8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! [Text View] - Page 16

Scarlett

12-15-06, 05:46 PM

I just ordered a Maxtor hard drive 6L300S0 (designed for DVR applications, 300 Gig) and a new case that inside hooks into a serial drive but outputs to the new style serial input on the 8300HD. The case comes with the needed new style cable. Both came in under $150.00 including shipping. I'll let you know how it works out.

Richard.Did I miss a post where you listed your provider and platform? If you are using SARA firmware, please also post your results here:

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main

Even if you are using Passport, it would be nice if you added that information and the version you have, together with your provider and/or location, when you post in this thread. Since we are "dual-purpose" here, it eliminates confusion. :)

Also, please let us know the brand and model (USB/SATA, SATA only, etc.) of the enclosure you are using.

Thanks!

Scarlett

dildatonr

12-16-06, 12:00 AM

I got this in the mail today.

$143 for a 400gb with enclosure and cable? yes please. plugged it in and it works like a champ!!!

By Premiertek search ebay for Samsung 400GB External Hard Drive USB+SATA II Enclosure

Brand New in Retail Box
XtraStor Mobile Disk
Brushed Aluminum Casing! Better Material
GP-EN35-SU2S2
Aluminum Body W/ Cooling Fan
Slim 3.5" Serial ATA II (SATA I and II) Enclosure
SATA HDD to SATA II+USB Combo Drive
3.5" Portable External HDD Enclosure Case
+
New Samsung 3.5" 400GB SATA II 7200rpm 8MB Buffer Hard Drive (3 Year Warranty)
~Speed up to 3Gb/s~
For PC and Mac
Hot Plug &Play

Features and support:

* Interface: SATA I/II HDD to e SATA and USB 2.0
* Support USB 1.1 on Window 98SE/ME/2000/XP
* Support USB 2.0 on Window 98SE/ME/2000/XP
* Support SATA I II HDD
* USB 2.2/IDE compliant:
o Integrated USB transceiver
o High speed (480mbit) and full speed (12mbit) support
o USB suspend/resume, remote wake up support
* Bootable: The computer can be booted directly from this enclosure, for the purpose of switching OS and system backup. BIOS support bootable function required.
* Up to 1500mbps.
* Plug and Play hot swapping
* Superslim, lightweight and portable
* Compatible with most PC computers
* FC CE Certification
* Weight: 16 oz. (without hard drive installed)
* Dimension: 9.0" x 4.9" x 1.3"

Hard Drive Specifications:

* Samsung
* Model Number: HD400LJ
* Capacity: 400 GB
* Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
* Interface standard: Serial ATA 3.0
* Average seek time: 8.9 ms
* Buffer Size: 8 MB
* SpinPoint T Series
* 3 Year Manufacture Warranty

Package contents

* Samsung HD400LJ 400GB SATAII Hard Drive Disk
* Aluminum SATA to SATA II+USB 2.0 3.5" HDD Enclosure (Silver)
* USB Cable
* e SATA Bracket
* e SATA to e SATA Cable
* Power cords (100~240 V)
* Case Stand
* Screws

Scarlett

12-16-06, 12:21 AM

I got this in the mail today.

$143 for a 400gb with enclosure and cable? yes please. plugged it in and it works like a champ!!!

By Premiertek search ebay for Samsung 400GB External Hard Drive USB+SATA II Enclosure
SARA or Passport? Version? Provider?

Congratulations! Sounds like a great deal. If you have SARA firmware, please post your results here:

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main

I don't recall anyone's using a Samsung hard drive. Mostly Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagates here. Let us know how it stands the "test of time." :)

Scarlett

DoubleDAZ

12-16-06, 08:13 AM

Looks like a very good deal; HDD, enclosure w/fan, and cable for $143.99 plus $19.99 s/h. I added it to the Summary post with the caveat to search ebay.

FWIW, based on other posts, my guess is TWC, Passport, version?, location?. :)

anibis

12-16-06, 03:53 PM

I am having an issue with my 8300HD and my external 120gb SATA drive, it connected properly and asked to format like it should, recordings will record to that hard drive, however my live tv recording is no longer working. The hard drive light is blinking when I am just watching tv with nothing recording, no rewind no stop no nothin, I tried rebooting everything and turning everything off and back on, any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

davehancock

12-16-06, 04:41 PM

anibis,

Passport or SARA? Please put location in profile. It makes a difference. But I'll guess you have Passport - and what you see is normal with current versions of Passport.

skanter1

12-16-06, 05:06 PM

rlanza1054

12-16-06, 08:05 PM

My WD SE16 500GB drive & Apricorn enclosure has been working flawlessly.

Update guys!

I just went to a store on Long Island called MicroCenter and purchased the Western Digital WD5000KSTRL which is a 500GB Serial ATA 3.0b/s with a 16mb buffer size.

I got it with a rebate. It was on sale for $209 with a $80 mail-in rebate.

So for $130 that I believe is a good deal.

While I was in the store, I noticed that they also had on sale the Maxtor but only in the 300GB version and it was selling for $119.

I guess since Arhiguy said he didn't have any trouble, I decided to go with the extra space and take the chance. The sales person said I could return it if I had to.

But alas, the hard drive enclosure is on back order so the only thing I can do is wait to test it out.

Oh but do I have to wait, well maybe not.

I have an USB/Firewire enclosure, I could use the power supply from that. The Western Digital box says it comes with a the SATA cable and hopefully it's the right kind of cable to plug into the back of the 8300HD. So I could just jury rig it up with the power supply and the cable and just give it a whirl. Later when the real enclosure arrive I can tidy everything up.

So here we go, I'll let you know if I make out or now.

Rob

rlanza1054

12-16-06, 08:51 PM

Ok, what am I doing wrong?

It looks like the cable that came in the box with the drive itself is not the right SATA cable.

The cable does not seem to fit into the back of the 8300HD SATA port. It looks like it should but I tired it on two 8300HD boxes.

So what is the proper cable that I should be using.

Pepar said the enclosuer that I purchased and is on back order as I mention does come with the proper cable to hook up to the 8300HD. Hopefully, this is true.

Otherwise, should I run out and get a different SATA cable. The box said this is an Western Digital SATA 'Secure Connect' cable.

Archiguy, did you use the cable that came in the box with the drive or the cable that came with the drive enclosure.

I just want to verify that I really am testing this with the wrong SATA cable.

I could run out and just purchase the correct cable temporarily till the enclosure arrives.

Thanks

Rob

dildatonr

12-16-06, 09:34 PM

I have TWC in red hook ny.

It's passport but I haven't checked which version.

I have occasional glitches/stutters on HD channels - but I don't think it's drive related - I'm assuming it's jus tthe signal.

I lost the ability to rewind live shows. I can hit th ejump back button which will take it a lot further back then it did before - but then won't let me fast forward.

Anything recorded and saved has no issues like this - only live tv. For it's a tradeoff I can live with.

I also can't figure out a way to get my DVR to tell me how much space I have left.

But before I added the drive I had all 6 star wars movies in hd as well as asll season 3 lost episodes in HD. needles to say everyintg that was recorded lasted about a day. But now I have about 20 episodes of various half and full hour shows as well as a few HD movies and there is no tag warning me about deletion (ie "2 days left").

anibis

12-16-06, 09:51 PM

rlanza1054:

I expect the input on the ext. HD has the little notch that goes down and the input on the DVR doesn't have that notch?

If this is the problem you probably need an ESATA1 to ESATA2 cable, lucky you live near a Microcenter because compusa doesn't even carry ESATA drives, yet alone cables.

Go to Microcenter's website and type in this sku: 0233365

Thats what I needed, 3ft for 16.99.

good luck.

For my previous post I have TWC in Columbus, Ohio with Passport software. Is the live buffer going to be fixed with the software update that hopefully hits by the end of the year?

rlanza1054

12-16-06, 10:33 PM

[QUOTE=anibis]rlanza1054:

I expect the input on the ext. HD has the little notch that goes down and the input on the DVR doesn't have that notch?

If this is the problem you probably need an ESATA1 to ESATA2 cable, lucky you live near a Microcenter because compusa doesn't even carry ESATA drives, yet alone cables.

Go to Microcenter's website and type in this sku: 0233365

Thats what I needed, 3ft for 16.99.

good luck.

QUOTE]

Great thanks for the info. Yes, I think that was the problem.

I went back to Pepar's web site and looked at the pictures carefully and realized that the correct cables come with the enclosures and it's not the cable that came in the box. I think that cable is for use inside a PC when it's hooked up internally.

I'm so bummed out over the fact that the enclosure I ordered is on back order.

So after reading this thread again, I saw that 'dildatonr' mention in his list a external enclosure so I took a look at that (which he said worked perfectly) and I decided to order that as well.

So I have one enclosure on back order (which I might cancel, but I really liked and it was the one that Pepar has used) and now this new case that I ordered as well.

And now with your info, I might just run out to MicroCenter and purchase that cable for $17 bucks, just to get going. I hope that I won't have problem with a temporiary hook up using the power supply from a usb enclosure.

I guess I just can't wait a few days.

Rob

anibis

12-17-06, 01:19 AM

microcenter has a powerspec external sata2 encosure for 24.99, wire included. I bought mine at the store and it works perfectly w/my pc, no fan totally silent, looks cool too. I never hooked it up to my dvr because I can't lose the data but I'd assume everything would work just fine.

belgiangenius

12-17-06, 11:29 AM

Riverside_Guy

12-17-06, 12:34 PM

rianza, you ran into the "SATA connector issue!" There are connectors designed to be used internally, i.e. ones designed to be plugging in and left that way. Then there are external ones (designed for multiple insertions). The external variety are usually called eSATA... and it refers to the connector not the cable itself. Before they adopted the eSATA connector, frequently for external drives, a cable only meant for internal use was used. We're in that transition period now where you NEED to be very specific about what connectors are needed. We know the 8300 is eSATA, so all you need to know is which one on the external box, then get thew right cable (yes, they make SATA to eSATA as well as eSATA to eSATA).

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 12:58 PM

If this is the problem you probably need an ESATA1 to ESATA2 cable, lucky you live near a Microcenter because compusa doesn't even carry ESATA drives, yet alone cables.

Go to Microcenter's website and type in this sku: 0233365

Thats what I needed, 3ft for 16.99.

I tired that sku # in MicroCenter's web site and it didn't come up with anything. A link probably would have been better.

But I did search the site and I see that they have SATA to eSATA or SATA to SATAII cables.

I'll make the trip and take a look!

Thanks

Rob

KingMax

12-17-06, 01:06 PM

Hi everyone. Thought I'd chime in with an update with the success of my eSATA HD set up. It's been about 5 weeks and all things considered it's working quite well. I have experienced glitches and blips when the external drive starts to reach capacity, but I believe that's a "documented" problem, right?

For the record, I am using an external Rosewill enclosure (RX353-S) and a Western Digital 250G (WD2500KS) that I bought as a combo deal from Newegg for just over 100 bills.

As for the glitches when the ext drive gets full-- it's really a non issue. Right now I have about 22 movies and a half dozen TV shows recorded and not a single hourglass next to a recording-- nice!

xnappo

12-17-06, 01:57 PM

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 03:07 PM

OK, I made a trip to MicroCenter and here is what I ended up purchasing:

1) eSATA I to II cable, they only had one left on the shelf so I took that. It costs $11.99.
UPC code 37229-11586. (oh yes, I brought the cable that can in the hard drive box with me so I could look at the ends of the cable to see if I was getting the right thing, it looked right)

2) I found that PowerSpec SATA External Driver enclosure that was mentioned and it costs $24.99 (as it was stated).

I have yet to test it all out. I'm going to do that now. So wish me luck!

At the end of this: I will have 3 drive enclosures!

Rob

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 03:53 PM

Ok, had a small problem but solved.

Plugged in got the screen asking to format! Said 'Yes', I don't understand it but the format took all of 10 seconds. I guess it's a quick format.

The wasn't sure if it sees the drive or not.

I scrolled through the diag screens and this is all I found on the 'DVR AVFS' screen:

AV Size 593GB

So it looks like it took, however how much space is used for indexing?

The internal drive is supposed to be 160GB from what I gather. And on that page the Internal drive shows up at 148GB (so that would make 12gb used for the index).

The if the drive I just installed is a 500GB then how could the total drive space available be only 593GB .. the numbers don't seem to add up right.

But I guess I should assume that everything is working correctly and my wallet is now empty.

Ok the external drive case that I got for $24.99 it does not contain a fan of any kind so that scares me a little and I will probably switch to the other drive enclosures that I orderd.

So I am currently running a Western Digital SATA Caviar SE 16 Model #WD5000KSRTL

The external drive enclosure case I got at MicroCenter for $24.99 and it is called a PowerSpec SATA External Drive Enclosure Model #MC409979 UPC coode 18996-15510

The drive I also purchased at MicroCenter and it costs $209, with an $80 rebate (which reminds me to make sure I send it in). So that total should end up being $130.

In the end I will need to return some drive enclosures and the SATA to eSATA cable that I don't need.

This was a fantastic project.

Thanks everyone.

Oh one question about the drive itself, I just plugged it in and did nothing with the jumpers. Do I have to play around with those at all? There was something in the manual about SSC_DIS Mode (Default) - Enable or disable the spread spectrum clocking feature. Default setting is disabled.

That's the only thing that I was wondering about settings.

Thanks again!!!

Ah, yeah there is something else. I'm going to try and search in the thread for it but how does the DVR decide where to place the recordings. And can I just unplug the drive and move it to my other DVR (I have two 8300HD) to watch a show that was recorded to the external drive. Can you tell where the recordings end up, either on the internal or external. Is there some kind of icon or color that represents which drive the TV shows are recorded to?

Rob

Manatus

12-17-06, 04:03 PM

Ah, yeah there is something else. I'm going to try and search in the thread for it but how does the DVR decide where to place the recordings. And can I just unplug the drive and move it to my other DVR (I have two 8300HD) to watch a show that was recorded to the external drive. Can you tell where the recordings end up, either on the internal or external. Is there some kind of icon or color that represents which drive the TV shows are recorded to?

Rob

The common wisdom is that the DVR puts new recordings on whichever drive has the most free space. You cannot unplug the drive and move it to another 8300HD and view its contents there because recordings are encrypted to playable only on the same DVR on which they were recorded. The answer to your last 2 questions is "no."

When you are ready to install your HD in a new enclosure, be sure to read and follow the instructions you'll find here about the correct procedures for disconnecting external drives. (In short, disconnect the DVR from AC and wait a few moments before turning off or disconnecting the external drive.) Congratulations, BTW, on your success with your new toy.

xnappo

12-17-06, 05:47 PM

So I am currently running a Western Digital SATA Caviar SE 16 Model #WD5000KSRTL

The external drive enclosure case I got at MicroCenter for $24.99 and it is called a PowerSpec SATA External Drive Enclosure Model #MC409979 UPC coode 18996-15510

The drive I also purchased at MicroCenter and it costs $209, with an $80 rebate (which reminds me to make sure I send it in). So that total should end up being $130.

In the end I will need to return some drive enclosures and the SATA to eSATA cable that I don't need.

This was a fantastic project.

Rob

Hi Rob,

I notice that you put an entry on the compatibility database. We were trying to keep that Sara only to avoid confusion. It is absolutely trivial to duplicate to make a Passport one as well - if there is such a thing as a non-working Passport setup I am more than happy to do that...

xnappo

pepar

12-17-06, 06:02 PM

Ok, had a small problem but solved.

Plugged in got the screen asking to format! Said 'Yes', I don't understand it but the format took all of 10 seconds. I guess it's a quick format.

I scrolled through the diag screens and this is all I found on the 'DVR AVFS' screen:

AV Size 593GB

So it looks like it took, however how much space is used for indexing?

The internal drive is supposed to be 160GB from what I gather. And on that page the Internal drive shows up at 148GB (so that would make 12gb used for the index).

The if the drive I just installed is a 500GB then how could the total drive space available be only 593GB .. the numbers don't seem to add up right.

But I guess I should assume that everything is working correctly and my wallet is now empty.
All normal, including the empty wallet.

Oh one question about the drive itself, I just plugged it in and did nothing with the jumpers. Do I have to play around with those at all? There was something in the manual about SSC_DIS Mode (Default) - Enable or disable the spread spectrum clocking feature. Default setting is disabled.

That's the only thing that I was wondering about settings.
Default settings have always worked for me. Nor do I remember any other Passport user needing to change the defaults.

Ah, yeah there is something else. I'm going to try and search in the thread for it but how does the DVR decide where to place the recordings. And can I just unplug the drive and move it to my other DVR (I have two 8300HD) to watch a show that was recorded to the external drive. Can you tell where the recordings end up, either on the internal or external. Is there some kind of icon or color thatrepresents which drive the TV shows are recorded to?
The only DVR that is able to recognize, read and play the recorded content is the one that recorded it.

pepar

12-17-06, 06:04 PM

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 07:18 PM

Hi Rob,

I notice that you put an entry on the compatibility database. We were trying to keep that Sara only to avoid confusion. It is absolutely trivial to duplicate to make a Passport one as well - if there is such a thing as a non-working Passport setup I am more than happy to do that...

xnappo

I'm sorry, when I went to the original message where you posted the link, I thought it said that you welcome the info from Passport users as well.

I thought everyone wanted to compile a list of the drivers that we were using.

No matter, do you need for me to delete the entry?

Rob

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 07:22 PM

Pepar,

Thanks for all your help through this. Today, I used your website and took a look at the pictures to make sure I was doing everything correctly.

When the drive case comes, I will make the switch, this one works but as I said no fan. It probably is the most quiet here, but I think I want the fan.

Oh yes, this case is black! For those color sensitive!

Rob

lexar

12-17-06, 07:58 PM

DoubleDAZ

12-17-06, 08:16 PM

AV Size 593GB

So it looks like it took, however how much space is used for indexing?

