New York, NY - TWC - Page 54

Yes. Just like the 8000 DVR the 8000HD has two tuners, so you can record two shows at the same time while watching a third pre-recorded show.


On my 720p Samsung DLP, ABC HD looks incredible (if I am outputting 720p from the box - see below) - better than CBS and NBC. Discovery (1080i) looks damn good though.

Given that ABC (and Fox one day) are the only 720p channels that TWC NYC offers, I actually have my SA3250 set to output 1080i only since my TV does a better job scaling the picture of the 1080i channels than the box does (Pass Through is not an option on this box). For 720p channels there are actually two conversions - 1) the STB scales 720p to 1080i; 2) the TV scales 1080i to 720p. Not ideal, and with this setup ABC HD definitely does not look better than CBS and NBC.

Wow, and its only the 3rd Quarter...... I'm hoping we get a confirmed 8000HD TWCNYC sighting before the end of the day so I can go and make the switch. Maybe you'll see me there, I'll be the guy in line with the Pio HD box under his arm with the hugh smile

Please post the report ASAP. Active DVI would be great.

Drew

I have it!

First impressions:

1. It is Passport sw like we thought
2. The guide and info bar are just 4x3 unlike the Pio 3510.
3. The pip is 4x3 as well and actually stretches and distorts HD if it is in the pip window.
4. The rep told me it has a 160GB hard drive. I don't know how to check it. I have set up about 10 hours of recording already! - including Attack of The Clones on at 8 on HBO - great show off movie.
5. The sw seems exactly the same as the 8000. You can set up first-run only and all that other stuff.
6. Overall , I am extremely happy. I have been waiting for this day for a year now. To top it off, my new speakers arrived today as well - Rocket Tykes.

Congrats dkan -

160gb is consistent w/ the 20 hours of HD capacity I was quoted over the phone.

Does DVI work?

Can you output S-Video and Component (or DVI) simulteaneously?

Have you tried the DVI port?

And the status of the DVI port?

Talking to a technician at TWC-NYC now. According to his supervisor, the dvi port is indeed active on the SA800HD. I'm skeptical, but I'm going to take what he says as the truth (risky). I've double-checked with him, too, but this is the claim. I currently have both an s-video and a dvi hook up with my pioneer 3510hd, and use the s-video for basic cable channels and the dvi for hd channels, switching with the input selector on my television.

I am arranging an in-home install -- if the technician hooks up the new SA800HD box and the DVI is inactive -- or the simultaneous s-video/dvi ports cannot be hooked up at the same time, I'll tell him nevermind.

- walkman

UNBELIEVABLE!!! I'm tempted to skip out from work right now to go home, grab my box and head down to 23rd street...

Dkan, you just walked in there and there were no problems?

Wow - good to hear. I remember reading a while back that TWC NYC would officially support DVI on all of its boxes once the HD DVR was released. Of course we thought that would be december.

If the S-Vid and DVI work at the same time I'll be one happy camper. If not then this box will not be an effective replacement of the two boxes I currently have.

I can't test the DVI - my Panny projector does not have HDCP

The s-video does not work. I set it up for all output formats, and all I get is a gray screen on s-vid.

The box is a lot faster than my 8000. But my sister has an 8000 that was always a lot faster than mine, so maybe I just had a really slow one.

Another thing - I did not see a 1394 output on it. Looks like I'll be requesting a new box in a year!

Walked in and was out in an hour. My hands were shaking, I was so nervous/excited! I have been waiting for this day for a year now!

Is there an easy way to switch the output format in the main Settings menu (without going to "More Settings"). I believe if you flip it to 480i only, then S-Video will work.

Why do I get the feeling that the line at 6pm is going to be way longer than an hour long

Walked in one hour ago to get my 8000HD and the wait was 1 hour. However, it seemed most of the people were there for other reasons. I asked the rep how many HD DVRs they had and she said plenty.

Hooked it up at home and seems to work great. Recorded an HD show and playback was quite impressive. I am using component connections and have yet to try DVI or the svid. However, why would you want to hook it up through svid when you can just use component for everything. I think the picture looks quite good through it - although dvi could be that much better...

Ill post more as i use it....

Friday 2-6pm Aug 27 appointment for me. $25 installation. Works for me. I merely don't want to have to give up anything -- the DVI and the simultaneous S-Video/DVI output, but the karma here would indicate that a trade-off is not unlikely. I will continue to track this thread and see what others who physically have this box say (and surely hope that it's positive!).

