out 1 component board and added two hdmi boards and still have one component connection for later.

Picked up my 8300 at Morehead today. Nice looking box. Wish it was black though.

Anyway, I'm going to need an HDMI to DVI coupler and I suspect others will to. These look like a good buy at $29. Anybody seen a better price?

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/DVI-hdmi_adapt.html#fmhdmi

You can buy a cable with HDMI/male on one end and DVI/male on the other end. I've seen a couple 6' cables like that online for $35-50 (sorry no particular links, but Froogle will find some), but I don't know what the quality was.

Although, if you already have a DVI cable, the adapter may be the better/cheaper way to go.

Anyone else having problems with NBC audio? Everything I watch on the NBC HD channel has messed up audio. The center channel is coming through on the rear speakers and is echoing, etc...This has been for about a week now. Medium, Third Watch, Crossing Jordan, everything on that channel...

NBC has screwed up the audio for me too,recently. I recorded CarolinaTraveler about a week ago and I had the correct audio out of the front speakers, but the show JOEY was playing throuh the rear speakers. It really pissed me off.

Also, went to my TWC store on Wednesday,they said they were out of the HD DVR boxes...

I guess I'll need to break my 8000 so I can geta new 8300... ARH...

2 Friends and I headed to the Morehead Road location this afternoon and we all walked out with brand new SA8300's. I hooked mine up tonight and here and so far things are looking up. I purchased an HDMI to DVI converter from Tweeter on Tryon St for $30, it's a monster branded cable and the one I saw on the Internet was $39 so I feel as if I got a good deal. As far as I can tell the HDMI does not carry audio but I may be wrong, I'm still using the RCA jacks that are underneath my DVI input on my TV to carry the audio.

As everyone has stated so far the guide/interface is FAST. I still have my 8000 hooked up and the comparrison is amazing. I started at channel 2 and had both boxes turned on (the remote works both boxes) and holding down the channel down button for about 20 seconds, the 8300 was on channel 80 and the 8000 was on about channel 40, equates to at least twice as fast from a "feel" perspective.

My TV does not support 720 so when I went to watch ESPN HD at first I had a black screen. A simple jump to the setup menu on the 8300 and disabling 720 output helped fix that so now my ESPN is upconverted to 1080 and looks great! All other HD channels look a tad cleaner and come up much faster than the 8000 when selecting, there is not blank in/blank out when selecting an HD channel either, it just pops up. I am viewing this on a Panasonic WX53 Rear Projection 53" widescreen Television. I put the TV on Picture in Picture split to view both boxes side by side.

The box itself is taller than the old 8000 but it is skinnier (looking at the face of the box). The time is smaller and there are several more buttons on the face. I had to have time warner send a reboot to the box several times before it took and once tonight while watching an HD broadcast the box rebooted, I hope this is not a sign of things to come. I have had ZERO pixelation or sound distortion this evening and I've watched mostly HD programming on HBO, Discover, ESPN and Networks.

I can't think of much else to say right now but if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask away.

Schoon

for hdmi or hdmi to dvi cables -
i've found great service and good prices at pccables.com
some peope also report the same at monoprice.com (9.75 for a cable)

hdmi does carry the audio BUT your hdmi->DVI converter removes the audio. dvi is video only.

INHD has been down several days in KingsMtn/Shelby TW.

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. My son will be playing in the "HBCU ALL STAR CLASSIC" in New Orleans on Jan 17. The game will be televised only on HD.net. We decided to get HD service from TWC in his apartment in Salisbury so I, his roomates, and some of his friends could see the game. His roomate, who has the cable service in his name (they currently have digital service), went to the TWC office in Salisbury to get service and was told they were out of HD recievers and they do not know when a new shipment will be in. Does that sound correct to you HD experts out there? And if so, is it possible to go to another TW office, say Concord, and get a reciever for use in Salisbury? I would be interested in any ideas any of you have out there. One other question---I am assuming that a regular analog TV set can be used with TW's HD box (I know the picture will not be HD, only analog). Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

I've been watching the NFL Wilcard game on 235 and at the beginning I had 5.1 sound. Went upstairs to eat dinner at halftime and came back down and now only have 2.1. Anyone else having the same problem?

I just got back from Eastland with what she said was the only one she had. I'm on the phone with CS right now trying to get it activated but she's having no luck so far.:( .......Woohoo! :D After about 15 minutes and an apparent consultation with someone else it's working! Now it's time to reprogram all my series recordings.

Just got my 62" DLP HDTV and 8300 last week and love em. Although I have nothing to compare them too (first HDTV and never used the 8000), I did have a question about PQ. In most of my HDTV programming I can see moving pixels (swimming dots) when they should be static, especially on solid lighter colors (such as blue or white skys). It's not real noticeable, but its there and I didn't usually see this in the store display units. I sit about 12 feet away, so I shouldnt be to close. The noise filters help a little, but it is still noticeable. Correct me if I am wrong, but I contribute this to compression of the HD source. I know the 8300 always records in the background (for pause functions). Therfore, it is probably compressing the incoming signal somewhat to save disk space. Could another problem be my cable source. Maybe a weak HD signal?

I was thinking of getting TWC to also rent me a non-DVR HD cable box for a comparison. I could split the incoming cable and connect them both to the cable boxes and have them as a different device on the TV. Will TWC even do this? Has anyone done this? Does the compression used by the 8300 this noticeable? I know I bought a good TV, but can someone please assure me its not my TV.

How do these boxes deal with disk fragmentation?
Is there a "Norton Speed Disk" equivalent that runs in the background?
Seems like they would get slower & slower with use.

Originally posted by Panzer948
I was thinking of getting TWC to also rent me a non-DVR HD cable box for a comparison. I could split the incoming cable and connect them both to the cable boxes and have them as a different device on the TV. Will TWC even do this? Has anyone done this?

I have both an 8000HD-DVR and a 3250HD STB hooked up to my system as well as 3 other analog devices and I split the cable 5 ways running to one display. Works fine; no issues. I have the 3250 because it has a firewire connection which allows me to tape record (with a D-VHS deck) HD programming for permanent archival. The 3250 has better HD picture quality than the 8000. If the 8300 has working firewire, I'll be able to give back the 3250 and save myself 8 bucks a month.

Originally posted by cajunlab
How do these boxes deal with disk fragmentation?
Is there a "Norton Speed Disk" equivalent that runs in the background?
Seems like they would get slower & slower with use.

Unlike a PC, which deals with lots of small files that can clutter up a hard drive, a DVR deals with a few very large files, and thus doesn't require disk defragmentation. Or so I've been told.

So, even if the 8300 has superior PQ than the 8000, it probably still is inferior to an non DVR box, right? Has anyone else compared these two, or is this "mosquito effect" even a result of compression.

No, the 8300 is every bit as good as the 3250 in PQ.
I had both at once & actually preferred the 8300.
Thus I now have 2 8300's.

Hmm,

Now I'm back where I started. So if the 8300 is about is good as it gets (if you have to use a cable box), then the moving pixels (I think some call it "mosquito effect") is either my TV or original source before it enters cable box. Have any here experienced this and diagnosed this problem. I normally wouldn't care, cause it is still a great picture. I just don't usually see it when looking at display models in the store.

Thanks,

I notice that effect when watching football games sometimes. Seems to be more pronounced for games in domes with the new fieldturf. Sammy HLP4663 DLP and 8300DVR.

I've noticed this "mosquito effect" , as you call it on the grass during football games as well. I turned the sharpness down on my TV which helped quite a bit. I just got my 8300 this morning so I won't be able to see if it's just the TV's sharpness or the 8000 or 8300 DVR until this weekend. In regards to the firewire port I noticed in the diag screen of the 8300 that under the copy protection heading it says: "1394 port enable always" so I don't know if that means it is active or not. I don't have any firewire devices to check. I also noticed on the DVR AVFS page where you see the hard disk usage that there is 16gb of space taken up by two entries: TSB-0 60 min, 20mbps, 8.4gb rec and a TSB-1 with the same parameters. Anyone know what these are? It seems to me that the picture on the 8300 is much sharper than the 8000 and I love how easy it is to search for a show with the letter grid in the guide. So far, I'm lovin' the 8300.:)

Well, I just emailed NBC charlotte as the sound on Medium is messed up just like the other nbc hd shows. I have center channel dialogue coming thru the rear speakers and center channel. UGH

Originally posted by Bookworm
I also noticed on the DVR AVFS page where you see the hard disk usage that there is 16gb of space taken up by two entries: TSB-0 60 min, 20mbps, 8.4gb rec and a TSB-1 with the same parameters. Anyone know what these are?

I would guess they are for the two tuner buffers, but I don't really know.

Originally posted by dvdguru
Well, I just emailed NBC charlotte as the sound on Medium is messed up just like the other nbc hd shows. I have center channel dialogue coming thru the rear speakers and center channel. UGH

Last night my son and I were watching a show on TVIHD about volcanoes in Hawaii. We could get the sound from the center channel to come out. Other channels were fine.

I'm thinking that it's not the station's fault we're seeing these audio problems, but more of problem with TWC?

I emailed both twc and nbc but this only happens on the NBC hd channels that I've seen so far...

Originally posted by doppler1
I would guess they are for the two tuner buffers, but I don't really know.

That's my guess as well. I've noticed that when I've filled up the disk, stuff I've recorded starts to disappear (with no warning) when the remaining space gets down to around the 16-20 gb mark. At first I was peeved because there should be about 3 hours of HD or 10 hours of SD left at that point. Then I remembered the buffers... Given 1 hour of buffer time each, that would be about 18-20 gb (or 12-14 gb at the reduced bitrate TWC is providing for HD material).

TWC reduces the bit rate for HD? That's news to me.

Originally posted by doppler1
TWC reduces the bit rate for HD? That's news to me.

ATSC specs for HD telecasts are 19.4 mb/s. That translates to about 9 gb/hour. We see, on the average, about 6 gb/hour of HD on the SA8000. So, it's looking like we get about 2/3 of the max bitrate. Subjectively, I see a slight softening of the picture even on the SA3250HD STB (let alone the SA8000, but that's hardware related) compared to my OTA digital receiver. So, it looks like there's some filtering going on at TWC, perhaps based on system capacity.

Just a general off topic FYI for everyone who has RoadRunner/Earthlink over cable in Charlotte:

Speeds have increased to 5mbps down, 384kbps up for Regular
RoadRunner/Earthlink and 8mbps down, 512kbps up for RoadRunner Premium.

Note: You will probably have to reboot your modem to receive the new speeds (simply pulling the plug will suffice).

Enjoy!