The internal drive is supposed to be 160GB from what I gather. And on that page the Internal drive shows up at 148GB (so that would make 12gb used for the index).

The if the drive I just installed is a 500GB then how could the total drive space available be only 593GB .. the numbers don't seem to add up right.
Please refer to vegggas' post # 3657 for some SARA numbers.

The internal 160G drive breaks down to something like 152G formatted, 150G AVFS Partition, and ~150G useable.

An external 300G drive breaks down to 279G formatted, 259G AVFS Partition, and
~259G Free.

So, an external drive probably breaks down to something like 500G available, 460G formatted, and ~460G useable.

Passport numbers could vary a little, but the bottomline is that the 593G seems accurate.

rlanza1054

12-17-06, 08:33 PM

I just bought a Vantec NexStar 3 SATA and a Maxtor 320 Gig SATA II drive.
I plugged everything in and rebooted the 8300hd. It tells me I have a drive and hit A to format. I click and nothing happens?!?!
The screen seems to freeze for a couple of seconds but when I check my availabe space it is still the same. I tried power reseting the 8300 and it tells me again to try and format and same problem..

Any suggestions?!?

Thanks

I probably shouldn't be the one to comment on this since I just installed my drive today. But I should tell you that the same thing happened to me with the formattig. It took seconds not minutes as one would expect.

And the only place that I noticed the increase in drive space or that the drive was even hooked up correctly was in the diag screen called DVR AVFS and look for AVS SIZE that should show only the total space now available. And for me is was definately larger than 160GB which was the original nternal drive. The external was a 500GB. As I mentioned in total I only saw 593GB but it's definately larger than 160GB, so I relaxed about it.

So all just might be good!

If not, then I guess someone else should help out.

Rob

DoubleDAZ

12-17-06, 08:49 PM

It took seconds not minutes as one would expect.It almost seems like it was already formatted and just did a Quick Format, like floppy disks of old. :)

lexar

12-17-06, 10:15 PM

I just bought a Vantec NexStar 3 SATA and a Maxtor 320 Gig SATA II drive.
I plugged everything in and rebooted the 8300hd. It tells me I have a drive and hit A to format. I click and nothing happens?!?!
The screen seems to freeze for a couple of seconds but when I check my availabe space it is still the same. I tried power reseting the 8300 and it tells me again to try and format and same problem..

Any suggestions?!?

Thanks

I went into the Sara screens and saw that both the drives are recognized but my internal has a total size and a free size but the new one has 0 for both.

I plugged it into my PC using USB (don't have a SATA port) and formatted it for NTFS and it works fine. Therefore it seems to be something either in the 8300 or the sata interface.

I read that there were problems before if the esata cable was incorrect?! If the 8300 recognizes the harddisk I assume that the cable is correct...

Anyone had this problem?

xnappo

12-18-06, 09:22 AM

I'm sorry, when I went to the original message where you posted the link, I thought it said that you welcome the info from Passport users as well.

I thought everyone wanted to compile a list of the drivers that we were using.

No matter, do you need for me to delete the entry?

Rob

Hi Rob,

My bad - after the discussion regarding not including Passport information I should have gone back and made a note in my initial post. I will go ahead and delete the entry.

If there start to be a rash of people with Passport problems, I will make a Passport DB...

Thanks,
xnappo

Riverside_Guy

12-18-06, 11:57 AM

When the drive case comes, I will make the switch, this one works but as I said no fan. It probably is the most quiet here, but I think I want the fan.

Rob

I'd suggest you locate your fanless drive where it has a lot of air/space around it, along with not putting it on top of items that generate heat.

Scarlett

12-18-06, 02:32 PM

A bunch of us over at digitalhome.ca replaced our Seagate 7200.10 drives with WDC Caviar SE16 drives and have solved the infamous blip problem.

Caviar drives of all sizes are working flawlessly.

Avoid Seagate drives and you're much less likely to experience the dreaded blipfest.This is not entirely accurate! Some of us are using Seagate drives with excellent results. Now, if you had said, "Avoid Seagate 7200.10 drives...," I would wholeheartedly agree with you! :)

Have you added your enclosures and hard drives to the SARA database? If not, please do so--SARA users need all the information we can get.

Scarlett

Scarlett

12-18-06, 02:42 PM

I went into the Sara screens and saw that both the drives are recognized but my internal has a total size and a free size but the new one has 0 for both.

I plugged it into my PC using USB (don't have a SATA port) and formatted it for NTFS and it works fine. Therefore it seems to be something either in the 8300 or the sata interface.

I read that there were problems before if the esata cable was incorrect?! If the 8300 recognizes the harddisk I assume that the cable is correct...

Anyone had this problem?I did, indeed, have this same problem when trying to use a Maxtor SATA drive in my external enclosure. There is a known issue with these drives. I can't remember what it is, and right now don't have the time to search for it, but the solution is to make sure that the SATA cable is securely seated in each port, and to reboot the 8300HD about 15 times! There is something in the drive that is enabled by default, and I believe it can be disabled manually--which cuts down on the number of reboots--but again, I can't remember how to disable it. The solution is in this thread and was posted over a year ago and subsequently.

Good luck!

Scarlett

Feirstein

12-18-06, 03:08 PM

Scarlett

12-18-06, 03:39 PM

Just installed the following"

Maxtor 6L300S0. A 300 gig HD designed by Maxtor for DVR use.

NexStar 3 Case by Vantec: Designed to take an SATA drive and convert it to an eSATA output. Nothing else to purchase.

This combination cost less than $150.00 and it worked the first time I hooked it up. Turned on the DVR and it asked to format the drive. After the first reboot of the DVR it was recognized. No issues at all. I went from 28% left to over 80% left for recording space. Thanks for all the tips posted here.:D

Richard.You never told us whether you are a Passport or SARA user! If you are using SARA, please post your results in the SARA database:

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main

Congratulations on your success, and thanks for letting us know!

Scarlett

xnappo

12-18-06, 07:38 PM

I did, indeed, have this same problem when trying to use a Maxtor SATA drive in my external enclosure. There is a known issue with these drives. I can't remember what it is, and right now don't have the time to search for it, but the solution is to make sure that the SATA cable is securely seated in each port, and to reboot the 8300HD about 15 times! There is something in the drive that is enabled by default, and I believe it can be disabled manually--which cuts down on the number of reboots--but again, I can't remember how to disable it. The solution is in this thread and was posted over a year ago and subsequently.

Good luck!

Scarlett
I think Scarlett is referring to the issue discussed here:
http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/topic/31346-1.html

xnappo

p.s. Scarlett - thanks for the database plugs!

rlanza1054

12-18-06, 09:30 PM

I'd suggest you locate your fanless drive where it has a lot of air/space around it, along with not putting it on top of items that generate heat.

Thanks, yes I have the drive enclosure next to the 8300HD and it's inside a TV cabinet that I have 3 fans inside moving the air around. I had the fans going before this project.

Thanks.

Rob

rlanza1054

12-18-06, 09:43 PM

pepar

12-18-06, 11:21 PM

Thanks, yes I have the drive enclosure next to the 8300HD and it's inside a TV cabinet that I have 3 fans inside moving the air around. I had the fans going before this project.
"Moving the air around" inside of a cabinet may not be cutting the mustard as heat can build up if room air is not being drawn in and hot air exhausted.

Scarlett

12-18-06, 11:49 PM

I think Scarlett is referring to the issue discussed here:
http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/topic/31346-1.html

xnappo

p.s. Scarlett - thanks for the database plugs!That is, indeed, the issue I meant! Just couldn't remember what it was called. There also has been discussion of this issue in this thread--Posts #1738, #1739, #1747, #1795 are a good start, but there may be others. I think the link you provided explains it best, though, so thanks for that!

I think your database rocks! It is a great resource for any SARA user who comes late to this project, as well as for those of us who have already "been there, done that." I'm just wondering how Navigator is going to affect us. Still no word from Peter or his boss! I think TW just doesn't want to address this issue with us at this time. :)

Thanks again!

Scarlett

rlanza1054

12-19-06, 12:04 AM

"Moving the air around" inside of a cabinet may not be cutting the mustard as heat can build up if room air is not being drawn in and hot air exhausted.

The cabinet is not completely sealed air tight. There are glasss doors on the front and the back has a 2 inch wide opening at the bottom the whole length of the unit, that's where the wires come out.

I have one fan that the intake is pulling from the outside air, and blowing the air up with a tub that I have going up to a second shelf.

It's really good, but as I said the new enclosure is on back order, and that has a built in fan. So it's only a matter of a week before the present enclosure gets switched out.

Rob

Feirstein

12-19-06, 08:16 AM

The Maxtor drive I selected is designed for DVR use and avoids the issue descussed in the link, at least according to the rep I spoke to over the phone at Seagate/Maxtor. As they become available, perhaps sticking with esata drives designed for DVR use is a good idea, but clearly not essential.

Now if only TW would only fix their software so that I could record a live program. I had to pull the external drive and reboot so that I could record the football game in progress so that my kid would go to sleep.

Richard.

pepar

12-19-06, 08:57 AM

The cabinet is not completely sealed air tight. There are glasss doors on the front and the back has a 2 inch wide opening at the bottom the whole length of the unit, that's where the wires come out.

I have one fan that the intake is pulling from the outside air, and blowing the air up with a tub that I have going up to a second shelf.

It's really good, but as I said the new enclosure is on back order, and that has a built in fan. So it's only a matter of a week before the present enclosure gets switched out.

Rob
You sound like you're aware of and are effectively dealing with the heat issue.

Riverside_Guy

12-19-06, 10:39 AM

Thanks, yes I have the drive enclosure next to the 8300HD and it's inside a TV cabinet that I have 3 fans inside moving the air around. I had the fans going before this project.

Thanks.

Rob

As long as the exhaust air leaves the cabinet (I've seen folks put a fan in, then close the cabinet doors!) you should be totally good to go.

Ah, just read your second post. Maybe you do have an issue because I think it better to get hot air exhaused as opposed to blowing fresh air in. Keep in mind that the 8300 is constantly spinning it's drive so it is a heat source as well.

Riverside_Guy

12-19-06, 10:48 AM

Hi guys!

I noticed an issue last night and I'm really not sure if it even has anything to do with the fact that I added the external drive.

When I watch channel 706 which is Discovery's High Definition here in NYC's TWC running the Passport software, I'm getting a 1 to 2 sec drop out of the audio only every minute or two.

It doesn't matter whether I'm recording anything or not.

I'm not sure if I remember it doing that before I installed the drive.

I'm going to test that out on the other 8300HD that I have in the other room that has no modifications done to it. If it shows the same probelm does anyone know why that might be happening.

Usually, you'll get some pixilation when the sign is not great, but a 1 second audio drop out.

Doesn't make sense. And it's just on 706 Discovery!

Ok, I'll do the testing on the other box and get back here in a few minutes.

Thanks

Rob

Interesting, there are a lot of people claiming this is all about using certain external drives. I do NOT have any external drive, AND I sure as hell DO get occasional glitches like you experienced. Most times I get maybe 2 or 3 over 5-10 minutes then it settles down. Very rarely, I will see it happening every 2-3 minutes... with such frequency, whatever I'm trying to watch is unwatchable. Naturally, I did some experimenting, switching to another channel for 5 minutes then back, 5 minutes then another channel. What I saw was the glitch filled show was the ONLY show doing it that way. Indicating to me that the issue was most likely coming from the signal TWC was getting. I suppose it COULD be TWC's issue, but most likely not as it was limited to a specific channel. And clearly not because I had an external drive functioning!

xnappo

12-19-06, 04:39 PM

Interesting, there are a lot of people claiming this is all about using certain external drives. I do NOT have any external drive, AND I sure as hell DO get occasional glitches like you experienced. Most times I get maybe 2 or 3 over 5-10 minutes then it settles down. Very rarely, I will see it happening every 2-3 minutes... with such frequency, whatever I'm trying to watch is unwatchable. Naturally, I did some experimenting, switching to another channel for 5 minutes then back, 5 minutes then another channel. What I saw was the glitch filled show was the ONLY show doing it that way. Indicating to me that the issue was most likely coming from the signal TWC was getting. I suppose it COULD be TWC's issue, but most likely not as it was limited to a specific channel. And clearly not because I had an external drive functioning!

Sounds to me like you may have a signal problem causing ingress on some channels. Have you checked the S/N ratio on the offending channels? Usually if you have a S/N above 32 you are okay. I had a nick in my cable running to the street that caused the S/N to fluctuate between 31-33 on some channels. It is fixed now and I am at a steady 35-36db.

xnappo

dildatonr

12-19-06, 08:25 PM

how do you check s/n ratio?

davehancock

12-19-06, 08:34 PM

how do you check s/n ratio?
First tell us where you are located (add to profile) and whether you have Passport or SARA (it makes a difference).

rlanza1054

12-19-06, 11:42 PM

Sounds to me like you may have a signal problem causing ingress on some channels. Have you checked the S/N ratio on the offending channels? Usually if you have a S/N above 32 you are okay. I had a nick in my cable running to the street that caused the S/N to fluctuate between 31-33 on some channels. It is fixed now and I am at a steady 35-36db.

xnappo

I did watch Discovery again last night and the problem seems to have disappeared.

So it just might have been some temporary delay in the transmission or something.

I'm not getting it today, all is fine.

So when you say to check the S/N (Signal to Noise) ratio, how do you check that. Is that something that can be done from within the diags on the 8300HD box.

Or is it done with some piece of external testing equipment, something like what the cable tech carries as a side arm.

Thanks.

Rob

rlanza1054

12-20-06, 12:04 AM

As long as the exhaust air leaves the cabinet (I've seen folks put a fan in, then close the cabinet doors!) you should be totally good to go.

Ah, just read your second post. Maybe you do have an issue because I think it better to get hot air exhaused as opposed to blowing fresh air in. Keep in mind that the 8300 is constantly spinning it's drive so it is a heat source as well.

Riverside_guy / Pepar,

I'm so glad you brought the issue up regarding the possible heat problems that would arise having my equipment in a fairly closed entertainment cabinet.

I got more curious and stuck an external digital outdoor thermometer inside the cabinet so I could monitor what was happening heat wise from my base unit.

To my surprise, I was pretty shocked or made painfully aware of how much heat is generated in the closed unit.

So because of all this great concern (which is welcomed), and is not going unnoticed, I'm trying to devise a way to remove the excess heat and pump in the cooler area. to maintain an even temperature flow.

I purchased some according tubing that is normally used to hide wires in. I think instead I will use this tubbing to either bring cool air or remove hot air from inside the cabinet unit which houses all the entertainment equipment.

I just need to find some kind of fan that can fit nicely around this tubbing for either to push the air or to pull it away.

Do they even make a miniature frig type system? Sort of like those units that you place in your car and it's suppose to keep bear and wine at about 40degrees and looks like a small box. I don't think it really runs like a real refrig. Do you know how that works.

Do they make something like a cold plate that I could place down in my cabinet and be fine with that.

What is available, without having to go nuts with an overkill of fans.

Thanks.

Maybe, I'm just started another weekend project.

Thanks

Rob

KingMax

12-20-06, 12:15 AM

xnappo

12-20-06, 09:51 AM

I'd be curious to find out about how to check the signal/noise ratio, too. Last night (monday) FOX was breaking up pretty badly during "House"-- but it was recorded and i was watching it later so there was no way to check the reception (of other channels at the time of the recording). FOX has done this before and it's really the only channel that has given me trouble. Tonight it was fine but if there's an issue I want to be sure it's fixed in time for 24!

Thanks.

edit: rlanza1054-- not sure if this matters, but i do seem to recall trying to tune into Discovery last night or the night before and it wouldn't even tune in for a little while-- just a grey screen. Perhaps there were general signal problems (or perhaps we have different, unrelated problems-- who knows?)

I probably shouldn't do this since I don't have Passport and haven't tried myself, but from the Passport Tips and Tricks (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4547722&highlight=guide+tips#post4547722) post it sounds like you do this:

To get to the multi-page Diagnostics screen, simultaneously press and hold the front panel's
SELECT and EXIT buttons till DIAGNO appears then release the buttons, then press EXIT and
the the box tunes itself to the multi-page Diagnostics channel. To exit press Ch + or Ch -

On Sara, the S/N is of page 5 of the diags. On Sara, while in diags you can change to other channels as well.

xnappo

pepar

12-20-06, 09:52 AM

Riverside_guy / Pepar,

I'm so glad you brought the issue up regarding the possible heat problems that would arise having my equipment in a fairly closed entertainment cabinet.
Heat does "arise" :D so putting an exhaust fan at the TOP is probably the best strategy. If you exhaust the hot air, cooler - hopefully - room air *will* find it's way in unless your cabinet is airtight. Any number or places sell fans - you'll probably want to look at 120VAC models for simplicity's sake. Look at noise levels.

Here is a place (http://www.activethermal.com/) that sells gear for cooling A/V cabinets and enclosures. You can either buy there or see what's possible and find the parts elsewhere.

What was the temperature inside your cabinet?

pepar

12-20-06, 09:54 AM

I probably shouldn't do this since I don't have Passport and haven't tried myself, but . . .
We're all becoming cross-trained. If you feel that you can help a member, step in and do so. :)

rpgIVguru

12-20-06, 10:34 AM

Hi guys!

I noticed an issue last night and I'm really not sure if it even has anything to do with the fact that I added the external drive.

When I watch channel 706 which is Discovery's High Definition here in NYC's TWC running the Passport software, I'm getting a 1 to 2 sec drop out of the audio only every minute or two.

It doesn't matter whether I'm recording anything or not.

I'm not sure if I remember it doing that before I installed the drive.

I'm going to test that out on the other 8300HD that I have in the other room that has no modifications done to it. If it shows the same probelm does anyone know why that might be happening.

Usually, you'll get some pixilation when the sign is not great, but a 1 second audio drop out.

Doesn't make sense. And it's just on 706 Discovery!

Ok, I'll do the testing on the other box and get back here in a few minutes.

