SA 8000HD & 8300HD w/ Passport software (TWC) - Page 16

This is great stuff. Where did you get these numbers? How can I get these stats for TWC in NYC? Sorry if you've posted this before.

Nope. Not yet. The new SA8300HD-DVR has two firewire ports but they aren't active at this time.

I discussed this and refined my method for finding these numbers in a thread entitled "Some rough content bitrates derived from cable DVR filesizes". Actually, the discussion started far back in this thread and I split it off.

My experiment continues---my methods have become extremely streamlined. I always have my PDA in the living room anyway (I read e-books on it and play games), so I keep an intermediate data file in it, as a comma-separated list of values: network, duration in minutes, size in gigabytes, date, time, program name. At the bottom of this file, I keep blank templates for the series that I watch regularly, with their networks, times and name already filled in and I change the month on all the templates every month. To make a new entry I just copy a template to the top of the list and change the date and filesize (and occasionally the time). It's a little more work for movies, but I have partial templates for the movie channels as well.

Every few days I sync the PDA with my PC and merge the completed entries in the list with a cumulative list in a text file. I use a Unix sort utility in Cygwin to sort it by the network, program, date and time fields (in that order), for my own convenience. I have a Excel spreadsheet linked to this comma-separated file which updates itself to the list automatically when I open it (or on request, if I update the list while the spreadsheet is open). In the spreadsheet, I have a table to calculate simple statistics for each of the networks, and a table with stats for each of the television series that I watch (and some that I just record for the data, like 24).

I would love it if other interested people in other cities would log some data like this so that I'd have something to compare against. If you're interested, you're more than welcome to any of my material and my Excel spreadsheet.
I believe that the DVR holds a portion of the disk out of its reported "free file system" space which it uses for these buffers. I think that the maximum length of the trick-play buffer is not an absolute number of minutes, but a filesize--it will be half as long on HDNet as on Fox HD. Mine also seems to stop buffering the second channel if I don't use 2 channels for a while, as you suggest. If I hit the "Swap" button then, I'm on channel 2 (QVC or something like that), with no accumulated buffer. It always has the last channel either recorded or viewed buffered. Mine is always "on", by force of habit, since TiVo needed my old box to always be "on". There's been discussion here, though, that it doesn't stop buffering just you put it into standby mode.

yes it can be stretched... if you are on a hd channel and are getting the side bars it can be streched. i bitched and bitched about this for a week trying to figure it out.

i have to turn the dvr off and then on while on the hd channel in question and then the option to strech will work after it is turned back on.

I posted a couple of days ago about some of the difficulties that I was having with the SA8000HD DVR. I finally took it back to TWC and got a Pioneer Voyager BD-V3510HD. The 3510HD isn't a DVR but at least it works with my equipment. I guess that I will be waiting patiently for a version of the SA8000HD that supports 480i in addition to the HD modes. Until then, its the VCR for me. One question I do have is regarding the SA8300HD DVR. Does it support SD on component out or only on S-Video?

Before i got my SA8000HD i had my regular SA8000 next to my 3510HD. Ever consider using two units to get the best of both worlds? I'm now using an SA8000 and SA8000HD side by side and it's working out great.

Randy, that's actually a pretty good idea. I've thought of it, but wasn't sure if it was practical. Not to mention that I asked TWC if I could get an extra box and they told me they would have to treat it as "adding a set" and would need to come to my house, "install it", and charge me $30.

How do you have it set up? Do you have the signals on an A/B splitter to your set? Or are you sending both through an A/V Receiver? Any degradation in quality?

And lastly, for everyone, which way do you view SD broadcasts on your HD set? Do you Zoom? Stretch? Or watch with the bars? What looks best?

Regarding zoom vs. stretch vs. sidebars: I do not like stretch, it looks 'funny' to me, so I do not use stretch. I generally use sidebars unless the SD show is also letterboxed, then I use zoom and get a decent full-screen picture.

-barry

Has anyone seen the following in the Guide on the 8000HD?