Originally posted by archiguy
. So, it looks like there's some filtering going on at TWC, perhaps based on system capacity.

TW has told me that they do not rate shape..

Originally posted by archiguy
ATSC specs for HD telecasts are 19.4 mb/s. That translates to about 9 gb/hour. .

Not quite. 19.4 mb is the TOTAL bit rate that each OTA broadcaster transmits, and in 8VSB format. This may be one HD channel or a mix of HD & SD. The entire 19.4 can't be used for one channel, as there must be overhead for such items as PSIP and audio..etc..WCCB-DT is 15 mb video
plus 2 audios @ ..448k and 192k..

I'm not sure if the TW DVR records the entire data stream from the 256 QAM
that it is tuned to or just the tuned channel..But to assume if you record an HD channel that it's being stored at 19.4 mb isn't quite correct.

Originally posted by doppler1
Just a general off topic FYI for everyone who has RoadRunner/Earthlink over cable in Charlotte:

Speeds have increased to 5mbps down, 384kbps up for Regular
RoadRunner/Earthlink and 8mbps down, 512kbps up for RoadRunner Premium.

Note: You will probably have to reboot your modem to receive the new speeds (simply pulling the plug will suffice).

Enjoy!


While its GREAT that they increased the download speed, they didn't increase the upload speed. So this won't improve speeds on Xbox live or other online gaming networks.

After a co-worker suggested I check out this forum, I found out (thanks, guys!) that the HD 8300 DVR was available. Rock on.

I've had it on for an hour or so, and WOW, this thing is SO much nicer than the 8000, and even the Pioneer box I had before the days of DVR.

The Pioneer box was nice, but the scaling was bad on the component outputs. So I always used the S-video ports when I was watching SD content and would flip over to watch the 4 or 5 (then) HD channels. The 8000 pretty much put a stop to that, forcing me to use the component outputs, and the scaling of SD content was terrible too. This 8300 doesn't seem to suffer that same problem. Hopefully, it wont have the other problems my two previous 8000s had.

TW has come a long way since I got their HD offering back in March of 2002. I use a Pioneer Elite 64" RPTV at the other end of the DVR.

I did some searching on the SATA port. But it doesnt look like anyones tried it (unless I missed something in the search). I do have a 160GB SATA drive I can plug into it for testing. BUT, how would you know it was active? I don't see a gas guage ont this thing to tell how much disc space is used.

welcome to the forum. There is a way to pull up a diagnostic screen. I can't remember the steps but I'm sure someone here can post instructions. Will be curious to hear your results.

Found a stash of 8300's; going to pick me one up tonight. WooHoo!! Going to have to keep the 8000 for a few more days until I can clear it out of recordings. This should make my next TWC bill interesting.

Bob - thanks for clarifying/expanding on my remarks regarding bit rates. I'll be interested to do a side-by-side-by-side comparison between the 8000, 8300, and 3250 for relative PQ. I'll also be able to test the firewire ports on the 8300; they're supposed to be active now.

I'd like to hear how they stack up as well. I may trade in my Pioneer for
a newer one!

Yes,

Please post your comparison here for us all to see (I assume the 3250 is the non DVR HD set top box).

Thanks,

Originally posted by Panzer948
Yes,

Please post your comparison here for us all to see (I assume the 3250 is the non DVR HD set top box).

Thanks,

Correct.

Bob, nice to run into you on this forum. I'm Shannon from Quality Engineering. It's good to see you're still eager to help people with their technical problems :)

Regarding the SA 8300 series of DVRs. I recently had one installed because TWC was out of the non-DVR boxes. It turns out I'm glad they installed it because I was at a loss for how I was going to continue using my TiVo when the new HD content was so much better to watch.

I've been having some problems with the side bars as well on my 4:3 HD television. Hamster pointed me to this forum and I thought I might share some of the information I stumbled across. I won't be able to test anything until I get home today.

I read in some of the 8300 documentation that pressing the # button on the remote will stretch the screen. Not a fix, but much quicker than entering the menus. Also, if you have a 4:3 ratio TV and are having problems, it could be that your 8300 was initially setup for a 16:9 screen.

Here are some links to documentation on the 8300. I haven't found a full owners manual yet, but will post it if I do.

EDIT: Well, I can't post links because of the spam rule. Maybe I can bend the rule ;)

Getting Started: www scientificatlanta.com/explorerclub/getting_started/4004007.pdf

Connecting: www scientificatlanta.com/explorerclub/getting_started/4003986.pdf

8300 FAQ: www scientificatlanta.com/consumers%5Fnew/cableboxes/8300hd.htm

I hope some of you find this information usefull.

Hey Shannon- Good to see you here.. I guess the WAKA drawings here in front of me are yours?

As long as they're correct and what you wanted ;)

Actually, about halfway through WAKA, I was moved to other projects. We've been pretty busy around here lately. But, that's always a good thing!

Tonight, LOST was out-of-sync for me. Anyone else?

It wasn't you. Looked like the audio was ahead of the video by a half second or so.

I hate weather preemptions. An entire nights programing shot for yet another Doppler overreaction.

Completely agree...I wish they could find a way to allow the program to continue on the HD channel with a crawler saying if you are in area such and such tune to the analog channel for important weather information.

That's doesn't meet the requirements of the FCC. Sorry.

Had a feeling that would be the case. Thanks Bob.

Probably a stupid question, but I'll ask anyways. :) Is there a wa to copy programs you have recorded on the DVR (I have the 8300) to a computer (.avi or .mpg files)? My friend says that his TiVO will do this. Thanks for the help.

If firewire is active...maybe, I'm not really sure as I haven't read much into it...you might want to search around some in the forums.

Other than that, you could always pick up a capture card and "copy" the program real time, but if you have the card, you might as well record to the PC to begin with.

I cannot wait for my TiVo's to receive the upgrade so I can begin to transfer shows to the PC.

Originally posted by chief17
Probably a stupid question, but I'll ask anyways. :) Is there a wa to copy programs you have recorded on the DVR (I have the 8300) to a computer (.avi or .mpg files)? My friend says that his TiVO will do this. Thanks for the help.

I connected my brand spankin' new SA8300 up last night and can conclusively say that the reports of it having improved HD picture quality over the SA8000 are absolutely correct. More detail, a crisper image, and a "flattening" of color; the 8000 always seemed to be over-saturated to me. The colors out of the 8300 look more natural.

The 8300 also has two 1394 (firewire) ports. They do not appear to be active at this time. I connected the DVR up to my Marantz D-VHS tape deck (a rebadged JVC 40k) via firewire and the tape deck did not recognize the 8300. The firewire ports on the SA3250HD (non DVR) STB, however, work fine and one can send programs flagged "copy once" to a D-VHS deck with no problems. HD locals flagged "copy freely" are another story; it's hit or miss, mostly miss. This is a known flaw and nobody anywhere, including our local TWC guys, seems to have gotten a handle on it. This both astounds and disappoints me.

It's my hope that TWC activates the firewire ports on the 8300 so that I can remove the 3250 from my system. I need a way to permanently archive HD material to tape. At this point, in this area, the 3250 is the only way to do that. To answer your original question, there is no way to dump HD content to a computer from the 8300 or a TiVo without violating 5C copy protection protocols, nor will there be. Computers are not approved devices for HD content transfer via firewire from any STB or DVR (that's Hollywood's biggest fear). Only certain D-VHS decks qualify.

To answer your original question, there is no way to dump HD content to a computer from the 8300 or a TiVo without violating 5C copy protection protocols, nor will there be. Computers are not approved devices for HD content transfer via firewire from any STB or DVR (that's Hollywood's biggest fear). Only certain D-VHS decks qualify.


Thanks, but I am just trying to copy recorded basketball games (not HD) to a PC so I can make highlight clips that can be emailed. Is there a way to do that?

chief17: Not without a capture card, since Firewire isn't active...

Here's a good read for when [if?] Firewire does get activated:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printpost.php?postid=3818890

Originally posted by doppler1
chief17: Not without a capture card, since Firewire isn't active...

Here's a good read for when [if?] Firewire does get activated:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printpost.php?postid=3818890


Thanks for the link. Hopefully they will activate the firewire soon. What is a capture card?

Just a PCI card or USB device that you connect to your computer to record a/v content. They usually have a tuner as well as analog inputs.

Here's a bunch (http://www.newegg.com/app/manufact.asp?catalog=47&DEPA=0)

FYI..
WCCB-DT's off air, awaiting parts hopefully tomorrow..

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
FYI..
WCCB-DT's off air, awaiting parts hopefully tomorrow..

Uh... Bob, I know you know this, but there's a football game on tomorrow!

And Sunday too, and I gotta see Randy Moss moon Philly in 720p!:D

Hey..If we're on that's good. If we ain't, you'll have to watch the backup feed..Channel 18..

We managed to coax the bad part back into service, hopefully fedex and the MFG will pull through for us and we'll have all back to normal tomorrow.

Bob,

How do you get your HD signal to TimeWarner? Getting 18's HD singal just fine via them.

TW gets the signal OTA..The fiber link to them hasn't been completed yet.. Fortunately, Terry managed to coax the recalcitrant part back into action. Hopefully fedex will pull through for us today.

Originally posted by doppler1
It's been about six months since I've had the Pioneer Voyager box, so it's really hard to say. The other consideration is that I've never used either the Voyager or the 8300HD with DVI/HDMI, so anything I say won't necessarily be a fair comparison.

What I can tell you is that the HD PQ of the 8300HD is far superior to that of the 8000HD. Whether the 8300HD PQ rivals that of the Voyager, it's hard for me to say because of the 6 months, but I think so (but you have to keep in mind that the pretty bad PQ of the 8000HD may have lowered my standards).


Thanks for the information! Has anyone else compared the Pioneer Voyager HD box and the 8300 from a PQ perspective? Secondly, another poster mentioned the 8300 HD-DVR has an optical digital connection. Does it also have a coaxial digital connection?

Originally posted by AnthonyM
Secondly, another poster mentioned the 8300 HD-DVR has an optical digital connection. Does it also have a coaxial digital connection?

It has both a Toslink and S/PDIF coaxial connection on the back of it.

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
FYI..
WCCB-DT's off air, awaiting parts hopefully tomorrow..

Way to go WCCB! Thanks for providing last night's game in 720p HD glory! :cool: :cool:

Not to be ungrateful, though, but couldn't you all have done something to make the Rams more competitive? :D

You're Welcome teddyTv..But Hey..it was nothing money can't fix!
As to the Rams, well..that's another story...