Thanks

Rob

I'm also having problems, both audio and video, with a couple of channels, interesting enough the problem channels are SD and not HD. In particular, ABC Family has been mostly unwatchable through my 8300HD (which ticks off the wife :confused: ). Though it is fine through the 8000 that I still have hooked up.

I do have a splitter connected to split the line between the 8000 and 8300HD.

I've seen the messages to the signal-to-noise ratio, I looked at it before but wasn't sure what was good or bad. I'll look at it again, tonight. But I'd appreciate it it if somebody could confirm what values I should be looking at on the passport diag screens.

Thanks

rlanza1054

12-20-06, 10:50 AM

Heat does "arise" :D so putting an exhaust fan at the TOP is probably the best strategy. If you exhaust the hot air, cooler - hopefully - room air *will* find it's way in unless your cabinet is airtight. Any number or places sell fans - you'll probably want to look at 120VAC models for simplicity's sake. Look at noise levels.

Here is a place (http://www.activethermal.com/) that sells gear for cooling A/V cabinets and enclosures. You can either buy there or see what's possible and find the parts elsewhere.

What was the temperature inside your cabinet?

I had it as high as 90 degrees. Not too extreme, but that was with the fans on. So I do need to engineer something different. I have some tubbing that I will play with.

I'm going to look at the link you posted!

Thanks!
Rob

rpgIVguru

12-20-06, 10:51 AM

Thanks for the reply.

I have TWC in Cincinnati, and it uses Passport. I'm getting conflicting stories on whether an external HD will work for me here. It seems that some have had luck with an external HD in Cincinnati on the 8300HD, but some others say that an external HD simply won't work with the Passport software. Who's right?

Badger, as you'll note from my sig, I'm on TWC Cincinnati.

So far the Seagate 500gb eSATA kit I picked up at CompUSA is working fine.

Check out my messages on page 119:

HTH,

Riverside_Guy

12-20-06, 01:54 PM

Riverside_guy / Pepar,

I'm so glad you brought the issue up regarding the possible heat problems that would arise having my equipment in a fairly closed entertainment cabinet.

I got more curious and stuck an external digital outdoor thermometer inside the cabinet so I could monitor what was happening heat wise from my base unit.

To my surprise, I was pretty shocked or made painfully aware of how much heat is generated in the closed unit.

So because of all this great concern (which is welcomed), and is not going unnoticed, I'm trying to devise a way to remove the excess heat and pump in the cooler area. to maintain an even temperature flow.
Thanks

Rob

I would suggest that 100% of your efforts should be on exhausting the hot air, not "bringing in cool air." AND to think of a total system... as in exhaust hot air from all shelves simultaneously. AND for equipment that may be stacked, make sure the one that produces less heat is on the bottom (I understand the need to stack, I have my DVD player below my 8300; it doesn't put out much heat at all AND is only occasionally used). This is an area that I think very, very few ever pay attention to!

Pepar and I have kinda disagreed about the need for a fan on an external drive; while I may be technically correct, when you factor in closed equipment cabinets, which I surmise most have, it might very well be a good idea to have a fan in that external drive. Long ago I got a very nice looking 3 shelf stand with everything wide open, so I already get better flow than most.

Riverside_Guy

12-20-06, 02:09 PM

Sounds to me like you may have a signal problem causing ingress on some channels. Have you checked the S/N ratio on the offending channels? Usually if you have a S/N above 32 you are okay. I had a nick in my cable running to the street that caused the S/N to fluctuate between 31-33 on some channels. It is fixed now and I am at a steady 35-36db.

xnappo

Well, I DO see my s/ns (34 and 35) but they are listed for each QAM tuner. Not sure one can check a s/n for an individual channel, or if that has any relevance (how can the tuner get a good s/n but not an individual channel?). Mostly I am trying to say that using external drives is NOT the root cause for "glitches." What I do know is that it was only twice in the past 8 months that I found them in sufficient quality that I couldn't watch something.

BTW, for passport, go into the 8300's service menu (everything on, hold Select and Exit in on the 8300 itself for several seconds, when you see "diag" on the display, press Exit again, it should "tune" to channel 1999) and on the top page (Summary) you'll see it listed (I think it was "QAMSN:"). You'll have one listed for each of the two tuners.

xnappo

12-20-06, 02:45 PM

Well, I DO see my s/ns (34 and 35) but they are listed for each QAM tuner. Not sure one can check a s/n for an individual channel, or if that has any relevance (how can the tuner get a good s/n but not an individual channel?).

Ingress can effect some QAM carrier frequencies more than others.

My understanding may be lacking, but I believe that digital and HD channels are assigned to various QAM frequencies.

Multiple channels are assigned to one QAM frequency. The number of channels per QAM frequency is determined by the size of the data streams.

Some QAM frequencies are more prone to ingress due to interference from broadcast TV or other sources.

For instance in Austin our NBC affiliate is broadcast on UHF channel 36 which is 603MHz. HBOHD on TWC happens to be assigned to QAM frequency 603MHz - so it is common to have S/N ratio issues from bad connections cause HBOHD breakup here.

Regards,
xnappo

davehancock

12-20-06, 07:32 PM

Bingo xnappo, You've described it exactly. Typically 2 HD or a dozen or so SD channels are assigned to a QAM.

This typically shows up on the diagnostics as good signal levels and lousy SN (poorer than 32 db). So that does indicate that is not likely Riverside_Guy's problem (I'm assuming that he tuned to the "problem" channel before going to the diagnostics).

kantonburg

12-20-06, 09:34 PM

edit: I found the answer I was looking for. This wasn't the right thread. Sorry about that!

Magnum99

12-20-06, 10:12 PM

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but I cannot figure out what the resolution is.

I have an 8300HD with an external drive which was close to 95% full. When trying to playback shows, many would not play. After deleting many of the the non-playing shows, I realized that my external drive had lost power, which was why some shows were not playing.

I restarted both the cable box and the external drive. However, I did not recover the space from the deleted shows on the external drive. My system, which used to be able to save about 100 shows, can only handle about 50 now. I seem to be in a catch-22 situation, as the missing shows are not in the recorded list so I cannot delete them, but the space is still used on the drive. There are shows on both the cable box's drive and the external drive that I would like to keep, if possible.

Is there a way to make the cable box recover the space from the missing shows on the external drive without having to reformat one or both drives?

Thanks

davehancock

12-20-06, 10:22 PM

Magnum99

12-21-06, 06:01 AM

Have you tried the good old standby trick: the hard reboot (unplug 8300 for 30 sec., plug power back in WHILE HOLDING FRONT PANEL POWER BUTTON IN. Release POWER once "boot" appears)? This rebuilds directory based on the actual drive contents.

I hadn't tried it before you made the suggestion. I did try it twice last night but it did not add the missing shows on the external drive. The recorded list was the same as before.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Riverside_Guy

12-21-06, 10:57 AM

Have you tried the good old standby trick: the hard reboot (unplug 8300 for 30 sec., plug power back in WHILE HOLDING FRONT PANEL POWER BUTTON IN. Release POWER once "boot" appears)? This rebuilds directory based on the actual drive contents.

Maybe you detailed this before, but it seems like something new to me. Do you know if this procedure is limited to SARA? I had thought that the "press & hold" of the power button was used for a warm boot, something which has never seen to fix anything (while pulling the power has helped a number of times)?

The only way I can think of to demonstrate this is if one has an external drive with content. Turn it off and do this procedure so ONLY the contents of the internal drive are listed. Plug the external in and repeat the process to the point of seeing the external drive's contents added. Or is there another way?

davehancock

12-21-06, 11:10 AM

Maybe you detailed this before, but it seems like something new to me. Do you know if this procedure is limited to SARA? I had thought that the "press & hold" of the power button was used for a warm boot, something which has never seen to fix anything (while pulling the power has helped a number of times)?This has been pretty much a SARA trick - don't know if it applies to Passport

davehancock

12-21-06, 01:34 PM

UPDATE:Maybe you detailed this before, but it seems like something new to me. Do you know if this procedure is limited to SARA? I had thought that the "press & hold" of the power button was used for a warm boot, something which has never seen to fix anything (while pulling the power has helped a number of times)? The HARD Reboot procedure has you unplugging power too - just hold POWER while plugging back in. So you would get the benefits of that too.

The only way I can think of to demonstrate this is if one has an external drive with content. Turn it off and do this procedure so ONLY the contents of the internal drive are listed. Plug the external in and repeat the process to the point of seeing the external drive's contents added. Or is there another way?I went and tried this (I was pretty sure that I (and others) had tried this better than a year ago - and it worked. But to be sure: I tried it again. IT DID NOT WORK :eek: as I thought (and as you suggested). We've been through a couple of major SARA changes, and I wonder it it went away with one of those.

I did try a couple of things. First, after unplugging the external drive, I went through all of the recorded programs on the list. Only roughly a third of them were there (I have a 250GB drive). For the ones that weren't there I got a menu when I selected them for play. I did erase one show that was there to see what would happen. After I connected the external drive and did the Hard Boot again it was gone. I checked many of the shows listed - everything was fine.

Scarlett

12-21-06, 06:51 PM

The only way I can think of to demonstrate this is if one has an external drive with content. Turn it off and do this procedure so ONLY the contents of the internal drive are listed. Plug the external in and repeat the process to the point of seeing the external drive's contents added. Or is there another way?I don't know whether Passport behaves differently, but with SARA, even if you turn off and/or disconnect the external hard drive, all of the programs that are recorded on the external will still be listed on the internal drive. You won't be able to play them, of course, but the only way you can tell whether the program is on the internal or the external is by trying to play them. If they play, they are on the internal drive; if they don't play, they are on the external drive.

Scarlett

ElwayLite

12-21-06, 07:13 PM

I'm in Charleston, Sc and have the 8300hd thru Comcast. Just had my 250gb WD Caviar SE16 delivered today along with the Apricorn encosure. Took me longer to put the drive in the enclosure than it did to get it recording.

I recorder 1 hour of MTV HD and replayed it in bits and pieces and everything seemed fine. It's nice to have 4 1 hour HD shows recorded and the box only showing 6% full.

redjr

12-21-06, 07:20 PM

I don't know whether Passport behaves differently, but with SARA, even if you turn off and/or disconnect the external hard drive, all of the programs that are recorded on the external will still be listed on the internal drive. You won't be able to play them, of course, but the only way you can tell whether the program is on the internal or the external is by trying to play them. If they play, they are on the internal drive; if they don't play, they are on the external drive.

Scarlett
It seems to me, the designers of SARA as a CE device, in their infinite wisdom sought to integrate the external drive as a seamless extension of the internal drive. Most of 'us' here would have preferred some method of managing the drive and its contents much like we do with our beloved external computer drives. But that was not to be, and probably never will be! :eek: And so we live with a 'blind' interface to a drive that we will hopelessly never be able to know what is stored on it - and even if we could, do nothing but remove them.

DoubleDAZ

12-21-06, 07:51 PM

Well, to be fair to the "designers", they are hampered by the inane copy-protection demands of the industry.

davehancock

12-21-06, 07:57 PM

I also think that they were exercising the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principal.

redjr

12-21-06, 08:23 PM

I also think that they were exercising the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principal.
I realize the need for approaching the STB/DVR as an 'appliance' device, but still there are numerous 'simple' little file handling(catalogue, list, move, multiple-select, etc.) features they could have included with little, or no additional software overhead that would have added to the overall 'utility' of a recording device - copy-protection restrictions notwithstanding.

jmknapp

12-22-06, 10:42 AM

I was successful attaching an external drive (WD 250GB) to my Passport SA8300HD, but then came across the bug where the live TV buffer function no longer works. Did some googling and found this forum and thread. I understand by reading some of the posts here that this feature is called "trick play" and the bug only applies to Passport.

For my purposes, this bug pretty much negates the usefulness of having more disk space (I really like the ability to rewind live TV). Is there any chance that future Passport software will fix the trick-play bug? Estimated time frame for a fix?

Riverside_Guy

12-22-06, 10:59 AM

First, I have zero hope that they will fix this in Passport. Mostly because I know they WANT to deploy the "new" IPG, code name Mystro. Supposedly, Passport users will get it before SARA users. How much care and attention to supporting external drives in Mystro remains to be seen. "Pausing live TV" is a function I use very frequently.

Never liked the "trick play" designation as this kind of function sure seems the most basic of reasons for using a DVR system! There are also many posts indicating a work-around, which involves hitting the actual record button. But that also means a lot more work, you have several button clicks to get to the list of recorded programs, then you'll have to make sure and delete the recording. Totally destroys the whole spontaneous nature of it. I decided to first see if I could change my habits a bit; so far it seems to be working fine (my "new" habit is to be very aggressive about watching what I've recorded quickly without letting them pile up... like I said, it's working fine so far).

BTW, it would be a good idea for you to list area/market, what DVR and what software is running on it in you sig.

Riverside_Guy

12-22-06, 11:04 AM

I realize the need for approaching the STB/DVR as an 'appliance' device, but still there are numerous 'simple' little file handling(catalogue, list, move, multiple-select, etc.) features they could have included with little, or no additional software overhead that would have added to the overall 'utility' of a recording device - copy-protection restrictions notwithstanding.

Boy, ain't that the truth! Then again, I've been using computers since the early DOS command line days, so I have actual standards for software utility and UI design that makes me totally cringe with what they've NOT done. Hell, I have no clue about my disk space because Passport ignores such information (except in the very scary looking service menu). There is just so MUCH MORE utility that can be had that it's pathetic this is all they can come up with.

jonnyb

12-22-06, 03:03 PM

I searched as best I could for this question, but I didn't find it. I set up an external 200GB SATA drive with my SA 8300HD box (SARA) a little over a year ago. I have managed to mostly fill this thing up, and I would like to upgrade to a larger drive. Has anyone done a successful copy of a smaller drive to a larger one? I realize the the data on the HD is in a proprietary format, but I was hoping for some bit accurate copying method that would allow me to put the new drive in the enclosure and continue recording with the new amount of space.

ElwayLite

12-22-06, 03:13 PM

jmknapp

12-23-06, 09:18 AM

First, I have zero hope that they will fix this in Passport...

BTW, it would be a good idea for you to list area/market, what DVR and what software is running on it in you sig.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll just disconnect the external drive as I won't give up the buffering feature. Too bad. I agree that "trick play" is a bad name for a fundamental DVR feature.

As for my setup, it's an SA8300HD in the Time Warner, Columbus, OH market.

pepar

12-23-06, 11:54 AM

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll just disconnect the external drive as I won't give up the buffering feature. Too bad. I agree that "trick play" is a bad name for a fundamental DVR feature.

As for my setup, it's an SA8300HD in the Time Warner, Columbus, OH market.
FWIW, we watch NO live TV except Today Show and CNN. We record everything else and watch w/o commercials - stopping, rewinding, replaying, etc whenever we want to. As such, losing that feature on live TV is a non-issue. Additional storage capacity is a killer feature.

jonnyb

12-24-06, 02:14 PM

Why not just buy a second drive and enclosure and swap them out depending on which you want to view from. Once they are formatted it should just be a matter of unplugging the SA box and swapping the SATA cable.
Thanks, but I don't want to have to switch the cable that often. Since the 8300HD splits some recordings between the internal and external HD, it might get confusing as to where the recordings are. The most important reason, though, is that it wouldn't pass the WAF.

davehancock

12-24-06, 02:39 PM

Thanks, but I don't want to have to switch the cable that often. Since the 8300HD splits some recordings between the internal and external HD, it might get confusing as to where the recordings are. The most important reason, though, is that it wouldn't pass the WAF.The 8300 does not split ANY recordings between drives. This s true for SARA, and I believe that it is true for Passport as well. Since you don't have SARA or Passport in your sig, we don't know which you have.

rlanza1054

12-24-06, 03:40 PM

The most important reason, though, is that it wouldn't pass the WAF.

Sorry, maybe I haven't given it enough thought, but what is 'WAF', I mean what does it stand for. I feel stupid for asking but I was just trying to follow your conversation.

Rob

DoubleDAZ

12-24-06, 03:57 PM

Dave,

I think (hope) he means that it puts some recordings on the internal drive and some on the external, but it is a bad choice of terms and always seems to mislead some into thinking it actually splits a recording over both drives. There is no doubt they don't making swapping drives easy with a better management display of recording locations, but if that ever becomes any kind of standard way of doing things, perhaps they'll do something for the WAF. Maybe someone should design a Media Center PC with recordings encrypted to a specific chip or something. They could even offer the capability to move them to a new PC (old S/N -> new S/N with re-encryption, etc., during the move). Unfortunately, whatever they do in the PC arena is certainly subject to being hacked, which is probably why we're in the boat we're in in the first place. :rolleyes: I'd love to have a Media Center PC though with virtually unlimited storage capacity and wouldn''t care that recordings could only be viewed using that PC connected to my HT. Owning a legit PC copy is no different than owning a DVD or VHS, the key is keeping everything legit. :eek: I did a fare amount of hacking in my C-64 days (but bought a copy of everything I used for more than a few days), but now I'm of the opinion that if I can't afford to buy it, I don't need it. :)

DoubleDAZ

12-24-06, 03:59 PM

Sorry, maybe I haven't given it enough thought, but what is 'WAF', I mean what does it stand for. I feel stupid for asking but I was just trying to follow your conversation.

RobWife Acceptance Factor!!!!! Though there are plenty of husbands that are technology-challenged too. ;)

ElwayLite

12-24-06, 04:28 PM

True that it does not split recordings over the drives, it just picks the one with the most space an dputs the next recording there.

My suggestion was a simple alternative. I mean you could put the enlosures side by side and all it takes is pulling the power cord on the SA and then swapping the sata cable, then plug the box back on. It's not going to confuse the dvr because the drive is formatted and the dvr is only going to see what is recorded on THAT particualr drive.

