SA 8000HD & 8300HD w/ Passport software (TWC) - Page 20

Nope, but I'll tell ya (for a small fee!)

There's actually two ways to do that;

• While tuned into any channel, hit SETTINGS. You should be able to select that channel as a Favorite from here.
• Go into SETTINGS, and hit "A" for more SETTINGS. Scroll to Favorites. While inputting channels into favorites, you can type in each channel and hit ENTER to add that to the list. This is the fastest way to enter all your favorites at once.

Being a Passport user for years now I already knew all of the Tips that Randy had provided, but thanks anyway.

Troy

Well I just called and specifically requested if I could come in and swap out for a new box [once yesterday and once today it needed a cold reboot, and once today, upon first boot up and hitting List, it froze up and rebooted itself after about 1.5 minutes]. I already had a service ticket open for Saturday and he said he would tell them I wanted a new box [which the guy who opened my call the other day said he couldn't tell specifically request from the on-site guy]. I guess I can wait till Saturday, the main urgent user of the DVR is my boy, and we have a Dora the Explorer dvd that will fill in in the meantime if the unit acts up from now till them.

List -> B, I believe, shows Upcoming Recordings on the Passport software, but I'll double check. Each recorded item does show a 'Will Be Erased In X Days' tag, and I'm pretty sure that estimates based on the size of that file and any upcoming recordings.

I like the FAV trick, but it's a pain to set up favorites, so I never bothered even with that much : (.

something else I just noticed using the multi function (A) button.

Anyone else notice that when in the diagnostics channel (999 for me) pressing A will toggle between 3 levels of information overlay transparency? The fourth setting removes it completely so you can see the channel you were watching but the box remains on the diagnostic channel.

Can somebody tell me the specs of the hard drive in the 8300? I was dismayed when I found out the 8000 used a Maxtor drive because ever since I got stuck with one of their infamous "double beep" units (failure of the drive to wake/boot up) I've avoided them like an IBM Deathstar.

Sure enough, in two days I've had the drive stick in a loop while the box was off and today it failed to boot and record something from standby.

I'm curious to see if the general improvements on the 8300 are a result of a different (more reliable) drive.

VisionOn

In NYC (Passport), I have a 160GB maxtor drive in my 8300HD (got it 2 days ago).

Thanks, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Hopefully for us all the 8300 drive breaks the Maxtor effect I'm getting used to.

As someone who's spent time working in storage systems engineering groups, I think that a fear of Maxtor drives is unfounded. They are top-shelf products, no matter what person's experience with them may be.

The reason why they're common in DVRs, etc is their "Quickview" line of products, 5400 RPM drives optimized to the DVR application space (quieter, cooler running w/built-in heat monitoring, improved streaming performance--there's a spec-sheet here). They claim it's been spec'd in 50+ consumer products (of course, all of those products may not have made it to market ).

Their competitors must have similar offerings.

Thanks, that's pretty interesting. The "Quiet Drive" feature is a bit lacking though. The DVR drive is one of the noisiest I've heard. I can actually hear it chirping above the fan on my TV. Although that is a double edged sword, on one hand it's a bit annoying but on the other I can tell when something isn't right.

I like WD drives, everyone I've used has been rock solid and reasonably fast and quiet.

edit: additional info

"Western Digital Corp. today announced the formation of its new subsidiary, Keen Personal Media Inc. (Keen PM), a company that provides interactive broadband software, services and hardware for television and Internet content management and television-based electronic commerce. Keen PM also announced a joint development agreement to develop and license its digital video recorder (DVR) storage management subsystem software to Scientific-Atlanta, a leading supplier of set- top boxes, broadband transmission networks, digital interactive subscriber systems for video, and data and voice networks.

The software provided to Scientific-Atlanta under the agreement includes selected components of Keen PM's TV4me personal video recording software suite and will be integrated with the PowerTV Operating System into Scientific-Atlanta set-top boxes. Scientific- Atlanta will also support the development of Keen PM's SideCar personal video recorder (PVR) peripheral to attach to Scientific- Atlanta's existing Explorer® digital set tops."

more details here

Haven't read it all (have to work) but it sounds unrelated to Passport based stuff.

Another interest PR is this one: Maxtor and Time Warner Cable Deliver External Storage for DVR Set-top Boxes. Maxtor is shipping their Quickview drives as external SATA sidecar storage expansion boxes for the SA8300HD.