User's Guide, FYI (which does show a firewire port):

SA8000HD User's Guide

- walkman

Note that this guide - just like all of the SA guides out there - is for SARA software. Our boxes have Passport. So on pg. 9 at the bottom, where it describes how to choose the screen type, this will most likely not work.

For the 8000HD, can you get passthru via component out?

Also, is the TVGuide faster on the 8000HD. The guide is slow as hell on my Pioneer 3510 and I find it very painful to use. I usually wind up using the guide on my tivo. Any tivo owners out there? I find that the tivo software is by far, much better than the TW software. I really wish tivo would make a standalone HDTivo.

The guide on the SA3250 is significantly faster than the Pioneer 3510 - esp. on HD channels. It doesn't fill the whole screen on HD channels (just a 4:3 screen) and it appears that the 8000HD does the same thing.

Wow, it looks like my initial 8000 HD post set off a firestorm. Glad to hear that the CS rep was right. Turns out that the tech who came today thought it wasn't going to be out for a couple months (just had a meeting last week saying that). Does anyone know if folks living in Brooklyn or Queens can exchange their box at 23rd St.? I seem to recall having some trouble last time I did it because I was told I was on a different "head" or something like that. Will the SA 8000HD I pick up at 23rd St. work in Brooklyn?

dpc

Great news. Not that I care at this point; but has anyone a clue what the additional fee for the HD-DVR is? I think the SD-DVR is about 8.95 a month? See you there tonight in line!

Drew

$8.95 per month on top of whatever fees you are currenlty paying for whatever STB is correct. I inquired when making my appt. $25 installation on top of that for the lazy one's (or the one's who do not have that kinda time).

Any real confirmation yet on the activation of the DVI port?

Oh, dhy8386: I use svid and dvi because I find that the svid connection for the regular shows is better than the dvi connection, but of course, the dvi connection is better than the svid connection for hd shows. Or, perhaps I would have to make major adjustments in contrast, color, etc. hopping from regular & hd shows between the dvi input. Either way, that is why I use both svid and dvi connections, and not only 1 connection for all channels. If on the other hand, the SA8000HD component connections are as good as dvi for hd channels, and also as good as svid for regular channels, then I would do that, too (although the way my tv is currently connected, I really don't want to have to move the wall unit againt to get to the back of the tv -- I thought I was done with that!).

- walkman

The people at TWCNYC (phone) tell me that you need a work order before you can go to the location. Unfortunately, currently their systems give them an error message if they put in the request. Any insights?

Michael: Interesting. The woman this morning told me that while she couldn't create a work order for me, I *should* just go in with my HD box to replace. What's the story here? I don't want to wait in line in the morning and show up late for work for no reason at all.

Same for me as well. Although I was going to pick it up, the rep was going to make the changes on the computer and give me a confirmation code. But the computer was down.

I used s-vid through my PC as a scaler for SD. It looked a lot better than component on my Pio 3150. I will report back on how SD looks through component after I watch it a little more.

for everyone with time warner nyc , i have the sa 3250hd box so why can`t you people out there get one ? also i talked to the vp of programming for time warner reguarding the future of additional hd programming and what i got from was that there won`t be any future channels in the near future including espn which he says was in possible carraige agreement but talked about a bandwidth problem which i know nothing about so in total we get nothing coming , crapy hd boxs , and another large rate increase again most likely within 3-4 months , do i sound pissed ???????? my opinion we got about another 4-5 years before we have say 15-20 hd channels but right now we discovery to look forward to (WWWWWOOOOO) ej - out

Just put in my order. Will probably pick up the SA HD DVR box sometime tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed with respect to the DVI port!

Rock: So are the computers back up? You got a work order?

TWC never ceases to amaze.

Well the good news is you don't need a work order to go pick up an HD DVR. The bad news is they are out of stock and my work order was completely useless.

After waiting for the better part of an hour (took off work early so I would get there in plenty of time) I find out they are out of HD DVRs. I told the woman I had a confirmation # that was supposed to "guarantee" me one - at least that is what I was told on the phone.

She said - the people on the phone have no idea what kind of stock the offices carry and the confirmation # means nothing. Brilliant.

She also had no idea when they would get more in. Supposedly they only had 15 today.

Pretty pissed to say that least that I wasted my afternoon dealing with this crap.

I felt like I was in that seinfeld episode where he is trying to rent a car and they don't have one for him - "you guys are really good at taking the reservation, just not keeping the reservation - and that really is the most important part".

Eric: Thanks for saving my morning. No inventory control, I guess. Great. So I guess the rest of us just wait for the system to be...working...