DoubleDAZ

12-24-06, 04:53 PM

The real WAF though is probably that you don't know something is on the disconnected drive until you select it from the list, after you've phsyched yourself into wanting to watch it. :)

ElwayLite

12-24-06, 04:57 PM

pepar

12-24-06, 05:45 PM

I do not think the labels are on the SA Drive, but whatever drive the actual episode is stored. Kinda like a usb drive, you save files on it and unplug it from windows, you don't still see the files right?
That hasn't been the way it has worked. Collective wisdom here is that the "labels" are on the internal drive, which appear even when the external drive is not connected. Not having done it myself, I'd imagine that ALL recorded content from ALL drives appears ALL of the time. The 8300HD is barely designed for one drive, let alone keep track of multiple. rotating external drives.

rlanza1054

12-24-06, 07:36 PM

Wife Acceptance Factor!!!!! Though there are plenty of husbands that are technology-challenged too. ;)

I guess I wouldn't have known the meaning since I'm single. I did however get a good chuckle over it.

I'd like to jump into this conversation to comment on this.

I have a Samsung LN-S4096 LCD and it has a firewire/1934 port on the back. The manual says it is a D-Net port.

I hooked up the 8300HD via this firewire port and the Samsung sees this as a Scientific Atlanta Cable box.

You get to watch whatever channel the cable box was on when you entered into that mode. And you can even record what's playing if you have an AVFS hard drive hooked up to it. I haven't manage to find that kind of formatted hard drive. But the manual says you can hook up a HD camcorder.

I also attached my PC via this firewire/1394 port and low and behold the Samsung TV sees the computer but can't mount the PC hard drive.

I've searched here in AVS and found a link to software available for the PC that will allow you to turn your PC"s hard drive into an available recorder. The software permits this recording to happen over this so called D-Net straight from what's playing on the TV.

So when you say that you want a PC to be the DVR recorder itself with unlimited drive space, it appears if I've done my reading correctly it's is available right now.

If your interested in reading about this, search in AVS for 'D-NET' or firewire/1394.

I'm sorry, I should have provided the link to the thread where it's talked about.

But I did download the software that I just mentioned, I just didn't get to test it out because the PC that I have that has the firewire port is not near the TV.

And also, I'm sure everyone here is aware of the these Media Player boxes available that allows you to play various video formats straight from your PC.

With the external hard drive project that I just completed last week, I also purchased this Media Play and the one I got is by D-Link Model DSM-520. It's not great but I get to play all the music, photos and video (podcasts and various video media formats) that I have stored on my PC via my Samsung and it's hooked up with an HDMI cable.

Maybe I shouldn't have talked about this too much in this forum but because of the DoubleDAZ comment I thought I should tell you my story.

Rob

DoubleDAZ

12-25-06, 12:53 AM

Riverside_Guy

12-25-06, 10:25 AM

The 8300HD is barely designed for one drive, let alone keep track of multiple. rotating external drives.

Oh boy, you ARE starting to remind me of... me!

Stow the cynicism for a day;

HAPPY HOLIDAZE TO ALL!

rlanza1054

12-25-06, 12:41 PM

I'm not well versed in all the rules, but I'm sure others can provide more specific info.

I might be wrong, but from what I understand the DRM features are available on the firewire but have not yet been implemented.

The specs call for the DRM stuff, but nobody have actually activated it yet.

So I'm not that you can't record everything. If you have the cable box on HBO for example, that plays on the TV via this D-Net (firewire hookup) and there is nothing yet preventing you from recording it as long as you have a device that can record. Hence the PC hook up with that software I told you about.

There was a disclaimer in the software stating that 'you would not use this software to copy 'copy protected' stuff. The standard disclaimer. But in most cases you can record the stuff and play it back.

Again, I haven't tested any of this yet.

But it is true that at some point all the 'big studios' will implement the DRM stuff and just make life difficult for everyone, even if we just want it for home usage.

Rob

Have a good Holiday!

DoubleDAZ

12-25-06, 02:39 PM

We have 5C in place here and can only record locals (and I think 1 other channel, though I forget which), making firewire all but useless. BTW, I'm only talking about HD recording.

rlanza1054

12-25-06, 03:51 PM

I wish I had another computer to spare so that I can truly test all this stuff out. I don't really need it anymore since adding the hard drive. But since I seem to be in the geek group that most everyone here is, I just want to play around with this stuff and see how far we can take it.

Rob

Ken Rahaim

12-26-06, 01:12 AM

Hey check this link out Prepar, Maybe I don't need the Maxtor althought I want to play it safe.

{link to $80 rebate for Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Internal SATA Hard Drive, model # WD5000KSRTL}Wow, what a great savings on this WD drive! Has anyone tried it with SARA? The posts I've read so far only indicate use with Passport.

Oops, never mind! Just saw in the database that its working with v1.88.xx.x.

Now just to figure out if MicroCenter has the proper enclosure.
--
Ken
SARA v1.87.16.1
Cox in Fairfax, VA

djones18

12-26-06, 09:40 AM

Time to defrag?

Been heavily using SATA Maxtor 250GB drive in VANTEC eSATA enclosure on 8300HD for eight months with perfect results but now getting alot of SATA drive read-write head clicking as RW-head searches for and reads files...video performance still like day-one.

It's now noticeable from across the room. A search of the forum has scant info on successful defrags by longtime users. I plan to pull the eSATA offline, connect to PC via USB and defrag to see if this solves RW-head clicking.

Other than loosing program files on the eSATA drive, any PC savy folks see any problems, issues, or have success with this?

Cheers.
-----------------------------------
Cox SARA latest (Fairfax, VA)
8300HD
Maxtor SATA 250GB, Vantec eSATA case

ElwayLite

12-26-06, 09:45 AM

Wow, what a great savings on this WD drive! Has anyone tried it with SARA? The posts I've read so far only indicate use with Passport.

Oops, never mind! Just saw in the database that its working with v1.88.xx.x.

Now just to figure out if MicroCenter has the proper enclosure.
--
Ken
SARA v1.87.16.1
Cox in Fairfax, VA

I have SARA 1.87 on the SA and I have a WD SE16 250gig working great in an Apricorn enclosure.

pepar

12-26-06, 10:08 AM

Time to defrag?

Been heavily using SATA Maxtor 250GB drive in VANTEC eSATA enclosure on 8300HD for eight months with perfect results but now getting alot of SATA drive read-write head clicking as RW-head searches for and reads files...video performance still like day-one.

It's now noticeable from across the room. A search of the forum has scant info on successful defrags by longtime users. I plan to pull the eSATA offline, connect to PC via USB and defrag to see if this solves RW-head clicking.

Other than loosing program files on the eSATA drive, any PC savy folks see any problems, issues, or have success with this?

Before a PC can defrag it, it must format it. (The format used by the 8300HD is not compatible.) However, once it has been PC formatted, it no longer needs to be defragged as ALL of the previous files are gone. When re-attached it to the 8300HD it will appear as a new drive and you will need to go through the formatting procedure.

Manatus

12-26-06, 10:19 AM

pepar

12-26-06, 12:01 PM

djones18

12-26-06, 01:07 PM

Before a PC can defrag it, it must format it. (The format used by the 8300HD is not compatible.) However, once it has been PC formatted, it no longer needs to be defragged as ALL of the previous files are gone. When re-attached it to the 8300HD it will appear as a new drive and you will need to go through the formatting procedure.

Thanks for the quick reply. Great advice. I'll give it a try.

Cheers

wharrell

12-26-06, 08:44 PM

I am trying to connect the following to a Charlotte, NC Time Warner SA8300HDDVR with the new Mystro software this evening:

Seagate 500gb ESATA external drive

I have read in the threads this has been done with the previous Passport software, but I find no record with the new Mystro software.

After 2 tries of powering down everything and rebooting by reconnecting the power to the HDDVR, the external SATA drive is still not being recognized.

I am going to give it 3 more tries before I give up. I am following the instructions exactly as listed in the SA8300HDDVR manual.

If anyone else has done this, please let me know.

Thanks

holl_ands

12-26-06, 09:16 PM

I might be wrong, but from what I understand the DRM features are available on the firewire but have not yet been implemented.

The specs call for the DRM stuff, but nobody have actually activated it yet.

So I'm not that you can't record everything. If you have the cable box on HBO for example, that plays on the TV via this D-Net (firewire hookup) and there is nothing yet preventing you from recording it as long as you have a device that can record. Hence the PC hook up with that software I told you about.

There was a disclaimer in the software stating that 'you would not use this software to copy 'copy protected' stuff. The standard disclaimer. But in most cases you can record the stuff and play it back.

Again, I haven't tested any of this yet.

But it is true that at some point all the 'big studios' will implement the DRM stuff and just make life difficult for everyone, even if we just want it for home usage.

Rob

Have a good Holiday!
Current WINDOWS and MAC OS's do not implement the HDCP "5C" Copy Protect Rules and hence can only view and record unencrypted cable channels (e.g. Local HD and maybe a few others) via Firewire interface from cable provided STB.

Some/most HDTV's with a Firewire interface implement "5C" to view programs provided by an external cable STB. Firewire equipped HDTV's with an ATSC tuner could output OTA programs, which "should" be unencrypted and hence would be recordable by PCs. If Cablecard equipped HDTV's output cable programs, they would need to retain the original "5C" encryption.

=====================================
There is supposed to be an UPDATE to the upcoming VISTA OS which will provide IEEE-1394a (Firewire) support and "eventually" a later UPDATE to support the new IEEE-1394b (800 MHz HANA) protocols:
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/windows/2006/05/23/microsoft-officially-gives-its-support-to-the-blazing-firewire-800-protocol/
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=187002039

I haven't seen any statement from Microsoft as to whether either will support HDCP "5C".....and if so, with what rules and restrictions....
Note that CableCARD implementations are being required to use a monitor with an HDMI (or equivalent) copy protected interface and must undergo some sort of hardware certification process....no doubt to ensure that the video program remains encrypted within the PC and on the Hard Drive, only being decrypted after being passed via HDMI to the Monitor.

Obviously, they are going to great lengths to make it very difficult for a home hobbyist to capture (and distribute) a decrypted video stream:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hdcp-vista.ars
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6081.html

Currently, (other than DVR or Tivo S3 with CableCARD) the ONLY way to record (and archive) encrypted cable channels is to connect a WORKING Firewire port from a cable provided STB to a D-VHS (JVC, Marantz, Mitsubishi all implement "5C"). I can record nearly ANY program on TWC (including HD and Premiums), except PPV and OnDemand.

Meteor

12-26-06, 09:29 PM

wharrell

12-26-06, 10:01 PM

Did you find a way to get in Mystro DIAG menu? my guess it may be some information in those pages about SATA being enable and the ext. drive detected.
Did you preserve your old shows with the switch to Mystro? or this is a brand new STB?

Success ! :)

After the 4th try, the drive was finally recognized and gave me the prompt to format it. The format ran in under 2 mnutes.

I looked in the Mystro DIAG, but it does not show a 'separate drive', it just increased my clusters and free cluster dramatcially for the 500gb drive. The diag menu does not show bytes, just clusters.

Inital tests on recording and playback are without problem.

The ability to also pause, rewind and fast foward live programing appears to work also. I had read on other versions, this was an issue apparently caused by buffering issues.

I will post anything else I find.

Ken Rahaim

12-26-06, 10:14 PM

I have SARA 1.87 on the SA and I have a WD SE16 250gig working great in an Apricorn enclosure.Well bummer! Microcenter (at least the one in Fairfax, Va) is out of the WD 500GB drives and they don't foresee getting anymore before the expiration of the rebate.

Fortunately I was able to pick up the 250GB version (same as ElwayLite's - btw, thanks for the note that the WD is working for you on 1.87) for $79 (a pretty good deal) from my local Best Buy tonight. Now I'm just waiting on my $39 Apricorn enclosure to arrive from NewEgg.

pepar

12-26-06, 11:06 PM

vegggas

12-26-06, 11:24 PM

^Which brings up something I've been wondering about: is there any way to force the 8300HD to reformat an already-formatted external drive (without having to reformat it on a PC before reattaching it to the DVR)? Passport, TWCNYC here.
When you reformat the internal drive, the external drive is also reformatted along with it - AS LONG AS IT IS CONNECTED AND WORKING CORRECTLY!
If you reformat the internal with the external drive disconnected, you LOSE all the space held on the drive and no longer have acces to record to that space. A half filled 300GB external drive will show a 150GB of free space if you only reformat the internal drive, so reformat with te external connected.
See first post in the 8300 thread found in sig for details.

vegggas

wharrell

12-26-06, 11:48 PM

I was careful to follow the instructions in the SA manual which are to:

Power all down.
Connect
Power on SATA Drive
Then Power on and Boot the 8300

I will say I was about to give up after 3 tries, and while all was connected (but I never got the prompt to format the drive), I unplugged the SATA, got a warning message which indicated the drive was being seen. I then power down and repeated the power up as described above, and the 4th time, it finally gave me the prompt to format the SATA drive.

pepar

12-27-06, 09:02 AM

Riverside_Guy

12-27-06, 10:44 AM

I was careful to follow the instructions in the SA manual which are to:

Power all down.
Connect
Power on SATA Drive
Then Power on and Boot the 8300

It has been said that the instructions in the SA manual are specific to SARA; obviously experimentation is still the order of the day.

You are now to be considered the most significant user as you actually HAVE Mystro AND seem comfortable to post here and relate your experiences. PLEASE keep in touch on that!

The "trick play" buffer issue I believe is specific to Passport. BUT it appears that it only happens when you have filled up the internal drive and must be using the external drive. So my guess is you need to "know" that your internal drive is filled and consequently, it is writing data to the external drive. Some might think you can use (if your external box has one) the activity light; but I'm not convinced this is good evidence. My cable modem's data transfer lights constantly flash even if I'm quiet and have NO data going between my computer and the net. It could easily be that the external drive is being constantly polled.

pepar

12-27-06, 10:49 AM

My cable modem's data transfer lights constantly flash even if I'm quiet and have NO data going between my computer and the net.
Ha ha ha, are you sure? ;)

Riverside_Guy

12-27-06, 10:51 AM

Some here have speculated that SATA/eSATA connections can be a bit squirrelly. Repeated efforts are usually rewarded. It's especially maddening when it's an internal connection.

No fooling! However, the fault lies with the software (thousands of squirrels reside there!); I've been using eSATA cables (4 of them) connected to 2 external arrays for 6-8 months that do sustained transfers (combined they have about 700+ gigs of data that was transferred to them from my primary array) and have not had one bit dropped (far as I can tell). A decent quality cable normally should not be a part of a failure.

pepar

12-27-06, 10:57 AM

No fooling! However, the fault lies with the software (thousands of squirrels reside there!); I've been using eSATA cables (4 of them) connected to 2 external arrays for 6-8 months that do sustained transfers (combined they have about 700+ gigs of data that was transferred to them from my primary array) and have not had one bit dropped (far as I can tell). A decent quality cable normally should not be a part of a failure.
But those are drives that are optimized for computer usage. :rolleyes:

Seriously, error correction these days is quite effective, and mirroring nearly completely does away with data errors.

Riverside_Guy

12-27-06, 11:00 AM

Ha ha ha, are you sure? ;)

Yes, remember Mac OS X. I think it's constant polling by TWC. Matter of fact, 2 days ago I needed to "fool" and application that no Internet connection existed (long story about needing to revert my iPod software to an earlier version) so I turned my Ethernet port off. Lights still kept flashing and the computer tried but found no network connection.

Of course, nobody that Ive been able to talk to at TWC has any clue what's going on (i.el. what need are they fulfilling by doing this).

pepar

12-27-06, 11:04 AM

Of course, nobody that Ive been able to talk to at TWC has any clue what's going on (i.el. what need are they fulfilling by doing this).
I see this as a result of the equipment manufacturer(s) being insulated from - and safe from being accosted by - the users.

dildatonr

12-27-06, 05:13 PM

fyi
I was having issues with live tv freeze ups using the external as a live buffer. I had read some of you reccomend formatting the drive on a pc - since the 8300's quick format left a bit to be desired. Well, now the 8300 won't recognize it all. Tried reconnecting/disconnnecting/rebooting about 20 times to no avail. Me so sad.

8300HD TWC Passport Dutchess County NY

davehancock

12-27-06, 07:00 PM

I am trying to connect the following to a Charlotte, NC Time Warner SA8300HDDVR with the new Mystro software this evening:
I hate to throw cold water on this - but are you SURE that you are using Mystro software in Charlotte? Mystro has been a code name for a couple of software concepts at Time Warner. Several people here are thinking that you are using the new Digital Navigator software that is under test, as far as I know, only in Nebraska. In fact there is a thread discussing this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=723830&page=1). To date this software is reported only in Lincoln Nebraska (and sucks) and is also being tested by TW employees in Kansas City MO. It's deployment to Charlotte is surprising. I checked the TW Charlotte web site and saw no signs that it is there. The info there implies that they have SARA (at least they have standard SA SARA manuals on-line). The Kansas City TW site has a special section on the Digital Navigator.

wharrell

12-27-06, 07:55 PM

I hate to throw cold water on this - but are you SURE that you are using Mystro software in Charlotte? Mystro has been a code name for a couple of software concepts at Time Warner. Several people here are thinking that you are using the new Digital Navigator software that is under test, as far as I know, only in Nebraska. In fact there is a thread discussing this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=723830&page=1). To date this software is reported only in Lincoln Nebraska (and sucks) and is also being tested by TW employees in Kansas City MO. It's deployment to Charlotte is surprising. I checked the TW Charlotte web site and saw no signs that it is there. The info there implies that they have SARA (at least they have standard SA SARA manuals on-line). The Kansas City TW site has a special section on the Digital Navigator.

Yes, without question it is Mystro. When the 8300HDDVR boots up, it has a Mystro screen, not the old Pioneer. The diag menues are all different also and they no longer show the old software. Hope this helps.