Screen turns grey

I'm having an infrequent problem on my HD DVR box. While watching TV the screen sometimes turns grey. I lose audio and video. To fix it I turn the box off and then on again. It's the same shade of grey that is used for sidebars. It does not seem to be specific to any channel because it has happened on HD and SD channels. Has anyone experienced this before?

I had this happen yesterday. The thing finally rebooted itself. I've got a 8300 DVR - which I've had less than a week.

Well, I'm watching Medium and the NBC 5.1 sound problem looks to be fixed now thankfully. I guess an engineer got my emails forwarded to him ;)

HD PPV is in the clear on channel 279. 2 movies and some Imax specials. No diag mode needed.

Anyone use the cable card with TWC?
How is it?
I hear channels are crazy like 973.1 etc.
TIA

Originally posted by swamphhh
HD PPV is in the clear on channel 279. 2 movies and some Imax specials. No diag mode needed.

It's about time! Can't wait to try it out. Any word on Cinemax HD?

On a side note: Last night I purchased a DVI to HDMI cable and connected it between the 8300 and my TV. The picture is noticeably crisper and brighter when compared to the component cables. Well worth the $125 price tag! :confused: :rolleyes:

OUCH on the $125...what kind of monitor do you have rcase13? Is it a RPTV or DLP/Plasma/LCD/...?

I'm still trying to decide whether or not it will be worth swithing to HDMI--->DVI for my RPTV.

I didn't notice much of a difference when I hooked the HDMI cable from the 8300 to my Sammy DLP. Took the $125 cable back to circuit city after I saw that you can get one online for ~ $35.

Originally posted by doppler1
OUCH on the $125...what kind of monitor do you have rcase13? Is it a RPTV or DLP/Plasma/LCD/...?

I'm still trying to decide whether or not it will be worth swithing to HDMI--->DVI for my RPTV.

It seems we have conflicting opinions. I will say that my non techy wife noticed the difference as well. I still stand with the belief that it is both crisper and especially brighter. I also notice more "mosquito effect" I believe it is called. I just borrowed an HD set up DVD from a friend. When I have time I will go through the DVD's screen setup procedures and hopefully reduce this affect as well as correct the now overly bright picture.

I bought the cable at CC. It's Monster Cable so you have to expect to get ripped off. If your a patient person then the internet is the way to go. I paid for convienence.

Oh my TV is a Sammy DLP as well. Anyone know where to get bulbs for these? I've had mine for over a year and would hate to get stuck without a bulb.

$125 !!!! wow. I got an hdmi-dvi for $16.99 shipped from ebay.

Originally posted by cajunlab
Anyone use the cable card with TWC?
How is it?
I hear channels are crazy like 973.1 etc.
TIA

I have been using a cable card for a while now, and I am very pleased with it. I did have trouble with it not tuning to all of the available HD channels at first. A second card and a new cable run to the house later it still wouldn't tune to anything above channel 280, (although my signal strength increased by 10db). The fix was something the tech called "balancing the line". It has worked very well ever since except for the occasional blackouts early on. It seems to be stable now, but since it is on a bedroom TV, we don't watch it very much. The ability to watch all of the digital channels without a box is cool, but I do miss the interactive guide. On my TV the channels numbers are displayed normally.

Hi, new to the thread and the forums! I've had the 8000HD DVR for about 2 months now. I had a heck ofa time figuring out how to archive to my DVD burner, but finally came across the PIP trick to output to the S-video.

Anyway, does anyone have any updates on where the 8300 is available lately? Are there still some at the Morehead St store? Is it true that the composite outs & S-video out are active on the 8300?

Thanks and I'm glad to have found this great resource!

I had a DVI cable I used from the 8000 (before I realized the DVI out was disabled), and when I picked up the 8300 I bought a DVI/HDMI converter and connected that to my TV.

Every now and then when I turn on my tv and I'm on an HD channel (which I usually am) I get a screen that tells me that my tv can't handle the signal or something - sorry I didn't get the exact message. But if I switch to an analog channel for a few seconds and then go back everything's fine.

Anyone else have this issue?

This happened to me when I was using an HDMI to DVI cable as well. I put in two hdmi boards last week and am now running straight hdmi cables to the tv and I no longer get that message...

For those of you that have the HDMI/DVI cables. Did you compare them to component? Just wondering if it is worth upgrading from my monster component to HDMI (my TV has an HDMI input).

Thanks,

I found I liked HDMI much better. The picture seemed to be alot sharper to me so that why I switched to hdmi for my pioneer 59avi dvd player and the sa8300 hd dvr.

dvdguru,

Does your TV have two HDMI inputs (1 for DVD and other for DVR) or are you using a switcher. I assume your improved picture is being compared to component.

Thanks for the quick response.

Originally posted by sbirnie
Every now and then when I turn on my tv and I'm on an HD channel (which I usually am) I get a screen that tells me that my tv can't handle the signal or something - sorry I didn't get the exact message. But if I switch to an analog channel for a few seconds and then go back everything's fine.

Anyone else have this issue?

I have this problem as well. I just cycle power on the 8300 and all is well.

What causes this?

Originally posted by dvdguru
This happened to me when I was using an HDMI to DVI cable as well. I put in two hdmi boards last week and am now running straight hdmi cables to the tv and I no longer get that message...

What TV do you have that allows the swapping of input boards? Drool...:p

the Panasonic TH50PHD7UY plasma :) I can swap boards for inputs as desired so yes it's very convenient. I'm using two separate hdmi input boards and not a switcher.

Originally posted by dvdguru
I found I liked HDMI much better. The picture seemed to be alot sharper to me so that why I switched to hdmi for my pioneer 59avi dvd player and the sa8300 hd dvr.

I wonder if that's more of a difference between the decoder in the STB vs the one in your display than it being a component cable type thing.

Just curious guys...what HD cables boxes is TWC currently offering...and do they support HDMI-DVI? A friend of mine just got an Mitsubishi DLP which has an HDMI-DVI input but he says the connection doesn't work. I suppose he has an SA box but I don't know which model. Thanks for your help!

Two choices for now:
Pioneer 3250 (non DVR) DVI out works...no HDMI.
OR
SA8300 HDMI out works.
I bought into the "all digital signal path" hype surrounding DVI & HDMI BUT I do not detect any difference from either the SA8300 STB or the Pio59Ai DVD player through HDMI as viewed on either a Pioneer PlasmaHD-1120 or an Infocus7200 projector.
I suspect the scalers & deinterlacers play a more noticeable role.
YMMV.

Check out the article on TW Cable in today's Business Journal. It's nice to know that we have a testing center here in Charlotte for new video technologies. It certainly can't hurt when it comes getting the newest STBs, etc.

Now if we can only get ESPN2HD, STARZHD and a decent selection of movies on On Demand HD (this appies to all of TW (not just here locally)), there would be no reason to check out the satellite competition.

STARZHD has got to be the priority. I want that one more than anything. (Well, I want FX-HD but that doesn't exist yet.) The new UniversalHD would be great once they get Monk and the SciFi channel shows on its schedule.

But as much as I like sports, ESPN2 doesn't really interest me. Especially not at the expense of another channel should that be the case.

Originally posted by Mhorn
Check out the article on TW Cable in today's Business Journal. It's nice to know that we have a testing center here in Charlotte for new video technologies. It certainly can't hurt when it comes getting the newest STBs, etc.

True, but they still haven't attempted to work out the problems with flagged broadcast streams, i.e. the inability to transmit 'Copy Freely' material over firewire. And the firewire ports on the new SA8300HD-DVR are not active, yet they are in the SA3250 STB (with the above mentioned drawback). Why?

Now if we can only get ESPN2HD, STARZHD and a decent selection of movies on On Demand HD (this appies to all of TW (not just here locally)), there would be no reason to check out the satellite competition.

True. We need Universal-HD (formerly Bravo-HD), Cinemax-HD, Starz-HD, and Encore-HD. All those channels are available now, are carried by other Cable Companies, and would greatly enhance the HD viewer's experience. What's the delay with adding them to the lineup by TWC? Considering all the trouble they had adding ESPN-HD, I wouldn't expect them to add ESPN2-HD any time soon.

FWIW, I just got the 8300HD as well. Currently am running component and am noticing significantly more pixel noise that what I saw with the Pioneer 3250. It seems about half the size, but is noticable on fast action scenes. Actually, it was very rare to see pixelation on the Pioneer on component. I have a HDMI - DVI adapter on order, so we'll see if there is an improvement.

I assume the HDMI 1.0 implementation on the 8300HD won't pass DD 5.1. Does anyone know if the 8300HD can be firmware upgraded OTA to HDMI 1.1?

Regards,
JnC

Originally posted by JnC

I assume the HDMI 1.0 implementation on the 8300HD won't pass DD 5.1. Does anyone know if the 8300HD can be firmware upgraded OTA to HDMI 1.1?

Regards,
JnC

Why wouldn't the HDMI connetion pass DD 5.1?

HDMI 1.0 specification only passes 2 channel audio. HMDI 1.1 provides for multichannel audio.

Originally posted by JnC
HDMI 1.0 specification only passes 2 channel audio. HMDI 1.1 provides for multichannel audio.

HDMI spec 1.0 came out in December 2002 and spec. 1.1 came out in May of 2004 but regardless of which spec is being used HDMI by definition passes 8 channel audio. In other words that is how it was originally defined. The following is taken from the HDMI internet site www.hdmi.org

"HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel digital audio, with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements."

It does not say it only applies to spec 1.1. Since HDMI is only the cable and the cable passes up to 8-channel digital audio as stated above I can't imagine the box not handling DD 5.1.

Hugh, I'd love to be wrong on this, but all google searches that I've performed indicate that the audio implementation in HDMI 1.0 is stereo only.

I'll try to buy some cables (from a store without a restocking fee) and test this today.

Regards,
JnC

Originally posted by JnC
Hugh, I'd love to be wrong on this, but all google searches that I've performed indicate that the audio implementation in HDMI 1.0 is stereo only.

I'll try to buy some cables (from a store without a restocking fee) and test this today.

Regards,
JnC

The only reason I think I might be correct is a discussion we had at CES which was followed up by an email from HDMI which reads as follows:

"The first parts Silicon Image made support stereo PCM audio and
multi-channel compressed audio (Dolby Digital and DTS). I cannot speak
for other chip manufacturers, but all Silicon Image parts support this
level of audio at a minimum. Our second generation parts enable
multi-channel PCM audio (DVD Audio) up to 8-channels, 192 kHz sample
rates."

We are probably saying the same thing but this guy says the spec 1 supported mulit-channel compressed audio....DD and DTS. I took this is mean that regardless of the spec you still had DD 5.1. That does not say the SA8300 box will output DD5.1 through the HDMI connection.