A show will be highlighted in black and a logo like the no smoking sign with the letters REC shows up. I'm not recording anything right now and it is showing up on the 7:30 - 8:30PM showing of "Hey Rookie" on ESPN. I'm on TWC in NYC.

I have a good cable-company-supplied 3-way splitter behind the TV. From the splitter i send the signal to the TV antenna input and to both DVRs. The regular SA8000 is connected to a Video input and the SA8000HD is connected via component. I had the 3510HD connected the same way before i swapped it out for the SA8000HD. Both boxes use the same remote frequencies so i get around it by having one unit turned on while the other is turned off. To swap from one to the other i simply hit the POWER button on the remote and the on one turns off and the off one turns on. Then i change to the corresponding input on my TV. Works great ! Apparently having the SA8000 turned off merely disables the output jacks and has no effect on recordings. I can turn it on and off while recording a show and it doesn't miss a beat and the buffer remains intact. I've been running things this way for several months now.

At first my cable company rep insisted it's not possible to use a DVR and HD converter together on the same TV but i explained to her how my HDTV has several inputs and i could actually connect 4 converters if i wanted to. Then they tried to bill me for "additional TV" but i argued that i have only one TV and to waive the additional TV charge and after labored discussion they agreed and took it off my bill and credited me back (this is when i first added the 3510HD to my existing SA8000).

My cable company has a local office and lets us pick up our SA8000s and 3510HD converters over the counter, but when the SA8000HD was first released they had to be installed by a tech but didn't charge for the house call. The guy came out and couldn't figure out how the heck i was running two boxes side by side so i gave him a demonstration and he got a kick out of it. He was actually pretty knowledgeable but had no idea such a method was possible and was delighted with my setup. He said he was going to use the idea for subsequent installs for customers that didn't want to give up their existing equipment.

My TV has RCA Audio Out jacks so i send all my audio to my HT reciever through this one connection. I have the TV's audio set to Variable Out and turned the internal speakers off so all my sound goes through my reciever. All video sources are connected directly to the TV's various rear inputs, no video goes through my reciever.

It means that the program was scheduled to be recorded, but didn't record. Usually it's because two other programs are being recorded at the same time or overlapping times.

-barry

barry,

I don't think thats possible. I don't record that show and I was only recording 60 Minutes near that time. I think something is fishy...

I've had the "no smoking" sign on a few shows as well. Every time it was the only scheduled recording at that time.

I simply re-selected the program and requested it to be recorded. Fortunately, I've caught every incident and each time the 2nd request actually recorded the show.

Something is fishy - and of course the good people at TWC-NYC have no answer except to say "We'll send a tech out to investigate". Please... spare me!

I've only had it happen to me when it was supposed to happen. Sometimes you can get fooled by shows like "Lost" that actually run from 8:00 to 9:01 (or even 9:03 like tonight). You can only discover this by checking the on screen Guide. Newspapers or internet guides usually just show it as 8:00 - 9:00. If you record "Lost", like I do, and then schedule it to record two shows in the 9-10 time slot, that creates a conflict.

DJ Frustration: if you really didn't record the show with the "Not Recorded" logo, then something is fishy. Is it possible that you had a scheduled recording that you forgot?

-barry

Two points that show that something really is fishy...

#1 - Who has even heard of "Hey Rookie?"
#2 - If there was a conflict in recording, wouldn't every show in the guide that ran an hour long be highlighted as not recordable?

#! - Maybe you told it to record from, say, 8:00-9:00 every Tuesday night, and the braodcast later changed so that Hey Rookie was in that slot. Or, maybe you were trying to set up a scheduled recording of the show one channel above (or below) "Hey Rookie" and you mis-clicked. Possible?

#2 - No. The "Not Recording" symbol means that you have scheduled that show/channel to be recorded and the box is not following your orders. It only does this when some of you repeating recordings conflict with each other.

-barry

With the SA8000HD and 2 channels available (whether PIP or recording), is the signal strength for each then "split" or shared as if you actually had a splitter feeding 2 processes? Could this account for greater pixelation when recording while watching another?