Information is here:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/charlotte/products/cable/navigator/

davehancock

12-27-06, 08:16 PM

Yes, without question it is Mystro. When the 8300HDDVR boots up, it has a Mystro screen, not the old Pioneer. The diag menues are all different also and they no longer show the old software. Hope this helps.

Information is here:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/charlotte/products/cable/navigator/
Thanks. Why don't you post this fact over on the other thread - along with your impressions.

Also, thanks for the link. You apparently can't get there from the site's normal menus. (I even tried to search "Navigator" and "Mystro" on their site and got nothing.

Your experience certainly relieves a lot of anxiety regarding the eSATA.

CountryJoe

12-27-06, 08:46 PM

I am looking at two drives that seem to be virtually the same, including reviews. They are: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
and the
Maxtor MaXLine Pro 500 7H500F0 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
THe Maxtor is a little cheaper. But, I don't want to be foolish for a few bucks. Can anyone give me some insights into one or the other? Thanks, Joe

archiguy

12-28-06, 07:36 AM

I hate to throw cold water on this - but are you SURE that you are using Mystro software in Charlotte? Mystro has been a code name for a couple of software concepts at Time Warner. Several people here are thinking that you are using the new Digital Navigator software that is under test, as far as I know, only in Nebraska. In fact there is a thread discussing this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=723830&page=1). To date this software is reported only in Lincoln Nebraska (and sucks) and is also being tested by TW employees in Kansas City MO. It's deployment to Charlotte is surprising. I checked the TW Charlotte web site and saw no signs that it is there. The info there implies that they have SARA (at least they have standard SA SARA manuals on-line). The Kansas City TW site has a special section on the Digital Navigator.

Dave, Charlotte has always been a Passport-based system, as I have noted on this forum many times. And, according to the diagnostics on my box (I just checked), still is. It's interesting that "wharrell" has it and the rest of us do not; must be a slow, incremental deployment of some sort I guess. Usually they just dump it all out at once to everyone.

wharrell

12-28-06, 07:57 AM

I think it is a controlled rollout. If you have multiple set top boxes in your home, they may not be upgraded at the same time.

Riverside_Guy

12-28-06, 10:23 AM

I think it is a controlled rollout. If you have multiple set top boxes in your home, they may not be upgraded at the same time.

Indeed, that's exactly what they say on their web site... this is a VERY significant piece of information, it tells us they can actually target specific boxes.

The thing I find curious is that Mystro is supposed to only be a code name. Frankly, I think it's a terrible name, it supposed to be all about finding and setting things up things, not perpetuating an air of mystery. Notice their web page seems to call it "Digital Navigator."

In any case, you have just become a very significant fellow around here! So for heaven's sake, don't abandon us!

pepar

12-28-06, 10:33 AM

Indeed, that's exactly what they say on their web site... this is a VERY significant piece of information, it tells us they can actually target specific boxes.
That is not new. When they pushed the SATA beta software to my boxes, I needed first to give them the MACs (and hardware rev) of the two hi-def boxes in our home.

The thing I find curious is that Mystro is supposed to only be a code name. Frankly, I think it's a terrible name, it supposed to be all about finding and setting things up things, not perpetuating an air of mystery. Notice their web page seems to call it "Digital Navigator."
His post says there is a Mystro screen so, evidently, they've chosen to use that as the actual product name. It is a weird moniker

Manatus

12-28-06, 10:37 AM

The thing I find curious is that Mystro is supposed to only be a code name. Frankly, I think it's a terrible name, it supposed to be all about finding and setting things up things, not perpetuating an air of mystery. Notice their web page seems to call it "Digital Navigator."

The relevance and usefulness of someone's opinion about the former in-house name for TW Navigator are not apparent, especially when it shows a rather embarrassing misunderstanding. "Mystro" is pronounced exactly as it's spelled: MY-stro. Not MISS-stro. As in "Maestro" (conductor), not "Mystery."

pepar

12-28-06, 11:03 AM

The relevance and usefulness of someone's opinion about the former in-house name for TW Navigator are not apparent, especially when it shows a rather embarrassing misunderstanding. "Mystro" is pronounced exactly as it's spelled: MY-stro. Not MISS-stro. As in "Maestro" (conductor), not "Mystery."
I'm going to "assume" that you forgot to add a smiley to your post as otherwise you would be ridiculing a fellow member's opinion. :)

In any event, I hope they didn't pay someone a lot of money to come up with the name. In my humble opinion, people are much more likely to pronounce it as "mist" and not like maestro. A hyphenated version would more likely lead to it being pronounced like maestro, i.e. My-stro. But even that's a kludge and too clever by half.

xnappo

12-28-06, 11:08 AM

I'm going to "assume" that you forgot to add a smiley to your post as otherwise you would be ridiculing a fellow member's opinion. :)

In any event, I hope they didn't pay someone a lot of money to come up with the name. In my humble opinion, people are much more likely to pronounce it as "mist" and not like maestro. A hyphenated version would more likely lead to it being pronounced like maestro, i.e. My-stro. But even that's a kludge and too clever by half.

Hmmm, pronouncing it Miss-tro never even crossed my mind. It was pretty obvious to me they were playing on Maestro - conducting your TV viewing actions...

xnappo

pepar

12-28-06, 11:12 AM

Hmmm, pronouncing it Miss-tro never even crossed my mind. It was pretty obvious to me they were playing on Maestro - conducting your TV viewing actions...

xnappo
Well, I might be wrong. Perhaps I've been hanging with the D'ni too much. :)

Manatus

12-28-06, 11:20 AM

pepar

12-28-06, 11:30 AM

Mystro would have been a poor name for the public version of the product, if only because it's such an easy target for ridicule (and might have presented trademark problems). Navigator is stronger, and TW already owns the trademark.
The poster with it said there's a Mystro screen. To me, that sounds like the public name is Mystro. Unless he's a beta tester . . .

Manatus

12-28-06, 11:36 AM

^I know. But a company that releases a product that wipes out all the stored contents on a DVR might also be capable of failing to do a global name search and replace.

pepar

12-28-06, 11:41 AM

^I know. But a company that releases a product that wipes out all the stored contents on a DVR might also be capable of failing to do a global name search and replace.
What I read on it said it did NOT erase the contents of either the internal or, if connected, an external drive. That was really the only thing I cared about. I get on just fine with Passport and think this new software is just a better platform for the cablecos to sell more slices of cheese.

LL3HD

12-28-06, 11:44 AM

I'm going to "assume" that you forgot to add a smiley to your post as otherwise you would be ridiculing a fellow member's opinion. :) .Smiley face from Popeye?? Ga, ga ga ga. :D
I’ve never seen it but I have seen many extremely helpful posts, even though there’s that occasional ornery tone. :)
Oh, pardon me, this is OT :)

Manatus

12-28-06, 11:51 AM

What I read on it said it did NOT erase the contents of either the internal or, if connected, an external drive.

My comment was based upon this post: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9188798&&#post9188798 ("He got the NEW Navigator last week. He lost all shows stored on his 8300HD") Of course, like the first news accounts about a plane crash, these early reports about Navigator may be incomplete or just plain wrong.

pepar

12-28-06, 02:17 PM

My comment was based upon this post: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9188798&&#post9188798 ("He got the NEW Navigator last week. He lost all shows stored on his 8300HD") Of course, like the first news accounts about a plane crash, these early reports about Navigator may be incomplete or just plain wrong.
And I am now unable to find the piece that I read and I'm ten pages deep into google. IIRC, it was an industry - TWC? - news release touting the benefits of Mystro. So, take that for what it's worth. User accounts will carry more weight.

VideoRoy

12-28-06, 04:00 PM

Scarlett

12-28-06, 04:08 PM

Not sure if this is the right thread or not but I thought I would post another working drive.

I just replaced my failed Maxtor MaxLine Plus II 250gb 150mbs drive with a WD 250gb Caviar SE 16 300mbs drive.

I used the Vantec NexStar 3 3.5" SATA to eSATA / USB 2.0 External hard Drive Enclosure for both.

The WD drive runs much quieter and cooler to the touch. The Maxtor drive was old and beat up before I attached it to the 8300HD so I am not surprised it lasted < 1 year.This is the right thread! Please add your cable provider, firmware (SARA or Passport) and version to your User name or signature. It does make a difference. :)

If you are a SARA user, please post your results here:

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main

Congratulations on another working external drive!

Scarlett

ElwayLite

12-28-06, 04:12 PM

VideoRoy

12-28-06, 06:30 PM

This is the right thread! Please add your cable provider, firmware (SARA or Passport) and version to your User name or signature. It does make a difference. :)

If you are a SARA user, please post your results here:

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main

Congratulations on another working external drive!

Scarlett
Maxtor drive worked under SARA 1.87.16.a104 and 1.88.22.1. WD only tested under 1.88.22.1 since that is all I have now. All in the same enclosure which is probably the key any way.

Houston is currently TW but going to ComCast at some point.

rlanza1054

12-28-06, 09:22 PM

I am looking at two drives that seem to be virtually the same, including reviews. They are: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
and the
Maxtor MaXLine Pro 500 7H500F0 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

I originally was going to get the Maxtor Quickview (which is more money than both of your choices), but then I got the Western Digital for $130 (after $80 rebate, you need to purchase before 12/31/06).

So far I am very happy, it all worked flawlessly, with the help of some very fine people here in this thread.

Rob

rlanza1054

12-28-06, 09:34 PM

You are partially right, except that 5C copy-protection gets in the way of recording almost all channels except locals. Current PC connections do not work the same as a DVR in that a DVR can record everything for playback on that device. Firewire connections only allow certain content to be recorded based on 5C rules. I'm not well versed in all the rules, but I'm sure others can provide more specific info.

DoubleDAZ,

I know this topic is done but I said I would provide the link to the software that Iwas talking about. It does seem that they mention this 5C thing.

I didn't re-read it all but I downloaded the software but never had the chance to play with it. Perhaps, you might like to look at this yourself.

Anyway, here is the link, hope it provides something useful:

http://www.vividlogic.com/products/default.html

Rob

rlanza1054

12-28-06, 09:42 PM

As long as the exhaust air leaves the cabinet

Riverside,

Today I purchased a drill bit that will make a 3 inch hole. I am going to mount some fans that are 3 inches in diameter and have them exhaust the heat as you suggested.

Right now, I just don't feel comfortable with the way it is, and do not close the glass doors and have a regular floor fan blowing inside. And if I'm going to continue worrying about this I figured I should make some advances and get moving on fixing the problem.

As I had said, with the glass doors closed, the air temp gets to about 86%, that's really not that hot, but it spooks me.

So if I make 3, 3 inch holes, two will have fans blowing the hot air out and the third hole (probably the middle one) will be for air intake into the cabinet, either with a fan pushing it or just letting the exhaust fans do the work.

My brother over the holiday gave me some old drive enclosures (SCSI) so I'm going to use the power supplies to get my 12 volts (connectors are still there) to install regular computer fans.

Hopefully, I won't screw up making the holes and the finish won't get all chewed up . (I'm going to masking tape the area before drilling)

Rob

DoubleDAZ

12-28-06, 10:15 PM

Rob,

Thanks for the link. However, as I and others have pointed out, the application of 5C controls effectively leaves you with only being able to record local HD channels. If you look at the notes on the DTVR tab, that is what it says too (unencrypted movies/content only). What I and others would jump at is a PC that can legally function as an complete HD DVR eliminating the need for an STB and allowing for virtually unlimited storage capacity. My DVR can record any program/any channel. Your PC with that software can still only record unencrypted content, a very small part of what's available. Don't get me wrong, it would still be useful to be able to record the local channels on a PC, but you'd still need a cable DVR to record HBO-HD, etc., and you'd still be subject to their limited storage capacity, etc.

BTW. If you find out something different during your tests, be sure to let us know.

cephraim

12-29-06, 11:16 AM

I originally was going to get the Maxtor Quickview (which is more money than both of your choices), but then I got the Western Digital for $130 (after $80 rebate, you need to purchase before 12/31/06).

So far I am very happy, it all worked flawlessly, with the help of some very fine people here in this thread.

Rob

So, that is an INTERNAL drive (the Western Digital WD5000KSRTL). Pretty good deal with the rebate at Microcenter.

What enclosure did you match it with?
The Apricorn at Microcenter? (EZ-BUS-DTSE-KIT)

Eph

Riverside_Guy

12-29-06, 12:26 PM

I'm going to "assume" that you forgot to add a smiley to your post as otherwise you would be ridiculing a fellow member's opinion. :)

Thanks for sticking up for me... did you notice that after trashing my opinion, he posted that he agreed with my opinion that the name was bad! I was going to ask how he could tell me I was mispronouncing the name! The D'Ni applaud your move!

Someone in another thread posted what I guess came from San Diego about "Digital Navigator," which I suspect is going to be the public name. It was way long, but 2 things caught my eye (remember, this is what TWC is saying). Apparently, you can't set record times in the series manager as you can with Passport. Then again, I have tried to use this in Passport, but it only has times IT wants to list and in 2 cases, those alternate times bore no relation to anything real. For now, I don't an issue there.

BUT, it does claim that we will see 14 days worth of programming, which sure is an upgrade to what we have now.

Pure speculation, but it won't surprise me that Mystro/Digital Navigator users in different areas might have slightly different capabilities.

pepar

12-29-06, 01:08 PM

So if I make 3, 3 inch holes, two will have fans blowing the hot air out and the third hole (probably the middle one) will be for air intake into the cabinet, either with a fan pushing it or just letting the exhaust fans do the work.
There's a good chance that this design will not accomplish the desired result. Air coming in the intake will immediately be sucked out the exhaust(s) with very little air already in the cabinet being removed/replaced. Much of the air in the cabinet will remain stagnant. Ideally, since heat rises, intakes should be located low in the enclosure while exhausts should be high. A front-to-back scheme would be the icing on the cake, i.e. intakes low on the front side and exhausts located high in the rear. If there are shelves - there usually are - then make sure that they do not trap air either. I know that aesthetics and practicality play a big part in planning something like this, but just being aware of this should help you come up with something that works and is also not a dog's breakfast. Arrff! :D

pepar

12-29-06, 01:15 PM

Thanks for sticking up for me... did you notice that after trashing my opinion, he posted that he agreed with my opinion that the name was bad! I was going to ask how he could tell me I was mispronouncing the name! The D'Ni applaud your move!

Someone in another thread posted what I guess came from San Diego about "Digital Navigator," which I suspect is going to be the public name. It was way long, but 2 things caught my eye (remember, this is what TWC is saying). Apparently, you can't set record times in the series manager as you can with Passport. Then again, I have tried to use this in Passport, but it only has times IT wants to list and in 2 cases, those alternate times bore no relation to anything real. For now, I don't an issue there.

BUT, it does claim that we will see 14 days worth of programming, which sure is an upgrade to what we have now.

Pure speculation, but it won't surprise me that Mystro/Digital Navigator users in different areas might have slightly different capabilities.
I see this as more for the needs of the cablecos than for the needs of the subscribers. Surely they will have a few features that they can flog as benefits for us, but mainly this is for them to more effectively leverage their network, bandwidth and presence in our homes.

Ken Rahaim

12-30-06, 10:38 AM

So, that is an INTERNAL drive (the Western Digital WD5000KSRTL). Pretty good deal with the rebate at Microcenter.IF it is in stock. I ordered one online for in-store pickup and my order was rejected by Microcenter because they were out of stock. A call to MC HQs confirmed they were out of stock in their warehouses as well. I eventually found the 250GB version of this drive at BestBuy for $79.

What enclosure did you match it with? The Apricorn at Microcenter? (EZ-BUS-DTSE-KIT)This was the enclosure I ordered from NewEgg to go with my WD250GB. I'm disappointed in the amount of noise it makes. With everything else in my family room (23'x24') in standby mode, when you walk into the room you definetely know the Apricorn enclosure/WD is on from the humming/buzzing. I suspect this has more to do with the Apricorn's rather substantial fan (good for cooling, I'm sure), than the WD.

Oh, BTW, as others have mentioned, I had more trouble putting the drive in the enclosure than I did in getting it to work with my 8300... that is to say, it was little trouble at all. I and my wife are very happy campers with our increased storage space... currently we have scads of Law & Orders recorded, almost all of the recent Bond marathon from Spike, and many other gems from Discovery Channel... all with plenty of space left for more :).

BullishDad

12-30-06, 10:54 AM

As a new AVS member I want to thank those who have posted in the past. The information obtained here gave me the confidence to try this project. Although it has only been two days, the external drive is working well, without any glitches.

Xnappo's database was very helpful in deciding which equipment to purchase. I have entered my information into the database, which hopefully helps others.

Because the Google checkout promotion at Buy.com was ending, I figured the time was right to get this done at a low cost. For my purposes the 250GB was enough additional capacity and my total cost for the drive and enclosure came to $100 (and no rebates to deal with either :) )

The Apricorn EZ BUS DTS kit enclosure was a great choice. The fan is quiet, the base for keeping the drive upright is secure and the kit included the required eSATA to SATA cable.

On my inital installation, after I was asked to press "A" to format the external drive, the screen went to live TV and there was no indication about remaining capacity. The SARA diag screens did show the new drive, but the percentage remaining was unchanged and my new recordings were being saved on the internal drive. So I decided to start over. Instead of being asked to format the external drive, I got a message telling me there is "an external drive that will work with this DVR". After I closed the dialog box, the available space was updated and new recordings are now being stored on the external drive as expected.

BullishDad

12-30-06, 11:12 AM

After preparing my post above, I see that Ken used the same combination as me, although he finds the Apricorn a bit noisy. I said it was quiet because in comparison to my cheapie IDE enclosure it is much much quieter.

It took me a minute or two to figure out that to open the enclosure it pulls apart from the seams along the sides. After you place the drive in the enclosure and connect the SATA cable, make sure the screw holes (underneath the soft black plastic covers) are lined up with the drive, then put the cover back on. With the cover on, you can now use the four screws that come with the enclosure to secure the drive to the case.