Ok, I did some testing. I stand corrected. :)

To recap, I want to connect my DVR with one cable to my receiver and connect that to the TV with one cable. That is the role of HDMI.

TV = Hitachi 50V500 w/ DVI and component inputs
receiver = Panasonic SA-XR70 with HDMI I/O
DVR = Scientific Atlanta 8300HD with HDMI and component outputs

Case 1) DVR (HDMI - HDMI) receiver (HDMI - DVI) TV.
Receiver sees Dolby EX in both live and recorded programming! This is a good thing and dispels the commonly published notion about HDMI 1.0 audio. My new problem is there's no DVR video on the TV! :( The message "Your HDTV does not support HDCP. Please use component to watch television" appears on the TV.

Ok, so the question now is, is the HDCP restriction with the TV or the receiver?

Case 2) DVR (HDMI - DVI) TV, audio routed via coax digital cable to the receiver. DVR video now makes it to the TV. The HDCP problem must be with having the receiver in the path.

It's not clear to me why the HDCP handshaking signal is being lost. The DVR's output is supposedly HDMI 1.0. The TV doesn't have HDMI, but it's HDMI-DVI connection works. The receiver's input supports HDMI 1.1. The receiver's output is HDMI 1.0.

I'm not sure where the warning message is being generated. It's conceivable that it's coming from the receiver.

Thoughts?

Regards,
Jared

Originally posted by JnC
Ok, I did some testing. I stand corrected. :)

To recap, I want to connect my DVR with one cable to my receiver and connect that to the TV with one cable. That is the role of HDMI.

TV = Hitachi 50V500 w/ DVI and component inputs
receiver = Panasonic SA-XR70 with HDMI I/O
DVR = Scientific Atlanta 8300HD with HDMI and component outputs
Regards,
Jared

Since I'm not an engineer I will only comment on the fact your TV does not have HDMI and therefore it doesn't seem to me that you can connect your DVR or Receiver to the TV via HDMI. You can purchase a device that will take HDMI in and DVI out but I wouldn't spend the $200+ for it. Just use component until such time as you have a TV that has HDMI and HDCP.

The TV supports DVI + HDCP.
The TV works fine with the HDMI to DVI cable if connected directly to the DVR.

BTW the HDCP message is being generated by the DVR as it appears on the s-video outputs too.

Originally posted by JnC
The TV supports DVI + HDCP.
The TV works fine with the HDMI to DVI cable if connected directly to the DVR.

BTW the HDCP message is being generated by the DVR as it appears on the s-video outputs too.

There are a few of us that get this but simply turning the DVR off and back on resolves the problem. Obviously you have tried this.

Sounds like you will have to go straight from the 8300 to your TV via HDMI/DVI cable and send the sound to your receiver via coax/fiber. This is what I have to do as my receiver doesn't switch HDMI/DVI.

Well, here's another undocumented feature...

It appears that if the TV is powered on, the 8300HD senses it via the HDMI and powers on as well. For me this is an additional problem as my TV has both DVI and component on input 1. There's no way I can turn on the TV and the source that's associated with that component input without the 8300HD coming on too. Unfortunately, when asked to choose between two active sources on input 1, the set always picks the digital one. Meaning, I lose a set of inputs to the TV now.

How do you pull up the diagnostic panel on the 8300HD? Can any features be set/toggled?

I live in Monroe and I'm thinking of getting an HDTV at Walmart. They have a Sanyo 30" WS HDTV for $650. After reading this thread it seems like T/W cable is about the only way to go for HD espeically since I want the locals and I really want to watch the Super Bowl in HD. I have D-TV now and I don't want to pay their equipment costs then get no local HD channels.

Does anyone here have one of the Sanyo's from Walmart and if so are there any issues with it and with T/W HD Cable?

And yes I've been to the thread for hardware and the thread for these tv's in particular. Just curious if its a good fit with the service around here.

Thanks.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I live in Monroe and I'm thinking of getting an HDTV at Walmart. They have a Sanyo 30" WS HDTV for $650. After reading this thread it seems like T/W cable is about the only way to go for HD espeically since I want the locals and I really want to watch the Super Bowl in HD. I have D-TV now and I don't want to pay their equipment costs then get no local HD channels.

Does anyone here have one of the Sanyo's from Walmart and if so are there any issues with it and with T/W HD Cable?

And yes I've been to the thread for hardware and the thread for these tv's in particular. Just curious if its a good fit with the service around here.

Thanks.

Can't help you with the Sanyo except to say if it is Model HT30744 then it does have HDMI and it is 1080i. The retail price is $778.

Time Warner Cable does an excellent job in this area and be sure to get the SA8300HD-DVR box.

Originally posted by HughScot
Can't help you with the Sanyo except to say if it is Model HT30744 then it does have HDMI and it is 1080i. The retail price is $778.

Time Warner Cable does an excellent job in this area and be sure to get the SA8300HD-DVR box.
I just looked at that model number at walmart.com and that one is "rollback" priced at $697 but it is really a feature packed TV. In addition to the HDMI it has 2 each of component, s-video and composite, not to mention an ATSC tuner. Could be an awesome set for the bedroom. Here's a link for the curious:Sanyo (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2601424&cat=136948&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A121791%3A179863)

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I live in Monroe and I'm thinking of getting an HDTV at Walmart. They have a Sanyo 30" WS HDTV for $650. After reading this thread it seems like T/W cable is about the only way to go for HD espeically since I want the locals and I really want to watch the Super Bowl in HD. I have D-TV now and I don't want to pay their equipment costs then get no local HD channels.

Does anyone here have one of the Sanyo's from Walmart and if so are there any issues with it and with T/W HD Cable?

And yes I've been to the thread for hardware and the thread for these tv's in particular. Just curious if its a good fit with the service around here.

Thanks.

Here is a thread on the TV:
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=33644

Might be a good deal in that price range.

I looked at this tv, too. But decided against it because it is 4:3 and not widescreen. Kind of defeats the purpose of High-Def programming in my opinion. Hope this helps!

Originally posted by herrfish1
I looked at this tv, too. But decided against it because it is 4:3 and not widescreen. Kind of defeats the purpose of High-Def programming in my opinion. Hope this helps!

The model asked about is the 30" model number HT30744 and this set is 16x9 and after looking at the Sanyo web site it has a host of goodies.......now if the picture is just worth a darn.

Hugh, I used the link posted in Bookworm's reply,and it was to the 32-inch Sanyo, model #HT32744, which is 4:3 and not 16:9. The model I saw was this model. The 30-inch Sanyo model you quoted however, (model #HT30744) , is indeed widescreen, but I didn't see it at my Wal-Mart and it's not listed on the Wal-Mart.com website. So in summary, the 30-inch model IS a widescreen (16:9) HDTV and the 32-inch model is a standard 4:3 aspect HDTV. Now maybe we're all clear. If someone finds and buys the 30-inch 16:9 model, please let us know how it looks!!!

Are you guys getting 5.1 audio on the NFC Championship Game on Fox 18? My receiver is only showing 2.1 sound. I've tested my set-up and everything seems to be working properly. Anybody???

Originally posted by HughScot
The model asked about is the 30" model number HT30744 and this set is 16x9 and after looking at the Sanyo web site it has a host of goodies.......now if the picture is just worth a darn.
You're right, I didn't catch that.:( As herrfish1 says in his follow-up post the 30744 isn't listed on the website.

Originally posted by herrfish1
Are you guys getting 5.1 audio on the NFC Championship Game on Fox 18? My receiver is only showing 2.1 sound. I've tested my set-up and everything seems to be working properly. Anybody???
I've got the beautiful blue light glowing on my Sony receiver indicating 5.1 sound so it's working for me with my 8300HD.

5.1 is fine here at my house..

Strangely enough I just did a Google search for the 30" Sanyo and one of the links that came up was this:Out of Stock (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2601425&adid=1500000000000001895180&dest=107590)

Thanks guys! When I finally put down the remote and looked closely at the receiver, I noticed it was set to "Stereo" with Speakers B "on", which was causing the problem. Probably caused by a certain 9-year-old in the house!!!

he-he..I get that! I have enough trouble with me in that respect..

my almost 9 yr old hasn't discovered the stereo yet, he's content with the just the big picture..but that day will come..

I'll second that. My Sony picked up the 5.1 stream from an 8300HDDVR for the game on WCCB.

Does the SA8300HD DVR up-convert a 720p signal to 1080i for output to an hdtv that can't accept a 720p signal and up-convert it on its own?

I'm looking at getting a Panasonic 30" widescreen CT-30WC14 at walmart (same as the panasonic CT-30WX54 except the walmart model has only one componet input and only fixed audio output compared to 2 inputs and the addition of variable audio output for the WX54) They share the same manual. So any CT-30WX54 owners can weigh in on this also.

I've read some customer reviews of the CT-30WX54 which say the tv can't accept a 720p signal and I'm worried that maybe it won't display a 720p broadcast properly like say a FOX Sports broadcast. I think the SA8300HD DVR will do the up-conversion then output a 1080i signal to the tv but I just want to be sure before buying one of these.

Thanks.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
Does the SA8300HD DVR up-convert a 720p signal to 1080i for output to an hdtv that can't accept a 720p signal and up-convert it on its own?

Yes, it does a very good job of upscaling 720p to 1080i.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
Does the SA8300HD DVR up-convert a 720p signal to 1080i for output to an hdtv that can't accept a 720p signal and up-convert it on its own?

I'm looking at getting a Panasonic 30" widescreen CT-30WC14 at walmart (same as the panasonic CT-30WX54 except the walmart model has only one componet input and only fixed audio output compared to 2 inputs and the addition of variable audio output for the WX54) They share the same manual. So any CT-30WX54 owners can weigh in on this also.

I've read some customer reviews of the CT-30WX54 which say the tv can't accept a 720p signal and I'm worried that maybe it won't display a 720p broadcast properly like say a FOX Sports broadcast. I think the SA8300HD DVR will do the up-conversion then output a 1080i signal to the tv but I just want to be sure before buying one of these.

Thanks.

I bought the Panasonic 30 inch wide screen TAU about 2 years ago and am using the SA8000HD. You simple deselect 720p in the SA8000HD settings and the signal is up converted to 1080i. (I believe FOX and ABC use 720p) I would assume the SA8300HD works the same way. The Panasonic TAU TVs are great as long as they are set up correctly. When I first bought mine the picture was very dark and I had a big hassle to get some one to come over and adjust/fine tune the picture. Once that was done I get a great HD picture. No problems with FOX or ABC sports in HD. By the way I don't believe "Tube" HDTVs can get 720p or at least I haven't seen one yet. Panasonic has it's own Forum at
http://bbs.panasonic.com/eshare/server/srvgate.dll?action=190&PAGE=3&EXPANDFULLY=0&EXPANDBRANCH=0&ASORT=65541&BSORT=4&AEXPAND=&BEXPAND=&BOARD=7
Just check out the return policy before you buy just in case you don't like the picture.

