Just got a SA 8300HDC box from my cable co (brighthouse, birmingham, al). overall i find the interface clunky compared to my old DVR (don't remember brand, through cox in new orleans). my biggest complaint is that i can't seem to pause TV, jump to another station, and then return to the paused station--it always starts playing again as soon as i leave the paused station. even if i record one of the programs (which i don't want to do), i have to stop the playback, change stations, then go back to the menu and select "resume playback". even then, i can't get it right. and it's really a PITA. am i missing something, or is that just the box? sounds stupid, but this is kind of a dealbreaker for me during football season. i like to pause, go to the other game during commercials/halftime, etc, then return when the 2nd game hits a commercial/halftime.

btw, on the old box, you could choose whether hitting the "jump" button switched between the 2 tuners, or just switched channels on 1 tuner. i can't figure out how to do this on the 8300hdc, or if that's my problem.

If you are recording the show, watch it on ch. 800 and the pause will remain during channel surfing. Go back to ch.800 to resume. If recording isn't desired, the best way to accomplish that is to use the PIP feature.
Pause your show.
PIP
Find your other show
SWAP
However, I think if you close the Paused PIP and reopen it to swap back, you will again be reverted back to live. Just don't close the PIP and you should be fine.

thanks for the tips, but neither seems to work. hitting channel 800 yields "???", and as far as pip, as soon as i hit swap, the original paused program starts playing. this sucks. what a pos.

I just got the 8300HD and it's not user friendly AT ALL.

Who designed this POS?

I usually have a lot of things recorded or scheduled so I liked the PiP feature with my old box. I could pause one channel have it in the corner of the screen and watch another until commercial then hit swap unpause and repeat. Not with this dud.