Admittedly, I screwed the drive to the case with the cover off, then realized that the screw heads interferred with putting the cover back on. DUH.

ElwayLite

12-30-06, 11:34 AM

I have the WD SE16 250gb HDD inside an Apricorn Ez Bus and the ONLY time I can hear it is when the TV is OFF, and thats minimal. I think these poeple with noisy enclosures might have fan issues. The fan should not be that loud.

Ken Rahaim

12-30-06, 11:42 AM

After preparing my post above, I see that Ken used the same combination as me, although he finds the Apricorn a bit noisy.I forgot to mention that my drive is out in the open on the top shelf and not enclosed in any cabinet. I'm getting ready to place an order for a Salamander triple 30 cabinet to house my new A/V gear that is arriving. It'll be interesting to see how much I can hear the Apricorn once its within the cabinet. The cabinet will have 2 sides, the perforated front panel and an exposed rear. If its still the noisiest item in the rack, I guess I'll start to research quieter enclosures.

Admittedly, I screwed the drive to the case with the cover off, then realized that the screw heads interferred with putting the cover back on. DUH.Ha! I did the exact same thing :) .

Manatus

12-30-06, 11:45 AM

Admittedly, I screwed the drive to the case with the cover off, then realized that the screw heads interferred with putting the cover back on. DUH.

I did the same thing with my first unit (I've now got 2 of them), and, for me at least, the little black screw covers/shock absorbent feet are difficult to reattach after the HD is installed. But the design (especially the fan) is good and noise not a problem. Both of mine are actually cool to the touch when the drives are running.

archiguy

12-30-06, 11:56 AM

The Apricorn enclosure is a bit noisy, but I don't think it's bad design (it's quite a well-designed unit); it's just the nature of having a fan, even a good one, operating 24/7 in a once-quiet living room. The 8300 doesn't have a fan and its hard drive seems to operate just fine, ya' know? My shelves are open and I don't have the option of putting it "away" in a cabinet or something.

I'm going to try applying some acoustic-mat material to the sides and then putting it down on one of the lower shelves (will have to buy a longer eSATA cable, 6 foot probably) behind the center-speaker in the hope of quieting it down. If that doesn't work, then I'm going to have to try to find a good enclosure that dissipates the heat of my 500GB WD hard drive without a fan. It's driving me nuts when quiet moments in whatever I'm watching or listening to occur in the course of the program/movie, or when my system is powered down and I just want quiet in the room. It sounds kinda' like the constant rushing of air, which come to think about it, is not surprising.

Any suggestions for a well-made enclosure that works well w/out a fan?

xnappo

12-30-06, 12:01 PM

Any suggestions for a well-made enclosure that works well w/out a fan?

As long as there is plenty of space around the drive, I say just disconnect the fan in the Apricorn if you are willing to take the risk. If you have a temp probe you could see how hot it gets. The Apricorn is all metal, which should dissipate heat fairly well.

Also - with most WD and Maxtor drives you can turn on acoustic management (which a seek time penalty) which makes the drive much quieter. You need a PC and your drive's firmware tools to do this. I have it turn on on mine with no issues...

xnappo

ElwayLite

12-30-06, 12:16 PM

The Apricorn enclosure is a bit noisy, but I don't think it's bad design (it's quite a well-designed unit)

Like I said, I can barely hear mine when everything else is off and it sits on an open 3 shelf flat panel stand, so there is nothing to block the noise. My Sony Wega LCD RPTV's fan makes more of a hum that the Apricorn.

Maybe they don't always use the same brand fan and thats why some of us hear nothing and some of us have noise. I've seen people in this post go as far to say they are going to return the Apricorn because of the noise. This I can't understand.

Riverside_Guy

12-30-06, 12:42 PM

There's a good chance that this design will not accomplish the desired result. Air coming in the intake will immediately be sucked out the exhaust(s) with very little air already in the cabinet being removed/replaced. Much of the air in the cabinet will remain stagnant. Ideally, since heat rises, intakes should be located low in the enclosure while exhausts should be high. A front-to-back scheme would be the icing on the cake, i.e. intakes low on the front side and exhausts located high in the rear. If there are shelves - there usually are - then make sure that they do not trap air either. I know that aesthetics and practicality play a big part in planning something like this, but just being aware of this should help you come up with something that works and is also not a dog's breakfast. Arrff! :D

Indeed, exhausts should be high and intakes low. But my guess would be that a "high" intake and exhaust whose "flow" goes over the tops of equipment would help exhaust that hot air. It might be generally instructive if he also took temperature probe readings in several places before and after. While the "external drive for a 8300" started this, I think designing equipment racks so they stay cool is a very good general thing to do.

Riverside_Guy

12-30-06, 12:50 PM

I see this as more for the needs of the cablecos than for the needs of the subscribers. Surely they will have a few features that they can flog as benefits for us, but mainly this is for them to more effectively leverage their network, bandwidth and presence in our homes.

No sh*t! I seem to be somewhat alone is calling it their OCAP navigator... my guess is 95% of the impetus to create Mystro in the first place was to put something in the field that IS an OCAP application. As end users, all we care about is something that is "better" than what we now have; my top priority is the elimination of the "trick play" bug. Carrying 14 days is great, but icing on the cake.

Riverside_Guy

12-30-06, 01:23 PM

Like I said, I can barely hear mine when everything else is off and it sits on an open 3 shelf flat panel stand, so there is nothing to block the noise. My Sony Wega LCD RPTV's fan makes more of a hum that the Apricorn.

Maybe they don't always use the same brand fan and thats why some of us hear nothing and some of us have noise. I've seen people in this post go as far to say they are going to return the Apricorn because of the noise. This I can't understand.

There's also an age/sex factor... meaning 2 people can have very different perceptions of noise. My sister (4 years younger) seems to have better hearing than I, partly because I did a LOT of rock n roll when I was younger (close to the stage at a mixing board because I used to mix large concerts). Plus, like you said, a distraction from another source can be effective at masking something.

ElwayLite

12-30-06, 01:27 PM

I am 29 and mine is on the bottom of my stand (2 inches off the carpet. It is at the back of the stand and I have it sideways where I am viewing Apricorn Ez-Bus instead of the red light.

With everything off I have to be within 3 feet to even hear the buzz.

Maybe the guys with loud fans could just pull the fan and get a quiet fan of the same size from a computer website. When I built my gaming computer and added xtra fans thats what I did. I had 4 cooling fans and still wanted to be able to hear the game.

archiguy

12-30-06, 02:39 PM

IMaybe the guys with loud fans could just pull the fan and get a quiet fan of the same size from a computer website. When I built my gaming computer and added xtra fans thats what I did. I had 4 cooling fans and still wanted to be able to hear the game.

We've discussed this point before a few pages back. The Apricorn fan is custom designed to fit the case (and a very clever design it is, no doubt). No other substitute is possible.

ElwayLite

12-30-06, 05:22 PM

We've discussed this point before a few pages back. The Apricorn fan is custom designed to fit the case (and a very clever design it is, no doubt). No other substitute is possible.

Ah,

Missed that one. That stinks.

mfjv

12-30-06, 06:04 PM

Newbie needs help with brand new HD8300 (from cablevision Yorktown, NY) and a Seagate 500G eSATA.

I'd like to get into the 8300's DIAG screens but do not know how to do so. Can someone get me started? tks..mfjv

ElwayLite

12-30-06, 06:08 PM

I can't remember off hand, there are is a button combo to push on the DVR. Do a search on this site for 8300 diagnostic and you'll find it.

mauiguy99

12-30-06, 06:18 PM

When installing a brand new drive to work as an external drive on the 8300 should I let the 8300 format it or should I first format it on my computer. is there anything I should do to the drive before i connect it to the 8300?

Manatus

12-30-06, 06:21 PM

No and no. But you should do at least a little reading in this thread, where your questions have been answered numerous times already.

mfjv

12-30-06, 06:31 PM

Thank you! I went to 8300 HD Tips & Techniques and searched diagnostics. I found the following post if anyone else needs it.. mfjv

Quote:
Originally Posted by bippy_b
Does anyone know what QAM channels the digital music is on.

I am a subscriber to the digital plan...
What STB do you have? If it's an SA8000(HD) or 8300(HD), then you can access the diagnostic menus to get the QAM freqs.

With the box either on or off, press and hold the front-panel "Select" button until the envelope icon blinks on the front display. Release the "Select" button, and press the "Info" button to enable the diagnostic screens. From here, use the front-panel Vol +/- buttons to flip through the pages. You'll want page 5 to see what QAM freq corresponds to a channel.

You can use either the front-panel Ch +/- buttons to move up and down through the channel list, or tune directly to channels of interest using your remote.

I don't know if it's the same across town, but in my neighborhood, the music channels all appear to be on QAM freq 711 MHz.

Jim
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pepar

12-30-06, 06:34 PM

mfjv

12-30-06, 06:39 PM

Manatus

12-30-06, 06:47 PM

Manatus, That's all it takes to answer a question. Telling someone to parse through 128 webpages of 12 printed pages per webpage is foolish and selfish if you know the answer.

Selfish? Selfish is when someone with a post-count of 1, like you, parachutes into a room and asks a question the answer to which he could learn for himself in under 5 minutes without asking strangers to do his work for him.

pepar

12-30-06, 07:00 PM

Mauiugy99,

I just bought a new eSATA drive, I attached it with the cable box off, powered up the cable box, when prompted to format it, I said yes. Then I powered off the cable box and re-powered it on. It appears happy, happy. My reading of this ridiculously long subject thread is that you cannot attach the eSATA to your PC to extract data/files for any useful purpose - returning the drive to the STB (Set Top Box) may cause the drive to be unrecognized and be reformatted by the STB.

Manatus, That's all it takes to answer a question. Telling someone to parse through 128 webpages of 12 printed pages per webpage is foolish and selfish if you know the answer. Parsing through over 500+ printed pages takes time and should be avoided by answering simple questions. Else start a tips and techniques thread for installing an eSATA and leave it contained and small in size.
Dropping in on a forum thread - ANY forum thread - and asking a question that has been answered within the last few pages is improper forum etiquette. In large part, that's exactly how this thread got to be so "ridiculously long." Many threads that are more or less permanent have a first post that is continuously updated by the original poster to reflect the current wisdom. That requires a certain level of devotion to the thread and time. And it usually contains links to other helpful posts/threads. These linked sources also require time and energy by the member responsible for it. This is done to HELP members.

And now this thread is two more posts longer than it should be - one from you complaining about the thread length and how we didn't give the answer immediately, and one from me 'splaining proper forum etiquette.

And so it goes . . .

mfjv

12-30-06, 07:06 PM

mfjv

12-30-06, 07:13 PM

Dropping in on a forum thread - ANY forum thread - and asking a question that has been answered within the last few pages is improper forum etiquette. In large part, that's exactly how this thread got to be so "ridiculously long." Many threads that are more or less permanent have a first post that is continuously updated by the original poster to reflect the current wisdom. That requires a certain level of devotion to the thread and time. And it usually contains links to other helpful posts/threads. These linked sources also require time and energy by the member responsible for it. This is done to HELP members.

And now this thread is two more posts longer than it should be - one from you complaining about the thread length and how we didn't give you the answer to your question immediately, and one from me 'splaining to you proper forum etiquette.

And so it goes . . .

The forum is huge because the thread contains multiple subjects ranging from different equipment types, to firewire, to SATA, to diagnostics and to references on copy protection. Sounds like this threaded needed to be split off long ago. Then and only then will newbie and oldies find what they need in an efficient manner.

BTW... I was not complaining about MY QUESTION not being answered. I was refering to another member's question not being answered. So proper forum etiquette would be to read what was read first and then respond. Shooting first and taking aim later doesn't usually hit the target.. mfjv

pepar

12-30-06, 11:20 PM

Alas, new criteria to establish question worthiness direct from the far side of the Village. I suppose you never had a first post?!?! Try looking at your own in 1994.

You could have just as easily answered the mauiguy99's question rather than telling to go do it himself if you knew the answer. So was it ignorance or selfishness that prompted you not to respond with his answer?
You don't believe me, or you prefer to remain ignorant of the way that forums work? I was explaining the proper procedure for getting help. If you read #7 of the AVS Forum Ten Commandments in the Forum Rules - you did read the Forum Rules, didn't you? - you will find that you are free to ask any question "after checking the FAQ first." In this thread, as in many, many others, that is the first post.

And just in case you haven't read the Forum Rules, here's #3 of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt remember that polite queries will elicit polite and helpful responses, likewise, that ranting and raving, bashing, and insults will prompt commensurate responses. Ye shall reap what ye sow."

mfjv

12-31-06, 01:06 AM

You don't believe me, or you prefer to remain ignorant of the way that forums work? I was explaining the proper procedure for getting help. If you read #7 of the AVS Forum Ten Commandments in the Forum Rules - you did read the Forum Rules, didn't you? - you will find that you are free to ask any question "after checking the FAQ first." In this thread, as in many, many others, that is the first post.

And just in case you haven't read the Forum Rules, here's #3 of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt remember that polite queries will elicit polite and helpful responses, likewise, that ranting and raving, bashing, and insults will prompt commensurate responses. Ye shall reap what ye sow."

I certainly don't believe you. You're certainly entitled to believe and say what you like, but it's rather evident that you lack the ability to address facts.

I've been posting on bulletin boards and newgroups well before there were forums, .ca 1971. The rules of engagement have not really changed since then. So stop trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs!

Why don't we stick to the facts of the discussion and leave it at that:

1. I have followed the rules - I've read the last 1/4 and the first 1/2 of this entire forum the past two days. I've not seen reference to getting into Diagnostic mode on SA 8300 HD.
2. I've entered a search on FAQ for 8300 Diagnostic and 8300 Diag, neither search produced a 'hit' - I believe state that I may submit any question I want at that point and I did.
3. ElwayLite provided me a pointer and I pursued it to obtain my answer for which I was quite grateful. I even posted the answer for others to see.
4. Manatus tell MauiGuy99 to go read the forum. Unless Mauiguy99 has told Manatus directly that he hasn't, there really isn't any way for Manatus to say whether or not MauiGuy99 has truly looked up anything. Be that as it may, Manatus still took the time and effort to tell MauiGuy99 to "... at least do some reading..." Why not just give the answer if you're so well informed? Clearly the answer should have been known to him as he is a Senior member.
5. As for you, you haven't even noticed that I was reprimanding Manatus for not helping MauiGuy99. My reprimand had NOTHING to do with MY POST for it had already been answered. But all the while, you were fixated on teaching others on the etiquette and rules - again, not knowing at all what time and effort I had already put into researching this forum. Just because the answer may be somewhere in this forum, doesn't mean it is readily found.
6. As for this forums size, I stated earlier that it's become unwieldy due to the broad subject content - pruning is necessary as well as division of subject so folks can efficiently and easily find answers to their questions.

That's my view, I've not insulted anyone, I'm simply responding to the less than positive responses and applauding those who have offered assistance. For your own education I'll offer quotation of some of the rules you've failed to quote which are equally applicable to this discusison - I don't see your adherence to them on your part - here's a refresher for you!.. mfjv

7. Thou shalt remember that we love to help out, so please don't be shy and feel free to ask any question (after checking the FAQ first), regardless of how silly you may feel asking it, and we'll be happy to help. If you don't understand the FAQ information, let us know, and we'll be happy to clarify any confusion you may have. (If an FAQ is available for your topic area.)

8. Thou shalt remember to post and let us know if your problem has been resolved, or if you are having any further difficulties.

9. For newbies, Thou shalt post and let us know how everything is going with your new equipment, how you like it, and whether you're having any problems or don't understand all the functions.

ElwayLite

12-31-06, 08:21 AM

Dude, you should have used search, get over it and lets get BACK ON TOPIC.

pepar

12-31-06, 10:43 AM

I can't remember off hand, there are is a button combo to push on the DVR. Do a search on this site for 8300 diagnostic and you'll find it.
No and no. But you should do at least a little reading in this thread, where your questions have been answered numerous times already.
Manatus' reply to mauiguy99 was not materially different from ElwayLite's to you, but yet -
Manatus, That's all it takes to answer a question. Telling someone to parse through 128 webpages of 12 printed pages per webpage is foolish and selfish if you know the answer. Parsing through over 500+ printed pages takes time and should be avoided by answering simple questions.
That's my view, I've not insulted anyone . . it's rather evident that you lack the ability to address facts . . I've been posting on bulletin boards and newgroups well before there were forums, .ca 1971. The rules of engagement have not really changed since then. So stop trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs!
You're out of line with your personal attacks, grandma. Or is this how they did it "well before there were forums?" :rolleyes:

ElwayLite

12-31-06, 10:53 AM

DoubleDAZ

12-31-06, 11:53 AM

Once again, lets start talking about DVR's. We've all seen it done, not reading the first post and not using search is something everyone that uses a forum is guilty of at least once.

That being said, the point has been made, going under the "i have to get the last word in" mentality is going to drag this out even more. 2 days from now will anyone remember this? NOPE.

Also, does attacking back against someone (grandma?) for using a supposed personal attack make things better or worse. Worse IMHO.

This is a very helpful thread, lets get back to business.

Here's my question for the new year. How long do you think it'll be before we see a new DVR from SA or do you think the 8300 has plenty of leg left. I read a good article the other day on the new SA DVR that has the DVD burner.Searching this forum just plain sucks. Every time someone is told to search, I try some obvious search terms and rarely get an answer. In most cases I get a laundry list of posts almost as long as the thread itself. :)

In this case, I believe the OP should have been directed to the first post in the Tips thread. He eventually found that thread, but didn't read the first post where the answer is clear as a bell. Instead, he did a search (as advised) and eventually found what he needed. I would have done that, but I accidently deleted my subscription to this thread and just caught up. I'm all for suggesting a thread/search, but a link to the correct thread with instructions to read the first post is welcome and most helpful. I don't believe in regurgitating the answer because it wastes space and newbies often learn more by reading all of the first post instead of just the particular answer to their current question.