Anyone able to recommend a lcoal (Charlotte) ISF certified tech that'll calibrate a RPTV?

If so, I wouldn't mind some details (contact, cost, details of calibration, etc).

Gregg Lowen from the HTF does mine and he's coming to do my new plasma in March. He does a great job and comes highly recommended. He's from Maine and travels the country doing calibrations. From some of the horror stories I've heard of "local cablibrators" I would recommend Gregg...

Originally posted by dvdguru
Gregg Lowen from the HTF does mine and he's coming to do my new plasma in March. He does a great job and comes highly recommended. He's from Maine and travels the country doing calibrations. From some of the horror stories I've heard of "local cablibrators" I would recommend Gregg...

I have also heard good things about Gregg and his website is: http://66.201.107.3/book.php

What are the dates he will be in Charlotte?

Has anyone else had problems with PIP on the 8300 box? I have only tried to use it 3 or 4 times, but 2 of those times the box has frozen up and rebooted itself. I think both times it happened I had pushed the "swap" button.

Thanks.

Then don't push the swap button..:p :D

Regarding calibration, there is a $299 colorimeter for HDTV that was announced at CES. It still isn't shipping yet though. The $299 one is SpyderTV. I'm not sure how much the professional one is going for.

HDTV color correction link (http://www.colorvision.com/products_highlight.shtml)

Regards,
JnC

Originally posted by JnC
Regarding calibration, there is a $299 colorimeter for HDTV that was announced at CES. It still isn't shipping yet though. The $299 one is SpyderTV. I'm not sure how much the professional one is going for.

HDTV color correction link (http://www.colorvision.com/products_highlight.shtml)

Regards,
JnC

This is a Milori product. Milori has been around for awhile and in my opinion this is an attempt to get their product into more hands. The pro version is very similar to what they have been selling for a several years.

Hey Hugh, I don't have a specific date for March yet. He usually lets me know a few weeks in advance once other people in the area sign up for calibrations. It'll make a huge difference on rptv's as he's done two of mine in the past. Plasmas are already decent out of the box and no covergence issues, etc but I want that last little picture quality difference that an ISF can provide.

If anyone else is interested in scheduling an ISF just click on the link Hugh provided.

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
Then don't push the swap button..:p :D


You are a damn good enginerd. :p

Originally posted by HughScot
This is a Milori product.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Does anyone in the charlotte area have an Advent HDTV? Kmart has one in this week's flyer. an Advent 30" widescreen HDTV Monitor for $499

I'm worried it might be a total P.O.S.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
Does anyone in the charlotte area have an Advent HDTV? Kmart has one in this week's flyer. an Advent 30" widescreen HDTV Monitor for $499

I'm worried it might be a total P.O.S.

I'd just like to remind you that HDTV is all about picture quality. You were doing fairly well with the Sanyo as it would display 1080i but when you get down to $499. you may as well buy a large NTSC display.

As far as 1080i goes, Advent's site says the tv has a 1080i display.

http://www.adventtv.com/3061adetail.htm

There is the link if anyone wants to check it out.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
http://www.adventtv.com/3061adetail.htm

There is the link if anyone wants to check it out.

For starters it doesn't have a built in ATSC turner, cost $300 plus as an add on, and it doesn't have HDMI and it's not made by Sanyo which has a decent reputation.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I'm worried it might be a total P.O.S.

It ain't the same Advent that used to make good speakers..

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
As far as 1080i goes, Advent's site says the tv has a 1080i display.
I would be very careful with this TV. Make sure you understand the warranty and the features of the TV. Do a search on Google for the model number. There are some reviews but none good. Specifically read the fine print. It is your responsibility and your expense if there are no local service dealers. Check and make sure you have a local dealer. The TV is manufactured by Prima HDTV not Advent.

Another TV in this range is the Phillips (30PW8402) $650 from BJ's again not getting great reviews. Better warranty though.

I would look in the $999 range. You get a really good top rated TV with good warranty and great picture.

Bottom line if you have $599 to spend wait however many more months it takes to save another $300 -$400 dollars. You will be glad you did.

The tube based HDTV's are awesome. If your like me and want something in the 30" range I would go tube and not LCD. There are many downsides to getting a tube TV but the reviews almost always favor the tube based HDTV's. I am looking at this size for an Armour I have upstairs and 30" is the about the max. I'd say the biggest downfall of tube would have to be weight. a 30" tube based HDTV set will weigh in at a hefty 130lbs. Also I can't seem to find a set that doesn't distort straight horizontal lines to some degree.

I have a tube 40" Sony..@ 305 lbs..takes two gorillas and a boy to hold the door.. You have to consider the quality of your stand with larger tube sets..
those el cheapo stands just won't do..you'll need real furniture..

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
As far as 1080i goes, Advent's site says the tv has a 1080i display.

This television will not resolve 1920 x 1080 lines of resolution which is what it takes to be true HDTV. It does not have a true 1080i display. But if you like it buy it.

I'm probably going to go with the Sanyo since it has a one year exchange policy with walmart. I would like an LCD but a 30" LCD is almost double the price of that 30" tube sanyo hdtv at walmart.

There is a thread in the direct-view display forum about Samsung coming out with new tube hdtv's this year that are only 38cm's deep. Thus weighing a lot less than regular tubes and also having more lines. I don't remember the name of the thread but its an interesting read.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I'm probably going to go with the Sanyo since it has a one year exchange policy with walmart. I would like an LCD but a 30" LCD is almost double the price of that 30" tube sanyo hdtv at walmart.

There is a thread in the direct-view display forum about Samsung coming out with new tube hdtv's this year that are only 38cm's deep. Thus weighing a lot less than regular tubes and also having more lines. I don't remember the name of the thread but its an interesting read.

I saw those at CES and they are about 1/3 less deep than regular. A new tube design which they showed off but there was not much enthusiasm as most people think the CRT is going the way of the horse and buggy.

CRTs will always be around I think unless LCD/Plasma/DLP can match them in price at the same size. I don't know if that will ever happen.

But I'm looking forward to having hdtv on t/w cable in Monroe, NC hopefulling in time for the Superbowl!!!

Anyone here using T/W HD in Monroe or Union County? I think it's pretty much the same service in Charlotte.

Haven't been in here for a while now but recently (2 weeks ago) I traded in my trusty 8000 unit (but no DVI) for one of the newer 8300's. All I can say is...This thing is a piece of crap! SD is now TERRIBLE. The DVI interface gives erronous "not DHCP compliant" messages (that are resolved by simply turning the unit off and then back on again?). The box was already open when I picked it up from TW. I am wondering if this was a bad unit someone else had already returned? Is there a firmware patch this unit missed. Are there Quality Control issues with these units? Sorry for the rant. Reading this thread backwards for the "light at the end of the tunnel". In contrast... I never had ANY problems with the old 8000 unit...

What's with all this clutter on specific TV's? Isn't there a separate forum for such conversations? I've been reading back through pages of TV-type selections when I am trying to figure out local Charlotte coverage. In other words, you've hi-jacked this thread long enough (maybe innocently at first), please return this forum to it's intended use now... Thank you...

Originally posted by ndabunka
What's with all this clutter on specific TV's? Isn't there a separate forum for such conversations? I've been reading back through pages of TV-type selections when I am trying to figure out local Charlotte coverage. In other words, you've hi-jacked this thread long enough (maybe innocently at first), please return this forum to it's intended use now... Thank you...


So far you have contributed one rant.

I guess you missed my "contributions in the prior 162 post, huh? One rant is not bad if you ask me. I personally didn't really see it so much as a rant but rather as a request (to return control of the forum back to it's intended use). Such a request is at the very least REASONABLE by most standards. But hey, this is a free world so view it as you please. I'm seeking info on others that have experienced any problems with their 8300's. It doesn't appear to be the case (after reading backwards from this page to #99). I'll be trading mine into TW in the morning and picking up a new box and will report back with the results. This will be my contribution...

Originally posted by ndabunka
I'm seeking info on others that have experienced any problems with their 8300's. It doesn't appear to be the case (after reading backwards from this page to #99).

I've had several problems with my SA8300HD.

I can usually get a reboot by channel surfing from 02 - 04 and then back down one channel.

I had 3 programs in series manager set to record at the same time. At 8:00, I turned on the TV to check and see if the 2 higher shows on the priority list were recording and the 8300 had garbled characters on it's display followed by the word "boot". Once it finished booting, it started to record the show on the bottom of the priority list and not the 2 on the top. I had to manually record them.

I've ran across a few other random reboots as well.

I plan to exchange it for a new box soon, but I'm not hopefull. I had digital cable (non-HD) back when TWC started offering their first DVR. It was a Scientific Atlanta as well. It rebooted more often than my 8300. It would miss shows that should be recorded and reboot or turn itself off at random. A replacement unit gave fewer problems, but still was unacceptable. I ended up cancelling digital cable after the one year introductory price and went back to my trusty TiVos.

TW Gastonia.....the 3250 is being deprogrammed!?
When it was delivered we had an "Output Format" menu option to select 480i/p, 720p & 1080i.
Now that menu item is gone!
Still getting HD but can no longer control the format.
Second time/box this has happened.
Are they flashing the firmware incorrectly or sending the wrong updates?
Anyone else?
TIA

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
CRTs will always be around I think unless LCD/Plasma/DLP can match them in price at the same size. I don't know if that will ever happen.


Depends on what you want. If you want the very best picture with the best contrast ratios and deepest blacks, then CRT is still the champ. If you get one of the newer models with super-fine pitch aperture grills or shadow mask, like the Sony 910 or 960 (I believe Panasonic has an equivalent out now), then you're getting the very best image available at any price (at least until you get into CRT front projection with 9" guns). And the picture will be evenly bright no matter what your viewing angle, and nothing else but plasma can give you that (with the dreaded "screen door" effect, unfortunately). But you're stuck with smaller sizes (34" is about max for a widescreen direct-view set), and big, heavy boxes. Since I'm a picture-quality obsessive, the choice was easy for me.

And my 8300 has been performing flawlessly with noticeably improved PQ over the 8000. I had a little trouble getting the software package download to "take" when I first hooked it up, so had to change it out for another one, but that one has been stellar so far. My only complaint is the 1394 (firewire) ports are not active, so I must keep my 3250 STB for archiving HD material to tape.