I frequently set one channel to on-demand or something not recording when watching HD to improve quality, and notice significant improvement (reduced artifacts). Not happy about it, but trying to understand whats happening.

Can this be determined using the service menu (Channel 999)? How do I interpret the rf, db, etc. content displayed? (Not experienced in that area).

Thx!

Who knows what this unit's problem is with chasing play, "but it's been my experience that that's when the greatest number of sound and picture break-up attributable to the DVR occur. It's like it doesn't like you looking over its shoulder while its at work . Because of this, I rarely if ever try to watch something that's currently being recorded and just wait for the recording to end. I can watch something previously recored or, if one of the tuners is free, tune to something else in the meantime. Or go away and do something else until the recording is done..

This seems to work for me. I just know that I rarely if ever have any problems with gross defect while watching finished recording.

I personally "chase play" all the time. I start watching most shows 15 minutes after they start. It's the best way to eliminate commercial time.
I've never had a problem.

DJ frustration,

Fishy, too funny, never heard of that show either.

I've had that circle with the slash- the big NO REC. - many times. I've seen it with shows that I was trying to record and with shows that I didn't intend to record, as in your example. I deduced, regarding the shows I was trying to record, the reason I got the "no rec. circle" was because, I was scheduling the recording through the title search, not the programming guide and the show was not yet listed in the programming guide. If I tried to find this future recording on the programming guide, it was beyond the guides memorythe "no data" sign appeared.
Maybe this is why?? "How da hell do I know Connie!?"

Regarding the strange unselected recordings, what Barry was saying seems logical.


Larry

Still no DVI on here, guys???

Different people have different results, and it's not consistent. I take my chances sometimes, but I'm usually not that anxious to see what's recording that I can't wait for it to finish (watching a finished recording is a really good way to avoid the ads, too ), and as I said, there's almost always something waiting to be watched. YMMV.

Some people have seen a serious problem with chasing playback of a long program that's far into recording, like a football game after the first hour. If you hit play on the menu's entry, it'll start half an hour in and looking at the progress bar, it alarmingly looks as though the first half hour isn't even there. After it's done recording, everything fine--you got the whole thing. It's strange. I've tried this sometimes with a movie and not had the problem, but I seriously think that that had to do with the low encoding bitrate of movies on HBO and Showtime HD. If the average bitrate of the program you're watching is 10 Mbps, your trick-play buffer will probably be nearly an hour long; if it's 17 Mbps, it might not be 30 minutes. I think that chasing playback on these units doesn't play from the stored file--it tries to play from the trick-play buffer instead.

I do the exact same thing on both my DVRs (SA8000 and SA8000HD) pretty much every evening and have never had a problem. This is how it should be, i would think anything less would indicate a problem.......

Unfortunately you can say that for a lot of "features" that the 8000HD is missing/don't work. How about a real title-based program search. Tivo has been out for how long? Seems pretty basic yet on the 8000 you have to sit there and scroll through every damn show that begins with the letter you are looking for. God forbid you want a "P" - then you have to sift through all of the "programas" on Univision

I too chase play most of the time with good results. Although I have had various problems in the past.

Yeah--it is a bug. The thing is full of bugs and they're being fixed but those fixes are being deployed by cable providers very slowly and cautiously. You learn to live with them and work around them. You might not encounter some of them at all, depending on the ways in which you use the box.

But, IMHO, the box is a wonderful innovation, which has allowed me to watch tons more HDTV than I had the opportunity to before. I'm more than willing to live with its foibles for the moment, until improvements in it are made, or something better becomes available. As a dyed-in-the-wool techhead who used TiVo from a couple of months after its introduction, trying to watch HDTV without a DVR was driving me up the wall and this has saved my sanity.

We just got the 8300HD at Orlando Bright House which is Passport. It has a program search where you can "type" in multiple characters for a title or keyword search.

Jim

I know the feature is available on newer version of Passport but getting TWC to roll it out is another story.