As a newbie once myself, I know all about First Posts because all the threads I was interested in were new and I read all the posts. As I gained experience, I soon caught on to the virtue of reserving the first post and I wish I had had the foresight to reserve 3-4 posts at the beginning of the threads I started.

As for SA releasing new boxes, I seriously doubt it. As far as I can tell, their current crop of boxes, including the one with DVD, are all 8300 based, even though the moniker may show a different model. I think you might even find that they all go back to the 8000 as many of their internal model numbers are 8000 for the 8000, 8010 for the 8300, etc. The model with the DVD has been on their website for some time now, so it really isn't all that new. I could be wrong, but I thought someone mentioned it had been released in Europe earlier in 2006 and they were wondering if it was going to be released in the US.

IMHO, there is nothing inherently wrong with the current boxes that decent software (both SARA and Passport) wouldn't fix. We'd all love more stable support for larger SATA drives (especially SARA, though Passport could use a trick-play fix), 14 days or more in the IPG, SDV support, on-screen Caller-ID, etc., but AFAIK none of that is hardware dependent. SARA has better internal support (for what cableco's want to deploy in the coming year), but Passport has better consumer support (interface features).

I think once OCAP really arrives we'll see some of this come rather quickly. I think the impending OCAP release has stiffled work on current applications and has led to cableco reluctance to upgrade what they already have, much to the shagrin to some users.

One thing I'd like to see is seamless swapping of SATA drives with database indicators identifying what recordings are on which drive or even better, RAID support.

wayneunit

12-31-06, 07:21 PM

Thanks to all you guys on this thread I got the 500gb Western Digital drive with it's $80 manuf. rebate at my local Micro Center store. They were out of the Apricorn box favored on this thread but the Vantec Nexstar 3 box I got instead seems to work fine even though it doesn't have a fan - it supposedly dissipates it's heat through it's metal enclosure. As of right now, it's been on for at least 6 hours and it's only slightly warm to the touch! The only annoying part of the Vantec box is an exceedingly bright blue LED "power on" light in front. I've already covered it over with electrical tape so it lets out only a small amount of the light. The Vantec box comes with the proper eSATA - eSATA cable inside and installation was simple - no jumpers, software, etc. to install.

Anyway, I've had it hooked up for almost two days and I think I've run it through every test mentioned on this thread (with a fully loaded SA 8300HD internal drive) plus I've downloaded and played back a standard definition PPV movie to it - all without a glitch! It's great to be able to quadruple the capacity of my favorite home theatre toy so easily! Easily, that is, thanks to guys on this and similar threads!

BTW - my cable provider is Everest Communications in metro KC, a small but growing cable/phone/internet provider, and right now they're using SARA version 1.88.24.2

xnappo - I've added my results to your useful database. However I somehow entered it twice. Sorry!

P.S. - This is my first post here after several years of lurking . . . never felt I had anything to add! However, I've built my basement home theatre complete with DIY screen plus purchased an Infocus 4805 projector, Denon 2805 receiver, Harmony 676 remote and Lutron Maestro IR lighting control system all after researching them here at the great AVSforum! Thanks to all!

pepar

12-31-06, 08:45 PM

This is my first post here after several years of lurking . . . never felt I had anything to add! However, I've built my basement home theatre complete with DIY screen plus purchased an Infocus 4805 projector, Denon 2805 receiver, Harmony 676 remote and Lutron Maestro IR lighting control system all after researching them here at the great AVSforum! Thanks to all!
CONGRATULATIONS! And thanks for coming forward from the shadows with your experience!

germar

12-31-06, 09:04 PM

Greetings, all....

I'm new to this forum and I've spent a couple of hours reading this thread regarding a problem I'm having with scheduled recordings stopping abruptly.

Please forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, if it has a link would be appreciated.

I have a new Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS and a Kingwin KH-350SE-BK enclosure attached to my 8300HD. Installation was straightforward and without issue.

Material recorded to the outboard drive will sometimes fail, with the listed recording being only a few minutes long. There is no pattern to this intermittant failure, it sometimes happenes when other channels are being viewed or in the middle of the night when the box is powered off. There is no error message associated with the shortened recording, other than the duration timeline is mostly red. The video that does get recorded looks fine, it simply stops long before it was supposed to.

I can isolate the failed recordings exclusively to the external drive...stuff going to the internal drive always seem to finish properly.

Anyone see this issue? Any known conflicts with either this drive or enclosure and the 8300HD? I'm willing to buy another drive/enclosure if that's the best course of action.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Germar
Time Warner Cable, Austin Texas

pepar

01-01-07, 12:49 AM

Riverside_Guy

01-01-07, 09:58 AM

As for SA releasing new boxes, I seriously doubt it. As far as I can tell, their current crop of boxes, including the one with DVD, are all 8300 based, even though the moniker may show a different model. I think you might even find that they all go back to the 8000 as many of their internal model numbers are 8000 for the 8000, 8010 for the 8300, etc. The model with the DVD has been on their website for some time now, so it really isn't all that new. I could be wrong, but I thought someone mentioned it had been released in Europe earlier in 2006 and they were wondering if it was going to be released in the US.

IMHO, there is nothing inherently wrong with the current boxes that decent software (both SARA and Passport) wouldn't fix. We'd all love more stable support for larger SATA drives (especially SARA, though Passport could use a trick-play fix), 14 days or more in the IPG, SDV support, on-screen Caller-ID, etc., but AFAIK none of that is hardware dependent. SARA has better internal support (for what cableco's want to deploy in the coming year), but Passport has better consumer support (interface features).

I think once OCAP really arrives we'll see some of this come rather quickly. I think the impending OCAP release has stiffled work on current applications and has led to cableco reluctance to upgrade what they already have, much to the shagrin to some users.

One thing I'd like to see is seamless swapping of SATA drives with database indicators identifying what recordings are on which drive or even better, RAID support.

Uh, I agree 1000%. Although I suspect you'd agree that the current hardware sure could use some more RAM; then again, the new software COULD be tons better at managing it than the old stuff; however performance will be better with more physical RAM.

For now I'm buying into the theory that once TWC is Mystro/OCAP/Digital Navigator throughout it's system it can dedicate the few good programmers to a single piece of software. BTW, I have a "feeling" that it will be referred to as "Digital Navigator" which while descriptive, doesn't have quite the ring that something like "Maestro" might have.

Riverside_Guy

01-01-07, 10:03 AM

Material recorded to the outboard drive will sometimes fail, with the listed recording being only a few minutes long. There is no pattern to this intermittant failure, it sometimes happenes when other channels are being viewed or in the middle of the night when the box is powered off. There is no error message associated with the shortened recording, other than the duration timeline is mostly red. The video that does get recorded looks fine, it simply stops long before it was supposed to.

I can isolate the failed recordings exclusively to the external drive...stuff going to the internal drive always seem to finish properly.

Anyone see this issue? Any known conflicts with either this drive or enclosure and the 8300HD? I'm willing to buy another drive/enclosure if that's the best course of action.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Germar
Time Warner Cable, Austin Texas

Yes I have seen more than one instance of a "recording" to be of 2-3 minutes in length. I also noticed that the times listed ARE correct. Oh, no external drive. And not horrendously frequent, maybe 2-3 times in 8 months. Happened with the previous 1.8.x release, haven't seen it happen with the current release.

davehancock

01-01-07, 11:30 AM

Here's my question for the new year. How long do you think it'll be before we see a new DVR from SA or do you think the 8300 has plenty of leg left. I read a good article the other day on the new SA DVR that has the DVD burner.The SA DVR that has a DVD burner is the MCP-100. It has been available for at least a year now, but there have been no sightings of it being deployed in the field.

The cable industry has several major issues right now that impact the deployment of DVRs. We need to remember that it is the cable companies who actually buy (invest in) these boxes. So there are budget issues, etc. at play.

Right now, the biggest issue is the FCC ban on integrated security. The FCC long ago mandated that STBs provided by cable not contain integrated security (the "stuff" that keeps everyone from getting HBO for free). The concept was (and still is) that there be downloadable security that could be downloaded to customer supplied equipment (TVs, TiVos, etc.) The CableCard was an early "solution" to this, but the ideal has always be a Downloadable Conditional Access Security system (DCAS). There have been several delays in the implementation on this, but after July 1, 2007 (6 months from TODAY) cable can no longer provide integrated boxes with embedded security! That means our 8300HDs.

A software solution is on it's way - but nowhere ready for 7/07. One immediate solution is the SA8300C and the SA8300HDC. This is the fairly familiar 8300 with a M-Card (Multistream) CableCard slot. The problem with these is higher cost to cable, because an customer will need both the 8300 and an M-Card. With DCAS not too far away, cable sees continued investment in 8300 technology as a "waste". They (cable) have been trying to get additional delays and wavers - but no luck with the FCC so far with the 7/07 date.

Other issues facing cable include the need for greater bandwidth for more HD channels, handling the analog cut off, moves towards IPTV, etc.

SA has referred to some next generation boxes at technical conferences - but no real specs yet. These are the 4500 and 8500 series. The latter is the DVR. Features listed include: High Performance CPU; and H.264 (MPEG-4) Decode (effectively doubles HD space).

My guess (and that's just what it is) is that there will be shortages of 8300s for awhile and that the 8500 series will not start to roll out till DCAS is reality.

ElwayLite

01-01-07, 12:12 PM

Does "no longer provide" mean give out to new customers or does that mean that customers like me (Comcast Charleston Sc) will have to get new boxes by 7-1-07?

The 8300hd is the only box offered here. I moved from Mobile Al in April and we always had the 6412 Moto there.

davehancock

01-01-07, 12:17 PM

The first ("give out to new customers").

xnappo

01-01-07, 12:17 PM

xnappo - I've added my results to your useful database. However I somehow entered it twice. Sorry!

No problem! Congrats and thanks for entering your data.

xnappo

xnappo

01-01-07, 12:22 PM

Greetings, all....

I have a new Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS and a Kingwin KH-350SE-BK enclosure attached to my 8300HD. Installation was straightforward and without issue.
Time Warner Cable, Austin Texas

Hi Germar,

Both Scarlett and I have tried 7200.10s in Austin and have had all kinds of problems. In fact most everyone who has tried one has had issues (see the database in my sig). Have you tried recording two HD programs at once while playing one back? On my setup this caused really bad glitching and eventually lockups.

I believe (based on the database) that the 320GB drives may work a little better than the 400GB drives. However, in general, my advice is to stay away from Seagate 7200.9 and 7200.10 series drives with Sara.

xnappo

ElwayLite

01-01-07, 01:03 PM

The first ("give out to new customers").

So what do you think that means for new customers in July.

davehancock

01-01-07, 02:14 PM

So what do you think that means for new customers in July.
Wait times for 8300s - then 8300Cs (boxes with CableCards). I do not think that cable will charge customers any more for those boxes - unless the raise DVR rates in general.

The reason that I went into that explanation was to shine some light on the desire for next generation boxes.

BTW, there are some variations of the 8300 also out there - ones that have no analog tuner capability.

ElwayLite

01-01-07, 02:21 PM

Thats going to suck to have wait times for something so expected nowadays. Everyone wants a DVR.

davehancock

01-01-07, 02:45 PM

The other thing that may happen (and this is the one that cable is hoping for) is some sort of delay and/or wavers. However, the FCC seems determined to make this deadline stick, but there may be court rulings and/or congressional action that could move out the date (keep in mind that it has been moved several times already). But waiting for these things to happen is the real reason that there could be shortages (cable is not sure what to buy).

germar

01-01-07, 02:54 PM

Happy new Year!

There've been many failures with the Seagate 7200.10 drives with SARA - every version. I don't think any have failed with Passport. Is your box running SARA or Passport, and what version?
Thanks Pepar, Xnappo and all who took the time to reply, much appreciated!

Yes, I'm running SARA 1.88.17.A100 and it looks like there is mounting evidence that the Seagate 7900.10s are problematic. That's exactly the info I needed.

Looks like I'm back to Newegg for a replacement drive.... anyone want to suggest a HD that seems to generally work with this release of SARA? I'm looking for at least 320 gig or larger.

Again, much thanks to all in this forum community!

Germar
Austin, Tx

vegggas

01-01-07, 05:27 PM

Dave Hancock,
Thanks for the informative post shedding some light into the possible STB futures. I've been hearing the same things too, but haven't had the chance to pin anything down. I was waiting to see what SA and Motorola were doing at CES before even mentioning anything online. When that time comes, I'll probably start a generic STB futures thread (like last years MCP-100) for all STB developments.
Like you said, the STB as we know it for cable will undergo radical changes during 2007. The infrastructure technology is currently undergoing a massive overhaul to OCAP compatibility and better bandwidth implemetation. The mandates imposed by the FCC are actually slowing down the overall growth as cable tries to use those imposed band-aid fixes instead of revamping the infrastructure.

stay tuned... 2007 is going to be a whopper

vegggas

xnappo

01-01-07, 05:43 PM

DoubleDAZ

01-01-07, 07:35 PM

BTW, there are some variations of the 8300 also out there - ones that have no analog tuner capability.The one that I know about is badged the SA8240HD. I have a dead one and am waiting for a replacement. It's the same as the 8300, just no analog tuner, and worked fine before it blew up inside, literally.

DoubleDAZ

01-01-07, 07:37 PM

vegggas,

As always, I look forward to your reports during and after CES. I trust you will let us know when you start your thread and provide a link. :)

Scarlett

01-02-07, 02:08 AM

Thanks Pepar, Xnappo and all who took the time to reply, much appreciated!

Yes, I'm running SARA 1.88.17.A100 and it looks like there is mounting evidence that the Seagate 7900.10s are problematic. That's exactly the info I needed.

Looks like I'm back to Newegg for a replacement drive.... anyone want to suggest a HD that seems to generally work with this release of SARA? I'm looking for at least 320 gig or larger.

Again, much thanks to all in this forum community!

Germar
Austin, TxGermar, I think essentially you will have much better luck with an Apricorn enclosure and either a Seagate 7200.8 300GB hard drive or a Maxtor 300GB hard drive--at least with the version of SARA we are running here in Austin. Fry's has a 300GB SATA drive on sale for $74.99 today and tomorrow. That's the one I would try next. I know you said you wanted a 320GB or larger hard drive, but if you want one that performs perfectly, I can almost guarantee the same model 300GB Seagate that I am using in each of my two 8300HDs with Apricorn enclosures. I would at all costs avoid any 7200.9 or 7200.10 Seagates--in spite of the fact that Seagate remains my drive of choice. :)

Good luck, and let us know what you decide and whether it works for you.

Scarlett

ElwayLite

01-02-07, 08:51 AM

pepar

01-02-07, 10:06 AM

Anyone run into this problem:

This morning I checked the capacity of my drives and it gave me 20% for 3.5hours of HD recordings. I knew something was wrong so I pulled the power cord on the 8300 and the external hdd. I then turned power back on to the external hdd and let the 8300 then go throught the boot. After that the DVR said 7%.

It stopped noticing the external for some reason. Any ideas on why?

I cut my dvr off at night and have noticed since I added the external that when it's cut on the next day, there is a delay like a HDD has to spin up. Should I leave the 8300 on?
I'm not completely sure about your terminology, but the 8300HD should be POWERED at all times, even when OFF. The external enclosure/drive should never be turned off. If that was the case when the space discrepancy occurred, then I'd check all connectors from the DRIVE to the 8300HD, including any inside the enclosure, and make sure they are properly seated. There've been some posts indicating that even when connections seem solid, they may not be. The highly technical term "squirrelly" comes to mind.

DoubleDAZ

01-02-07, 10:22 AM

If you turn off the 8300, make sure you don't plug the SATA into the power outlet on the 8300 or at least change the setting to have that outlet always on.

TooManyBytes

01-02-07, 11:04 AM

Hi,

My HD8300 is running Passport 2.5.06. I installed a WD 500 as per the instructions in this thread. The drive was recognized and formatted. However, I can no longer pause and rewind an active show (the buffer shows empty.)

If this has been answrerd before, please forgive and provide a link.

Any solutions or ideas? If I disconnect the drive all is as it should be.

Thanks!

ElwayLite

01-02-07, 11:09 AM

I'm not completely sure about your terminology, but the 8300HD should be POWERED at all times, even when OFF. The external enclosure/drive should never be turned off. If that was the case when the space discrepancy occurred, then I'd check all connectors from the DRIVE to the 8300HD, including any inside the enclosure, and make sure they are properly seated. There've been some posts indicating that even when connections seem solid, they may not be. The highly technical term "squirrelly" comes to mind.

Sorry, what I meant is before bedtime I turn the dvr, tv and receiver off with the "all on" button. The dvr and the external hdd actually keep power. I was wondering if pressing the "power" button on the dvr was the problem.

I turned off the dvr and then the external and checked all connections. Powered everything back up and it's working now so we'll see if it happens again.

DoubleDAZ

01-02-07, 11:32 AM

TooManyBytes,

Asked and answered many time, but in the Passport thread (you should be able to find that easy enough without a link :) ), though it may have been mentioned here once or twice too.

When your 8300 with Passport uses the external drive, you lose what Passport users refer to as "trick play", the ability to rewind a live program. When your external drive begins to fill up and recording reverts back to the internal drive, the trick play features return.

This is just a quirk in the current version of Passport. The workaround is to record everything and then you'll have full use of trick play features while viewing the recordings.

If I've stated anything incorrectly, I'm sure some Passport users will correct it. :)

Riverside_Guy

01-02-07, 11:50 AM

As for the "trick play bug" I've read 2 conflicting things (regarding Passport). That pause and resume do or don't work. Just pause and resume.

As for Dave Hancock's post, I DO have a question. I kinda always thought HBO being available was something they did from the head end. I KNOW the signal is scrambled at the head because a QAM tuner will NOT tune it at all. Am I understanding correctly that you are saying that the "allowing it" happens by them sending a signal to the box, which then allows it?

