Hello everyone. I am brand new to the forum. I have been searching this forum for a few days and see that this box has been discussed to death. I could not seem to find an answer to my problem in the threads that exist.

I have just joined the Time Warner cable company (I used to live in a Cablevision area)

I have a Panasonic Plasma 42PX60U that I bought around a year ago. I had an 8300HD box through cablevision, running off an HDMI cable. I could easily set the box to 1080i only, and let the tv do all the work with the signal. Smooth and fast.

That all ended with time warner and the 8300HDC. Let me start by saying this tv has 4 inputs for HD, 2 component (which are filled) and two HDMI ports, one which has my 8300HDC plugged into it.

The problem is that with this 8300hdc and this "mystro" software, i cant seem to get the box to stick to my one selected resolution, 1080i. It simply disreguards that I selected 1080i only, and randomly changes the resolution (i assume to the default for the channel) all the time. So if im flipping from say a 1080i channel, like Discovery HD Theatre, and then over to ABC, it switches from 1080i, to 720p, and does the digital handshake. So i wait like 5-8 seconds for the channel change to complete. This is not acceptable.

With my cablevision box, i could fix a resolution, say 1080i, and the box would STAY there, making channel changes clean and smooth.

I do however have full control of the 8300HDC when using component cables, but i simply dont have a component input open on my tv, cause they have other devices in them. For some reason, when using HDMI, the 8300HDC simply disreguards the resolution selections I make in the display menu.

In short my question is;

How can I get the 8300HDC to stay fixed on the HD res. that I choose in the menu when using HDMI?

In addition to my own post, I'm not truly sure whats the best bet. Am I better off having my box set the native res for each station?

I was under the impression that setting the box to the highest res possible, and letting the tv scale it down (i have 720p) would provide best results.

I have the same problem with a Samsung 5084. Its driving me nuts.

HDTV: Samsung 4661
HD-DVR: SA 8300HDC from TWC in Raleigh, NC. It runs mystro.

I have the same problem using HDMI but I DO have open component inputs on my HDTV. Should I connect the 8300hdc using component instead of HDMI?

Another issue which may be related is ABC Nightly News on ABCHD is displayed in 14:3 while Jeopardy on the same channel is 1080i 16:9 and looks amazing. I would think ABC Nightly News would be the same. Why does it do that? I can't believe ABC Nightly News is not HD.

Also I want to hookup the 8300hdc to my receiver which accepts optical audio. The cable I've had for a long time does not seem to fit. Does the 8300hdc have a "mini" optical output requiring me to purchase a converter? Also, can the 8300 send the output to both optical and hdmi outputs at the same time?