Originally posted by archiguy
My only complaint is the 1394 (firewire) ports are not active, so I must keep my 3250 STB for archiving HD material to tape.

Isn't there a FCC mandate that the firewire ports be active on customer demand? If so, has anyone called up TW and "demanded" that they be turned on?

Or is the mandate for another technology that my feeble mind is confusing it with?

Originally posted by ke4pym
Isn't there a FCC mandate that the firewire ports be active on customer demand? If so, has anyone called up TW and "demanded" that they be turned on?

Or is the mandate for another technology that my feeble mind is confusing it with?

I believe they just have to provide one box that provides firewire out, and the 3250 is it (they never said it had to be a DVR box that provides firewire out).

Has anyone with TWC tried plugging their cable line directly into the back of their hdtv that has a built-in QAM tuner (like the Samsung's). I've read you can get the unencrypted HD channels like that without having to get the box. I've got road runner and Directv. It would be a good way for me to get the local HD channels with having to try OTA or subscribe to TW Digital HD service.

Also, I'm in Monroe, NC. Has anyone in this area tried getting the OTA HD channels with an antenna? Can you get FOX (I'm thinking of this for the superbowl)

Thanks.

Originally posted by archiguy
(with the dreaded "screen door" effect, unfortunately).

What exactly is this "screen door" effect? I'm assuming you're not referring to that chick in the Levitra commercials whose constantly bragging about her man's "lasting experience."

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
Has anyone with TWC tried plugging their cable line directly into the back of their hdtv that has a built-in QAM tuner (like the Samsung's). I've read you can get the unencrypted HD channels like that without having to get the box. I've got road runner and Directv. It would be a good way for me to get the local HD channels with having to try OTA or subscribe to TW Digital HD service.

Also, I'm in Monroe, NC. Has anyone in this area tried getting the OTA HD channels with an antenna? Can you get FOX (I'm thinking of this for the superbowl)

Thanks.

You SHOULD be able to get all the HD channels except INHD/2, HDNet/Movies, HBO, and SHO, and ESPNHD...but I've never tried it.

Originally posted by doppler1
You SHOULD be able to get all the HD channels except INHD/2, HDNet/Movies, HBO, and SHO, and ESPNHD...but I've never tried it.

Yes this is true. I have a friend that is doing this now. All the lower (local) HD channels can be received. The question is what level of service do you have to have. I wonder if you would get the local HD channels if you had the basic (~$15/Month) service?

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
Has anyone with TWC tried plugging their cable line directly into the back of their hdtv that has a built-in QAM tuner (like the Samsung's.

Depends on the version of s/w in the Sammy.. I put one of the 32" integrated sets in for my neighbor, and it won't tune the QAM's.
After speaking with Sammy, seems that set needs a software upgrade
to tune the QAM's..

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
Depends on the version of s/w in the Sammy.. I put one of the 32" integrated sets in for my neighbor, and it won't tune the QAM's.
After speaking with Sammy, seems that set needs a software upgrade
to tune the QAM's..

Stupid question I'm sure. What is a QAM?

Originally posted by TeddyTV
What exactly is this "screen door" effect? I'm assuming you're not referring to that chick in the Levitra commercials whose constantly bragging about her man's "lasting experience."

Ha! Don't you just love those "ED" commercials? Glad I don't have a young child to whom I'd have to try to explain that 4-hour erection crap. Talk about something the FCC indecency brigade needs to go after..... but I digress.

The screen door effect on plasma TV's refers to the rather large 'scan' lines that are visible in this type of fixed pixel display (really the dark space between pixels). If you get close enough to the screen to fully appreciate the detail in an HD telecast, they appear especially noticeable and distracting. But I suppose that folks with plasma's eventually learn to 'tune it out', as it were.

So strangely enough, it all comes full circle... the only time I'd ever get that close to a plasma screen is when said Levitra commercial is on and I'd want to be near that chick... oops, let me politically align myself, I mean spokemodel.

Nonetheless, thanks for the knowledge!

By the way, anyone heard any updates on new HD channels from Time Weenie?

Originally posted by archiguy
Ha! Don't you just love those "ED" commercials? Glad I don't have a young child to whom I'd have to try to explain that 4-hour erection crap. Talk about something the FCC indecency brigade needs to go after..... but I digress.

The screen door effect on plasma TV's refers to the rather large 'scan' lines that are visible in this type of fixed pixel display (really the dark space between pixels). If you get close enough to the screen to fully appreciate the detail in an HD telecast, they appear especially noticeable and distracting. But I suppose that folks with plasma's eventually learn to 'tune it out', as it were.

The screen door effect is visible with LCD displays and is due to the space between pixels. I'm not familiar with this effect on plasma displays. When you see it in a store it looks very bad. You can see an example of this at the following location: http://www.jvc.com/Presentations/HDILA/drawbacks.html

Scroll down about half the page and see the picture of the frog. Granted JVC makes it look as bad as possible.

Originally posted by TeddyTV
So strangely enough, it all comes full circle... the only time I'd ever get that close to a plasma screen is when said Levitra commercial is on and I'd want to be near that chick... oops, let me politically align myself, I mean spokemodel.

Nonetheless, thanks for the knowledge!

By the way, anyone heard any updates on new HD channels from Time Weenie?

When they say "call your dr. if it lasts 4 hours" you should actually call your girlfriend and her girlfriend, etc.

I guess everyone knows about channel 279 which is HD OD. Only has four choices at present.

Thanks Hugh! JVC does go a little overboard, huh?

I guess it's a d--- good thing I don't watch frog programs, huh? :rolleyes: That's why it took me two years to buy an HD set - and I'm sure other folks were the same way - you feel like before you even get the thing across the parking lot to your car there's already a latest, greatest can't possibly survive without technology on the loose! Quick hide the women and children!!! :eek:

I noticed towards the end of the AFC Championship game the other night some blurriness and double-imaging kind of effects on channel 225... I call it the Flying Dog Ale effect! :D

Originally posted by HughScot
When they say "call your dr. if it lasts 4 hours" you should actually call your girlfriend and her girlfriend, etc.

They should also remind you that wearing sweat pants in public would be especially bad! :eek:

Originally posted by rcase13
Stupid question I'm sure. What is a QAM?

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation...that help? :p

Basically, it is a method of encoding a digital "message" into an analog signal for transmission over analog lines by representing bits as changes in phase and amplitude in a wave.

In the most relevant terms, QAM is the method that digital cable is transmitted over the cable lines. This is why most televisions are unable to tune digital channels...you must have a 256-QAM tuner to receive the unencrypted digital channels, and a CableCard tuner to receive the encrypted digital channels.

Originally posted by HughScot
When they say "call your dr. if it lasts 4 hours" you should actually call your girlfriend and her girlfriend, etc.

I think the proper term is priapism..and you should do a google search
for how they correct one.. Personally, I'd take Hugh's suggestion..........

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
Personally, I'd take Hugh's suggestion..........

And it would probably be the last time you could take his suggestion and make use of it. Perminant damage can occur. Get ye to the ER.

I keep getting the run-around here in Gastonia from Time Warner. I have been by the office 3 times trying to get an 8300 (I currently have a 8000). All they keep saying is they don't have any. I know ShannonT other member) and he is also in Gastonia and just got his 8300 (although it was a new install).

Anybody know if a box from one of the Charlotte offices would work here? I don;t see why it wouldn't, but the lady at the local office here told me it wouldn't.

I'm about to fire off an email to TWC to ask about availability.

This is great! I saw "Hogan's Heroes" was going to be broadcast on HDNet, so I decided to DVR it. I just watched it, and it was fantastic! Crystal clear ! I hope they decide to show more great shows like this in HD. They don't make them like that anymore. Brought back a bunch of good memories.

I'm sure anyone on here under the age of 35 will wonder what Hogan's HEroes was, but those of us "more experienced" will remember... LOL

Bob Crane... now there's a man who would know what to do with a 4 hour erection! :D

When you get new Digital HD service from TWC, do any componet or HDMI or DVI cables come with that SA8300HD DVR or do I need to supply any cables running to my HDTV?

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
When you get new Digital HD service from TWC, do any componet or HDMI or DVI cables come with that SA8300HD DVR or do I need to supply any cables running to my HDTV?

They give you a pretty cheap set of component cables...you will probably want to replace them with a higher quality cable.

Originally posted by ke4pym
Perminant damage can occur. Get ye to the ER.

Fear of that alone will keep me from usuing that drug, at least for a long time...Gee nurse, that's a BIG needle you have there..

Ok..enuff off topic stuff..CP95 will be on us here!

Originally posted by doppler1
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation...that help? :p

Basically, it is a method of encoding a digital "message" into an analog signal for transmission over analog lines by representing bits as changes in phase and amplitude in a wave.

In the most relevant terms, QAM is the method that digital cable is transmitted over the cable lines. This is why most televisions are unable to tune digital channels...you must have a 256-QAM tuner to receive the unencrypted digital channels, and a CableCard tuner to receive the encrypted digital channels.

My friend that is receiving HD over cable just has a standard ATSC tuner in his new Mitsu DLP. Since he is receiving the lower HD channels is it safe to say he has a 256-QAM tuner in his Mitsu DLP?

If he is receiving HD over cable without a box, he has a QAM tuner. Looking through the Mitsu TV catalog, it appears that a good many of this year's models of Mitsu DLP's have CableCard, which of course means they have a QAM tuner.
Those Mitsubishi DLP's look quite nice...

I have a kd-34xs955 and a 8300hd box. I am going to hook up HDMI. On the outputs of the box, what should I set them to. 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i.
I know just using cables they supply, 480p and 1080i look the best. This is with Time Warner in Charlotte.

Originally posted by Hamster
I keep getting the run-around here in Gastonia from Time Warner. I have been by the office 3 times trying to get an 8300 (I currently have a 8000). All they keep saying is they don't have any. I know ShannonT other member) and he is also in Gastonia and just got his 8300 (although it was a new install).

Anybody know if a box from one of the Charlotte offices would work here? I don;t see why it wouldn't, but the lady at the local office here told me it wouldn't.

I'm about to fire off an email to TWC to ask about availability.

Update. I sent an email to TWC support. Got an email back in about 3 hours that told me they contacted the Gastonia office and they have them in stock. Go figure. Went by this morning and grabbed one. I'm going to hookup teh 8300 and leave the 8000 hooked up also. I want to switch back and forth and see what things are really better on this box.

Please post your comparison of the 8000 and 8300.