If so, why would it have been done that way, rather than only from the head end? It just seems to me that the way I thought it might be still seems a better way...

pepar

01-02-07, 12:09 PM

Sorry, what I meant is before bedtime I turn the dvr, tv and receiver off with the "all on" button. The dvr and the external hdd actually keep power. I was wondering if pressing the "power" button on the dvr was the problem.

I turned off the dvr and then the external and checked all connections. Powered everything back up and it's working now so we'll see if it happens again.
You're doing it correctly, whether you physically press the power button or not. I'd suspect squirrelly connections. Is your gear subject to vibrations?

Manatus

01-02-07, 12:10 PM

After I believed that I had resolved the problem that I raised in Post 3392 above (possible damage to a SATA enclosure's circuitry when the drive was turned off while the DVR was powered on), I've now spotted another glitch that I don't believe that I've seen discussed here.

When I placed the SATA drive in a new enclosure, it was recognized by the 8300HD, but even after several cold reboots, programs stored on the external drive before the enclosure accident never reappeared in the DVR's progam list. Then, far sooner than I would have expected, Passport hourglass warnings started appearing beside programs in the list.

I now have 33.58 hours of HD content and 10.5 hours of SD stored on the DVR's 160 GB internal and 320 GB external drives. DIAG now shows:

TOTAL SPACE = 426.2 GB
USED = 402.6 GB
FREE = 23.5 GB

Obviously, the DVR, for whatever reason, is not now able to use a large portion of the external drive's total capacity. I suspect that the inaccessible space is being occupied by the old programs that are still there but no longer able to be listed by the 8300HD and that the only fix is going to be to reformat the external drive and start afresh. If anyone can think of another approach, I'd welcome hearing about it. If a reformat is going to be required, I think that I'm just going to substitute a larger SATA drive and move the current one to a PC.

ElwayLite

01-02-07, 01:18 PM

You're doing it correctly, whether you physically press the power button or not. I'd suspect squirrelly connections. Is your gear subject to vibrations?

No they are not, BUT i just finally stowed all my wires the other day since I have my equipment set the way i like. Could of jiggled a wire while securing them.

TooManyBytes

01-02-07, 01:43 PM

Sorry, the Passport is 2.5.066.

pepar

01-02-07, 03:21 PM

When I placed the SATA drive in a new enclosure, it was recognized by the 8300HD, but even after several cold reboots, programs stored on the external drive before the enclosure accident never reappeared in the DVR's progam list. Then, far sooner than I would have expected, Passport hourglass warnings started appearing beside programs in the list.

Obviously, the DVR, for whatever reason, is not now able to use a large portion of the external drive's total capacity. I suspect that the inaccessible space is being occupied by the old programs that are still there but no longer able to be listed by the 8300HD and that the only fix is going to be to reformat the external drive and start afresh. If anyone can think of another approach, I'd welcome hearing about it. If a reformat is going to be required, I think that I'm just going to substitute a larger SATA drive and move the current one to a PC.
You could attach it to a PC and run utilities to check for bad sectors. Of course, the PC would need to format it first and you would lose whatever is recorded on it. But it sounds like that may not be much of an inconvenience.

pepar

01-02-07, 03:22 PM

No they are not, BUT i just finally stowed all my wires the other day since I have my equipment set the way i like. Could of jiggled a wire while securing them.
If it works properly from now on, then that might have been it.

rlanza1054

01-03-07, 12:39 AM

I would suggest that 100% of your efforts should be on exhausting the hot air, not "bringing in cool air." AND to think of a total system... as in exhaust hot air from all shelves simultaneously. AND for equipment that may be stacked, make sure the one that produces less heat is on the bottom (I understand the need to stack, I have my DVD player below my 8300; it doesn't put out much heat at all AND is only occasionally used). This is an area that I think very, very few ever pay attention to!

Pepar and I have kinda disagreed about the need for a fan on an external drive; while I may be technically correct, when you factor in closed equipment cabinets, which I surmise most have, it might very well be a good idea to have a fan in that external drive. Long ago I got a very nice looking 3 shelf stand with everything wide open, so I already get better flow than most.

Riverside_Guy,

Just wanted to post a quick update on installing fans to my cabinet that I felt was getting to hot, especially taking into consideration my new 500GB external drive.

Since the last note about this project I gave myself, I did purchase a 3 inch hole drill bit. That ran about $25, one part was $12 and the other about $13, at Home Depot. If I had spent more time looking I guess I could have gotten the hole drill bit a lot cheaper.

Anyway, today found the time to work on it and a friend had recommended that I spray water on it as I drilled the hole to prevent from the bit locking up in the wood. I didn't follow his recommendation to the letter but instead just sprayed the bit (and housing) with a 'silicone lubricant'. This worked great and of couse since I was dealing in wood, I think it was a wiser thing to do.

I ended up drilling 6 (3 inch in diameter) holes, 3 on the top shelf and 3 on the bottom shelf. I originally was only going to drill the 3 on top. I decided that maybe someday, I would install some additional fans if it would need it.

The cuts came pretty clean, I thought I was going to end up chopping up the unit and making it look pretty nasty. It came out pretty good.

I had the one fan that I had purchased just for this, it was a standard 3 inch computer fan with a standard computer power connector (the same that you use to supply power to a hard drive or CD writer installed internally).

My brother gave me some old hard drive enclosures (nothing you would use today and hence of no value) and I took the power supply off that which also came with the power connectors. I attached the fan to the inside of the cabinet with two sided tape (I love that stuff, use it for a lot of things) and then for added stability, I applied a small bead of standard silicone (the same stuff you use for bath tub or tile sealent, in clear).

I did attach the fan set to exhaust the air outside the cabinet as you had told me to.

So with just one fan installed, the tempeture is now down 10 degrees, I can absolutely live with it as it is now.

However, since I'm anal, I will probably add a few more of these 3 inch fans just for the heck of it and that I really want them anyway.

Now, I can finally close those glass doors and have the unit look it's best without me freaking out worrying if the heat was going to damage anything.

Thank you for making the suggestions. I guess I should maybe take a picture or two. But nobody would want to see that and it's not part of this topic/thread.

During New Year's, the SI FI channel has done it's usual 'Twilight Zone' marathon. I can't believe it, but I got all of it, thanks to the tips and tricks we learn from this place.

Rob

Riverside_Guy

01-03-07, 02:35 PM

Rob, way glad it's working out for you! Keep in mind that at some point you will hit the point of diminishing returns. Wow, 10 degrees is a fairly significant amount! You may not further reduce it, but one of two additional fans won't hurt.

The pisser is that my current computer is now exactly a year old. Since day 1, I have 2 drives in it (stripped array). One stacked right on top of the other. They run 24/7/365. Being an array, I would tend to get slightly earlier "hints" that trouble was brewing, so far, knock wood, they are running 5 by.

Riverside_Guy

01-03-07, 02:43 PM

I'm trying to figure something out. As we know, Passport has an issue with externally connected drives in correctly dealing with the buffers that supply the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward "live" TV. I am pretty sure that I read more than one post that SIMPLY pausing and them hitting "play" did not work correctly. I remember someone saying when you hit "play" you go not to the buffered content, but back to the "live (real time) program. Recently, someone contradicted that, saying that pause and resume worked correctly. My assumption was not only was there an external drive, but the internal one WAS filled up so everything WAS going to that external drive.

Can anyone confirm that in the case of the external drive being used, pause and resume DO work correctly?

BTW, not trying to dis anyone, I sure as hell have read multiple statements of "fact" that I know to be incorrect; so if one guy says something opposite 2 or 3 others, one can't ALWAYS rely with the 2-3 being correct!!

LL3HD

01-03-07, 02:55 PM

I'm trying to figure something out. As we know, Passport has an issue with externally connected drives in correctly dealing with the buffers that supply the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward "live" TV. I am pretty sure that I read more than one post that SIMPLY pausing and them hitting "play" did not work correctly. I remember someone saying when you hit "play" you go not to the buffered content, but back to the "live (real time) program. Recently, someone contradicted that, saying that pause and resume worked correctly. My assumption was not only was there an external drive, but the internal one WAS filled up so everything WAS going to that external drive.

Can anyone confirm that in the case of the external drive being used, pause and resume DO work correctly?I recall reading everything as you just posted it except for the contradiction part.

From what I recall, to get the live pause and play to work (with Passport) you have to hit record first, hence the term, trick play.

pepar

01-03-07, 02:55 PM

Now, I can finally close those glass doors and have the unit look it's best without me freaking out worrying if the heat was going to damage anything.
...

During New Year's, the SI FI channel has done it's usual 'Twilight Zone' marathon. I can't believe it, but I got all of it, thanks to the tips and tricks we learn from this place.
Glad you're back to enjoying your system and no longer freaking!

pepar

01-03-07, 04:16 PM

I recall reading everything as you just posted it except for the contradiction part.

From what I recall, to get the live pause and play to work (with Passport) you have to hit record first, hence the term, trick play.
FWIW, this feature - without the workaround - has returned to one of my boxes. The external drive is very full, and I'd deleted some of the earliest recorded content (from the internal drive).

Manatus

01-03-07, 04:35 PM

With both 8300HDs on which I'm using external drives under Passport, the PAUSE and RESUME (Play) functions work normally: programs resume at the same spot that they paused, without ever hitting the RECORD button. What doesn't work are REWIND, FAST FORWARD, LIVE and INSTANT REPLAY.

pepar

01-03-07, 04:40 PM

Crowl

01-03-07, 05:36 PM

pepar

01-03-07, 06:17 PM

has anyone gotten this to work with COMCAST in CT. i have the 8300HD through them right now and am wondering if they have done anything to the box to prevent this from working. i want to know before i order a drive.
Please list in your sig file your software - SARA or Passport - and the version of that software.

And what "this" are you referring to?

Crowl

01-03-07, 06:24 PM

Please list in your sig file your software - SARA or Passport - and the version of that software.

And what "this" are you referring to?

sorry, and by "this" i meant the building of an external and use as more DVD space

pepar

01-03-07, 06:26 PM

sorry, and by "this" i meant the building of an external and use as more DVD space
And the software and version? This info is needed to answer most questions you'll have about your 8300HD. :)

Crowl

01-03-07, 06:27 PM

And the software and version? This info is needed to answer most questions you'll have about your 8300HD. :)

that's weird, i put them in my sig, but they aren't showing up

COMCAST
Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR
SARA
OS, Home Server Edition 1.8

DoubleDAZ

01-03-07, 08:59 PM

Your version should be something like 1.88.x.x, OS is not very useful.

pepar

01-03-07, 09:14 PM

Crowl: Go here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=4683407#post4683407) and read "Diagnostics" on how to enter . . diagnostics (doh!) . . where you can find the SARA version (and a whole lot more). :)

Crowl

01-03-07, 11:14 PM

Crowl: Go and read "Diagnostics" on how to enter . . diagnostics (doh!) . . where you can find the SARA version (and a whole lot more). :)

it's 1.88.25.1

pepar

01-03-07, 11:35 PM

it's 1.88.25.1
You're good to go. Like to read? :) DoubleDAZ Summary Post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8559304&&#post8559304) is your next assignment.

DoubleDAZ

01-03-07, 11:59 PM

Well, that's certainly some good reading ;) , but won't answer the original question about SATA working on Comcast in CT. FWIW, I don't believe cableco's do anything specific to disable SATA capability, so there is no reason it won't work. It's just that some combinations don't always work well depending on software/cableco. My guess is that as long as he checks the database referenced in that post, he should be okay. SARA seems to like drives <400G and various models may get finicky as the drive fills up. The real problem with a question like this is there is no hard answer. Even if someone else has a successful combination working, another combination may not work. If you read this thread, there has been a lot of trial and error by folks who use non-working HDDs on their PCs so that all is not lost. YMMV!

pepar

01-04-07, 10:59 AM

Crowl

01-04-07, 11:02 AM

pepar

01-04-07, 11:08 AM

OK, here is what i'm getting for my drive

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

& Enclosure

AZiO ENC311SU41 Aluminum 3.5" eSATA + USB 2.0 External Enclosure - Retail

hopefully it works under my conditions? if anyone know's of any known problems with those items and my setup please let me know.
I am a Passport user and not - apparently - subject to any limitations in size and/or drive manufacturer, but from what I read, you are in the danger zone with any drive over 320GB. Did you read the compatibility chart? That's not to say that it won't work, but most above 320GB have failed. If I were going this route, I would purchase from somewhere with a liberal return policy, or have plan B as adding it to my PC.

Riverside_Guy

01-04-07, 11:11 AM

I recall reading everything as you just posted it except for the contradiction part.

From what I recall, to get the live pause and play to work (with Passport) you have to hit record first, hence the term, trick play.

Hitting the record button is a work-around, not an answer. "Trick play" means you are ONLY dealing with the buffer. It does involve many more button presses to accomplish the basic goal (plus you have to remember to go back into the recorded programs list and delete it).

I though I was clear, it has to do with pause and resume without FF or RW. Several have said you can NOT do that, one has said you can.

Riverside_Guy

01-04-07, 12:00 PM

Half a buffer's better than no buffer at all? :D

When my "trick play" returned, I got the whole package back.

Oh boy, that REALLY throws a monkey wrench into things! Honestly, it wasn't that I disbelieved manatus, but his "it works for pause/resume" did contradict several other posts I had read, so I was only looking to see if it WAS the current condition. Not sure it means anything, but he and I are on totally different head ends.

Coming from you, I'm sure that you made sure that you didn't watch and delete some content from the internal drive and thus got back the functioning; it sure was my impression that this came about because the 8300 was writing it's buffer to the external drive.

Could we have had a fix for this issue without any new version delivered? So I just spent 15 minutes going through the service menus (interesting tidbit, it lists a "CPU type" as usparc, that seems really good news to me!) and the only date information I can find that even vaguely relates to the software is a June date for the application and a May date for the OS.

Riverside_Guy

01-04-07, 12:05 PM

or have plan B as adding it to my PC.

I just wonder how many folks here have gone and installed PCI cards in their machies to access external drives via a SATA/eSATA connection? My guess would be very few.

davehancock

01-04-07, 01:23 PM

I said he was good to go based on the version. But you're right, there's no guarantee. I guess it would be prudent to call the cable company and simply ask.If you call, most cable companies will tell you that they "don't support" external drives - even when it works. "Support" to them means that they will help you with any problems - which no cable company will (or, at least any US cable company that I've heard of). It won't hurt to call, but don't take their "not supported" answer as THE answer.

pepar

01-04-07, 01:36 PM

Oh boy, that REALLY throws a monkey wrench into things! Honestly, it wasn't that I disbelieved manatus, but his "it works for pause/resume" did contradict several other posts I had read, so I was only looking to see if it WAS the current condition. Not sure it means anything, but he and I are on totally different head ends.

Coming from you, I'm sure that you made sure that you didn't watch and delete some content from the internal drive and thus got back the functioning; it sure was my impression that this came about because the 8300 was writing it's buffer to the external drive.

Could we have had a fix for this issue without any new version delivered? So I just spent 15 minutes going through the service menus (interesting tidbit, it lists a "CPU type" as usparc, that seems really good news to me!) and the only date information I can find that even vaguely relates to the software is a June date for the application and a May date for the OS.
I think the working theory was that, as long as newly recorded content was going to the external drive, live VCR functions were broke and that when newly recorded content returned to the internal drive those functions would return as well. My experience lends weight to that theory.

desertdude

01-04-07, 08:14 PM

pepar

01-04-07, 09:10 PM

Got my Seagate eSATA today 500G. I liked it because it also comes with a PCI eSATA card so I can use this drive in my PC in the future should I want to.

Anyway after plugging everything in and rebooting the SA (SARA) , I formatted the drive and off I went!

I will post into on line database when I have had some recordings go onto the external drive.

Thanks to all for the guidance.
Congratulations! Try recording a hi-def show and then watch it noting any glitches while recording TWO hi-def shows. (That's when the "system" is working the hardest.) And then watch each of those noting any glitches. For further - accelerated - testing, record hi-def content on it filling it as quickly as possible. When it's nearly full, repeat the previous test I mentioned. If it's gonna fail, it would do it on one of the tests.

UForgotten

01-05-07, 10:02 AM

Rosewill RX353S enclosure using a Seagate 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB HD w/ 16MB Cache. I added it to the database.
I've noticed some people didn't get it to work. I did, but only after many tries. The first time I tried, it crashed the whole PVR with an ERROR and it counted down from 255 to 0 in binary, it was quite scary. I hard booted it and it came back to life.
Here's the trick to getting this drive to work:
This drive comes in SATA-I mode with a jumper to limit the speed to 1.5 MBps. Remove the jumper, then connect it to your PC and initialize (not format) the drive.
Then you can hard-boot the PVR with the hard drive and it will format, then hard boot again and it recognizes it.

Edit: It worked the first hour or so I used it, but then I started a recording today and the box crashed again. So I've disabled it for now. :mad:

pepar

01-05-07, 10:35 AM

Rosewill RX353S enclosure using a Seagate 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB HD w/ 16MB Cache. I added it to the database.
I've noticed some people didn't get it to work. I did, but only after many tries. The first time I tried, it crashed the whole PVR with an ERROR and it counted down from 255 to 0 in binary, it was quite scary. I hard booted it and it came back to life.
Here's the trick to getting this drive to work:
This drive comes in SATA-I mode with a jumper to limit the speed to 1.5 MBps. Remove the jumper, then connect it to your PC and initialize (not format) the drive.
Then you can hard-boot the PVR with the hard drive and it will format, then hard boot again and it recognizes it. Tested by recording 2 HD programs and playing back a third, no glitches, but we'll see as time goes on.
Glad that worked for you, but as we don't really know why a drive/enclosure combo works fine for some and not at all for another with (seemingly) identical gear, your procedure also may not produce the same results for someone else who's had that combo fail. But again, glad it's working for you!