So go to the Queens TWC Service Center. I went to the Kissena Blvd. office last night and swapped my 8000HD for an 8300HD. The lady shouted "We need another one!" without naming the 8300HD and the guy immediately knew to retrieve the right box. There's a ginormous stack of them there.

Ok, I have searched, and the local cable "customer support" rep attitude was "like, why would you want to do that?" so I have to come to you guys, which is where I probably should have started.

HDNET is broacasting test patterns at 8:00 AM every Tuesday in February, and I thought I might use the opportunity to fine tune the HDTV settings as if I were using Video Essentials. Unfortunately, I am at work at 8:00 AM, so I wanted to record the broadcast and replay it at my convenience. Simple, right?

Well, it turns out that the Guide shows an 8-HOUR "Intro to HDNet" listing from 6AM to 2PM. I don't want to record 8 hours of HDTV and fill up the disk! This means scanning for the correct spot in the saved file AND it means I can't afford to keep it for possible re-use.

Soooo, if I am sitting in front of my home theater system this evening (Feb. 4), how can I set the SA8300HD to record channel 370 from around 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM on Tuesday February 8? or can I?

Still no 8300's in Staten Island as of this morning.

Not sure if the manual recording method is different for the 8300 but on the 8000 all you have to do is go to the channel you want, hit the record button on the remote and there is an option to create a manual recording. Press enter and select the date and time you want to record.

I talked to the people at TWC in Los Angeles area, and they said that they are currently "testing" the 8300 and have no idea when they will be rolling them out. That sucks.

I was there and heard the same thing.. what time 6PM? Also got a 8300SD

what are the benefits of the 8300 over the 8000?

does it have a working DVI out?

AFAIK, the 8300 always has a working HDMI connection (there are HDMI-DVI converter cables). It does simultaneous downconverted output of HD content through its analog connections. It's significantly smaller, though maybe too much smaller--it sounds as if it's narrower than the traditional 17", making difficult to stack. People report that it produces a noticeably sharper picture than the 8000HD, which many people felt had "softer" output than their previous, non-DVR HD STBs.

Some models are multi-room; they can be accessed by other non-DVR STBs in your home attached to other televisions. (I believe that TWC is going to be only distributing this model with Passport). They all have a Serial ATA connection on the back for attachment of an external expansion HDD, to add storage for additional recording time.

I would also add:

- Appears to more stable with less dropouts/pixellation (although I've ony had mine for a few days so can't say for sure)
- Smoother/faster navigation through menus & the IPG
- Latest Passport software with a useable Search feature (a la Tivo, where you can enter mutliple letters of the title, not just the first; also a keyword search)
- Quieter hard drive
- Much nicer looking overall including better LED display which actually shows the output resolution for the current channel.

BTW, the box is only slightly narrower than the 8000 (I'd say 1-2" at most). It's also not as deep (probably by 3-4") but it is actually slightly taller. You wouldn't want to stack anything on top of the box anyway b/c it gets quite hot.

Really just a better box in every possible way.

Is TWC in Queens offering this? If so, how much does it cost? How much extra time will it allow?

Here is a page on an external unit designed to be used with this DVR (and others), Maxtor's QuickView Expander. (Several posts back, I link to a PR from last month saying that these were now shipping to TWC). It claims to add an additional 54 hours of 17.8 Mbps HD video, or 300 hours of 2 Mbps SD video (300 GB model). Its capacity for video at other bitrates would vary proportionately.

I have no idea when even my local San Diego TWC office will be distributing these things, much less Queens, which is nearly as far away from here as you can get and still be in the States .

Well, correct me if I'm wrong. Doesn't the 8300 have about 20 hours of HD space. To me, that is not a lot.

IMHO, tons of people would use it. Lots of people with families record a lot of shows, many of which are only watched by one member of a family of four or five.

For myself, I watch almost exclusively HDTV, giving me 18-25 hours capacity on the 160 GB DVR. I record movies that I want to see, but I have to be in the right mood to watch any particular movie. I often end up sacrificing things that I want to watch due to lack of space. More space would give me a sort of short-term archival storage.

My sister, who doesn't have an HDTV, keeps dozens of timeshifted films on her DISH DVR. When I was at her home for Christmas, there was something she'd recorded two months back that we watched together. She didn't bother to erase it afterwards.

There are a bunch of little cottage industry companies which specialize in expanding the storage of TiVos that have been out there for years.

What does an external SATA HD like that run for? I'm assuming we would be responsible for buying our own.

I think that TWC would rather rent you one. See THIS ARTICLE