Also, I have one of those new Mits DLPs discussed above and love it.

looking for opionions of the differences between and LCD TV and Plasma? Which would you go with? Thanks

Originally posted by sccofer
looking for opionions of the differences between and LCD TV and Plasma? Which would you go with? Thanks

I can't really help you, as I wouldn't go with either, but I point you to the Plasma/LCD Flat Panel section (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=40). You can probably pick up a bunch of good information there.

Ditto on the advice to post to Plasma forum - just be aware, folks love what they have and don't always like what they don't. <g>

Size requirements are probably going to be the decision maker for me for new HDTV's in various rooms in the house, i.e. some locations (office, guest bedroom, etc.) don't have room for 37"+ sets so LCD is the only choice in the 20"-30" flat-panel market. Small, direct view sets are also available but I am trying to stay away from these for size reasons (depth in this case) as well.

One thing to consider - the latest issue of "Sound and Vision" has an article comparing the two technologies in today's sets. I haven't read the article yet - too busy tinkering with my latest time sink, my MCE 2005 box - but you could prob pick up a copy at most B&N or Waldenbooks.

Here's a link to the cover of the latest issue - http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/

Hope this helps, E.

Originally posted by ericwe
[B]One thing to consider - the latest issue of "Sound and Vision" has an article comparing the two technologies in today's sets. I haven't read the article yet - too busy tinkering with my latest time sink, my MCE 2005 box - but you could prob pick up a copy at most B&N or Waldenbooks.

Here's a link to the cover of the latest issue - http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/
{/B]

SPOILER ALERT ---





Plasma won.

How long have we had Showtime HD (358) on TWC? I was looking at Titan TV and noticed it. I went to my TV and sure enough Absolute Power is playing in HD!

Thanks TWC!

Fairly certain we've had it since HD box roll-out (pre-DVR HD boxes) because I added showtime at that time specifically for it...

Ok, got the 8300 hooked up tonight. I just replaced my DVD player with it since it was using the other set of component inputs on my receiver. Some things I've noticed:

- Pictures are better overall. A little "crisper", if that makes sense. Images with fine lines, like actors hair, seem much more detailed.

- Unit is faster overall. Surfing and guide browsing are alot faster. Feels like when you went from a 166mhz Pentium I to a 400mhz Pentium II. Not lightning fast, but faster for sure.

- The unit is WAY quieter than the old 8000. The 8000's hard drive was loud, sounding like ping pong balls bouncing in it. I cannot hear the new unit at all.

- The search functions ROCK! So much better when searching for that show. I hated having to browse up and down to find the program. Now it works like my old DirecTivo and lets you type in the letters of the show. Caution, though, you have to type in the name EXACTLY.

I haven't had any problems wih it, seems like a winner so far.

Note,it didn't come with a remote. Was it supposed to? I'm using the standard old remote from my 8000.

Here's a picture of the unit on top of the 8000 to show the difference in size.

The remotes are the same between these two per TWC...

Originally posted by rcase13
How long have we had Showtime HD (358) on TWC? I was looking at Titan TV and noticed it. I went to my TV and sure enough Absolute Power is playing in HD!

Thanks TWC!

I got Showtime HD in March of 2002. It's one of the orginials. At that time there was ShowHD, HBOHD, WCNC, WBTV and PBSHD.

Heh, back then there was a whole dedicated special group of about 4 people handling HDTV customers. And boy, you got service with a smile. Now, you've got to call into the general help pool and its a crapshoot as to the service quality.

Originally posted by Hamster
- The unit is WAY quieter than the old 8000. The 8000's hard drive was loud, sounding like ping pong balls bouncing in it. I cannot hear the new unit at all.

- The search functions ROCK! So much better when searching for that show. I hated having to browse up and down to find the program. Now it works like my old DirecTivo and lets you type in the letters of the show. Caution, though, you have to type in the name EXACTLY.


Oddly enough, my 8300 is louder than the 8000 I had. Luck of the draw on the hard drive I guess. The 8000 I could not EVER hear. The 8300, you can hear the spindle noise. Not enough to take it back, but it's there.

The search functions does rock, but it seems (as my observation) that the time span it searches isn't very long.

Originally posted by ke4pym
I got Showtime HD in March of 2002. It's one of the orginials. At that time there was ShowHD, HBOHD, WCNC, WBTV and PBSHD.


That's funny... I put all HD channels on the favorite button and pretty much that's all I watch. I must of missed this one. I'll pay more attention next time. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by ke4pym
The search functions does rock, but it seems (as my observation) that the time span it searches isn't very long.
Seems that the guide data goes out 4 days (at the most) automatically. If you browse the guide past four days, it will download new guide data automatically for that day (up to 7 days), and you can then search it. I wish it would automatically store 7 days of guide data...

One thing I have noticed over the last couple of days. The 8300 seems to me to display SD channels MUCH better than the 8000 did. I viewed several shows on both units, flipping back and forth. I first noticed it on channel 24 (TBS). Then I started noticing it on other channels.

While I still think certain seem to be more clear than others, the better ones look so much better on the 8300 than the 8000.

Of course, none of them compare to a good HD broadcast. I only wish the stations that are designated "HD" would display more broadcasts in real 16x9 HD quality. I can't stand the upconverted 4x3 "HD" broadcasts. I especially hate it when I see a ballgame on ESPN and turn to it only to see the "HD" sidebars. ARGH...

Bob, I just watched Arrested Development on my 8300 earlier today and it was in sd with bars... just wondering if there was there an issue with fox18-dt last night or something on my end...

yea..had splicer/feed issue..should be more better now..if not let me know..

Well I'm taking the HD plunge. I ordered the HD service from T/W cable in Monroe today. The only thing that sucks is they can't get out here until Tuesday Feb 8th. So no Superbowl over HD cable for me.

Now all I have to do is get an HDTV this week. I guess I'm going to have to find an HDTV with a built in tuner or buy a tuner box then return it after I get the service up and running. Decisions, decisions.

The install is nothing. You can do it yourself, just go by the TWC office and pick up an HD DVR. Seriously. My wife called me when the install guy showed up at my house. HE couldn't even speak english. He wasn't sure how to hook it up to my plasma, so I told him to leave the unit at the house and I would it.

When I got home I hooked it up and had to call them to have them "register" the unit. After being put on hold for 20 minutes, we had HD.... Called them the next day and made sure I didn't get charged the $35 or whatever the install fee is. They took it off my bill.

That's the beauty of cale I guess, over sat. tv. You can just hook it up (provided you already have cable run to your house).

I have DirecTV right now but I have Road Runner also. My house is pre-wired for cable but my outlets in the living room and master bedroom have D-TV on them while a back bedroom is hooked up to RR so they'll need to come out and switch hookups in the box outside.

Other than that, I would have gone and gotten the box myself.

By the way, is there a place to get an inexpensive HDMI to HDMI cable. Best Buy and others have them for more than $100. Thats a lot of stew for a friggin cable! haha.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
By the way, is there a place to get an inexpensive HDMI to HDMI cable. Best Buy and others have them for more than $100. Thats a lot of stew for a friggin cable! haha.

Try the site sponsors, or alliance members listed at the top of these pages. Found an HDMI cable for $30 that way.

Originally posted by Hamster
The install is nothing. You can do it yourself, just go by the TWC office and pick up an HD DVR. Seriously. My wife called me when the install guy showed up at my house. HE couldn't even speak english. He wasn't sure how to hook it up to my plasma, so I told him to leave the unit at the house and I would it.

When I got home I hooked it up and had to call them to have them "register" the unit. After being put on hold for 20 minutes, we had HD.... Called them the next day and made sure I didn't get charged the $35 or whatever the install fee is. They took it off my bill.

That's the beauty of cale I guess, over sat. tv. You can just hook it up (provided you already have cable run to your house).

Unless the two people (lady on the phone and a dude at the Morehead office) I spoke with getting my 8300 were misinformed (or somethings changed in the past couple of weeks), TW Carolina will not allow you to do a self-install on a new HDTV install. They'll insist on a truck roll.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
By the way, is there a place to get an inexpensive HDMI to HDMI cable.

Buy.com:
6' (http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=90142650&loc=111&sp=1) for $21
10' (http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=90142670&loc=111&sp=1) for $24

I don't know about the quality of the Steren cables yet, but I just ordered a DVI to HDMI cable from them on Sunday, so I'll let you know when I get it (later today or tomorrow I hope).

Spend a few more bucks on something for free shiping.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
By the way, is there a place to get an inexpensive HDMI to HDMI cable. Best Buy and others have them for more than $100. Thats a lot of stew for a friggin cable! haha.

Try www.bluejeanscable.com. Very high quality cables for good prices.

6' HDMI - $36
10' HDMI - $45.

Originally posted by ke4pym
Unless the two people (lady on the phone and a dude at the Morehead office) I spoke with getting my 8300 were misinformed (or somethings changed in the past couple of weeks), TW Carolina will not allow you to do a self-install on a new HDTV install. They'll insist on a truck roll.

I seem to recall them talking about this also, but they are just being hard headed if you ask me. There was absolutely nothing more difficult about installing it than a regular cable box. They don't have to do anything to the box on the outside of the house. I think it's just another quick way for them to add $35 in their pockets.

Whenever I've had trouble with the "people behind the counter", I call or email tech support and complain (nicely). They call the office and talk to the people. Then they email or call me back and tell me my equipment is waiting for me there.

I wonder why they are insisting on doing the install themselves on HD boxes?

Originally posted by Hamster
I wonder why they are insisting on doing the install themselves on HD boxes?

Maybe it's to prevent people from getting HD boxes who don't have HD sets? Since the regular converters always seem to be in short supply.

When I tried to get the 8000 a couple of months ago they wanted to do a $50 truck roll and I told them no, and explained I'd been a long time HDTV customer and understood how it all works (I was about to toss the "I've got a degree in this mess", but I didn't have to go that far) ;) and they relented. Told me to goto the Arrowwood office to get one. Lady at the counter gave me a hard time about it too. I just told her that I'd been asked to speak to "Mr. Kreuger" (sp?). Dunno if that is a person or a code word for "let the guy have it".

Anyway, when I went to go for the 8300, thats when I learned about the first time install thing and a truck roll. They also told me that they didn't charge anything to bring it out. But since I wanted it that day, I just ran home, grabbed the 8000 and stopped by the Morehead office and swapped it out.

Speaking of the 8300, does anyone have it running via the HDMI port? I wondered if that was turned on yet?

Originally posted by ke4pym
Maybe it's to prevent people from getting HD boxes who don't have HD sets? Since the regular converters always seem to be in short supply.

Could be, but the tech that installed mine wouldn't have known the difference.

He didn't understand why I wanted to use the coax digital for audio if I was using the three color cables (component cable). So, I hooked mine up myself while he watched :)

LOL. Sounds like my tech, "Jose". He said he'd never seen a TV like mine (Panasonic TH-50PHD7UY). He said he wasn't sure exactly how to hook it up. I asked him to leave the box and I would do it myself. That's when I told TWC I didn;t think I should pay a dime for any "install".

Originally posted by Hamster
Speaking of the 8300, does anyone have it running via the HDMI port? I wondered if that was turned on yet?

Yes, it is active with some minor problems...read back a couple (maybe few) pages and you'll see some posts about it.

I got the HDMI to DVI cable that I refered to earlier (the Steren cable from Buy.com). It seems to be a pretty good quality cable, and it was definitely a deal at only $26 for a 10' cable (picture below if anyone cares).
http://www.markssite.com/AVS/cable.JPG

As far as picture improvements go, I would say there is a moderate improvement with the HDMI/DVI cable over the cheapie component cables I was using before. Below is a camera shot from my TV (Mitsubishi WS-55413 RPTV) with the PIP showing the HDMI/DVI input on one side and the component video on the other side. I swapped sides to be fair, and noticed the same results, a slightly clearer picture from the DVI/HDMI cable. In the picture, the HDMI/DVI input is shown on the left, component on the right.
http://www.markssite.com/AVS/SideBySide.JPG

I got my hdtv today. A 30" widscreen Phillips 30pw8402 from Costco. And since I can't get t/w cable out to my house before the 8th to setup my HD cable service, does anyone know of a place in Charlotte I can rent or buy (inexpensively) an OTA HD set-top box so I can watch the superbowl in HD on Sunday? I thought walmart carried one but I haven't been able to find one in their stores.

Thanks.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I got my hdtv today. A 30" widscreen Phillips 30pw8402 from Costco. And since I can't get t/w cable out to my house before the 8th to setup my HD cable service, does anyone know of a place in Charlotte I can rent or buy (inexpensively) an OTA HD set-top box so I can watch the superbowl in HD on Sunday? I thought walmart carried one but I haven't been able to find one in their stores.

Thanks.

All of the local Circuit City's (Independence, University City, and Concord Mills) show the Motorola Off-Air HDTV Receiver (HDT101) in stock. You will also need an antenna...
If you wanted to pull the HD off cable, the best I can recommend is to have the Samsung HD Receiver (SIR-T451) (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Samsung-HD-Receiver--SIR-T451-/sem/rpsm/oid/98127/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) overnighted to you for an extra $40.

Good luck.

I think Fox did a very good job this year with the Superbowl in HD. They did atleast as good as ABC did last year, if not a tad better.

Last year ABC had a few issues with replays not being in HD, and some cameras were not HD.

This year, every camera on FOX (with the exception of the up-scaled in-the-grass-cams) was in HD, as were the replays, bugs, and other on screen graphics.

I also like the fact that they minded the overscan area. A lot of programs go way off into the deep blue with their graphics. Fox didn't. Everything lined up just nicely. The DD 5.1 surround was very good. The ambiance channels were just right, not too loud, not too soft. The announcer's stayed in the center channel (ABC had issues with that last year - my biggest complaint of them).

There were a couple of occasions where the audio would blip out. Don't know if a bird landed on the transmitting satellite dish, the dish at WCCB, or TimeWarner was messing with us. But it was annoying the 3 times it happened during the first quarter.

I did notice that a lot more commercials were in HD this year. Last year, the only commercials in HD were those for movie trailers. This year there were a couple of normal spots as well as the movie trailers in HD. Very nice.

My only other complaint had to do with wide shots that included a lot of the field. For example, the overhead cam. If it had a lot of grass in the shot, and the camera would sway a little you'd get this weird dancing grass situation. I don't know if that had more to do with my cable box (SciAtl HDDVR 8300) upscaling 720 to 1080, or just something weird in the signal. Made you dizzy after a while.

Looking forward to some NASCAR events in HD this year.

Originally posted by ke4pym
<snip> ABC did last year <snip>

<snip> Last year ABC had a few issues <snip>

<snipping> (ABC had issues with that last year - my biggest complaint of them). <snipppp>


uh...last year's Super Bowl was on CBS.

t123

(I am located in Charlotte and using TW Cable, of Course, with an 8300 hooked up via DVI to HDMI cable)

Ok, let's see if I can describe this problem accurately. I was watching 24 on Fox (Digital Channel) and also recording it. at about 9:30 the picture froze and the 8300 would not allow me to rewind which will sometimes fix it (buffering problem maybe). So I switched over to the analog channel to finish watching the program. The HD recording of the program is messed up, it stops at the same point it did while watching live. Later, during CSI Miami also on an HD channel it hung up again, this time, I stopped recording and I was able to watch on the HD channel instead of having to go the analog channel. I was not recording two programs at once and the other tuner was on an analog channel. I have had this box for about a month now I believe and it has not given me any problems up until now. Any ideas ? Is this box going to need to be replaced?

Thanks for suggestions.

T/W Monroe came out today and put in my HD-DVR box. I'm so glad I did this. HD is amazing. I have the older HD DVR. I guess its the SA8000 or whatever. I asked them about the new 8300 model and they said they didn't have any at all. He told me they were holding off on them because they had so many problems with this model I have and they didn't want to get stuck with a lot of messed up boxes again. I guess they are waiting for the bugs to be worked out of the 8300 box. So far this box is working well. I guess I'll find out how well when I start recording programs. Tonight I have it set to record NCIS in HD and at the same time Matrix Revolutions on HBO-HD. I guess that will be the litmus test of this box for me.

I know one thing. I miss my Directv-TIVO already after trying to find and set up recordings of my fave shows. I think I'd be willing to pay a few extra bucks a month for a box with TIVO software. To bad T/W didn't make a deal with Tivo the way Directv did.

Originally posted by New2HDTVnc
I know one thing. I miss my Directv-TIVO already after trying to find and set up recordings of my fave shows. I think I'd be willing to pay a few extra bucks a month for a box with TIVO software. To bad T/W didn't make a deal with Tivo the way Directv did.

The 8300 is SO much better at finding shows that you want to schedule recordings of. Instead of going to the "N" section and having to page down through all the "N" shows, you can type in the first few characters of the show name. The 8000 was painful at searching for show times.

I really wish it had folders, though.

I used to have a TiVO and it seems to me that my new 8300 does about as good a job at searching for shows for me as TiVO did (except it doesn't give recommendations).

What it does do though is allow you to set it to record any show it ever finds that contains a particular keyword (such as actor's name, subject, etc.) or pull up a listing of shows in the next few days that contain a keyword or a title that you enter using the on-screen keyboard.

It did take me a while of fiddling with the new feature to realize exactly how powerful it is. I'm guessing some users of the 8300 don't yet realize it has the TiVo style wishlist feature (automatic recording of shows that match a keyword) and are only using the new search feature to list shows currently in the guide data.

Originally posted by gjlp
I'm guessing some users of the 8300 don't yet realize it has the TiVo style wishlist feature (automatic recording of shows that match a keyword) and are only using the new search feature to list shows currently in the guide data.

Count me as one of those that aren't in the know. Cool, another feature I didn't know about. Can't wait to get home and key in "MINI Cooper" :D

We just tried to watch the recording of Law & Order:SVU from last night and there was no dialogue, just the background noises and the theme song like it only recorded one of the surround channels. The commercials were fine so it seems like it was a problem with the digital audio feed from either NBC or WCNC's broadcast.When played back through my receiver it showed only two channel sound instead of the normal 3.2 Dolby surround. NYPD Blue recorded at the same time was fine with 3.2 sound. Did anyone else experience this or was it just a hiccup by my 8300?

This stupid Jefferson Pilot broadcast of the Duke game sucks...

I pay to get ESPN-HD but now I'm forced to watch this upconverted 4x3 junk. ARGH....

Originally posted by Bookworm
We just tried to watch the recording of Law & Order:SVU from last night and there was no dialogue, just the background noises and the theme song like it only recorded one of the surround channels. The commercials were fine so it seems like it was a problem with the digital audio feed from either NBC or WCNC's broadcast.When played back through my receiver it showed only two channel sound instead of the normal 3.2 Dolby surround. NYPD Blue recorded at the same time was fine with 3.2 sound. Did anyone else experience this or was it just a hiccup by my 8300?

I noticed this last night when the show aired on my 8000HD. This seems to happen occasionally on 3:2 Dolby broadcasts. Has nothing to do with the box as it has happened in the past even before I had the DVR. Kind of spooky though when you just hear the background noises.

Originally posted by Hamster
This stupid Jefferson Pilot broadcast of the Duke game sucks...


Is there really a need for such comments here? It shows a real lack of understanding on your part of how HD is done and business works..
The cost and complexity of doing these games for such limited distribution
just can't be justified economically at this point.

And having worked for Jp for 16 years, and quite a few ACC/SEC games,
I'm quite familiar with how they're done..

Have any of the 8300HD users tried the "multi-room" features?

According to the SciAtl docs, this box can act as a server and stream shows to client digital cable boxes. It doesn' work with HD (can't stream HD, and can't stream to an HD box).

Maybe if they can get 8300 --> 8300 working I would try it, but until then I don't see it benefitting me (I already have MRV with my tivos, but if I could share HD...)

Bob,

I certainly respect your opinion, but my perspective is that JP really needs to get working on improving the picture quality of their broadcasts (even as far as SD standards, their broadcasts are pretty weak). I don't think anyone expects them to broadcast all of their games in HD, but how about the Duke-Carolina game or the ACC Basketball Tournament, which are JP's and the ACC's signature events? I understand that they have a limited distribution network and not all (but most) of their affiliates can retransmit an HD broadcast, but they should be able to put together a few HD games a year. There are plenty of examples of regional sports broadcast companies with limited distribution networks who do some HD. I understand that JP has the exclusive contract for our area, but I hate that we will miss seeing the ACC Tournament in HD on ESPNHD. I have previously emailed JP, with a cc: to the ACC offices, about the ACC Tournament in HD. At least the ACC was decent enough to respond that they are working on it with JP (although with no specific information or timeframe).

MOST affilates Cannot retransmit an HD broadcast..believe me I know..
It would require quite a bit of hardware and expense on both ends to receive and re-transmit the feeds.. Just because they can pass the network HD feed doesn't mean they can switch and handle another HD feed. We can here, and have done it with FOX, and it's something only I know how to do here. It just isn't as simple as those here think it is.
Plus, how do you expect to recoup the incremental costs for doing the games in HD? as there is NO additional revenue to be had. ESPN gets
subscription fees, and has made an active decision to produce the games in HD as an integrated production.