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8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! - Page 36

post #1051 of 8986
12/6/05 at 7:55pm
Tom_NK,

Welcome, but how about adding your location (city) to your profile. It makes a difference here as different cities in Time Warner systems have different versions of Passport (or SARA). None of the Passport systems have it yet.

The Maxtor Quickview drives seem to be in limited distribution. But you can easily build one yourself (it really is easy) or buy one on the internet. However, about the only place you will find out that your cable system has the new version is right here on the AVS forum (check out the passport thread). Your local TW system is not likely to tell you (from SARA experience).
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post #1052 of 8986
12/7/05 at 4:16pm
I have been using a WD250 SATA drive borrowed from my HTPC for about 2 months. I had noticed from the start that the WD drive produced a slight clicking noise when the 8300 was on/or recording. The drive had made no (not noticeable) sounds when used in the HTPC for over a year, so I assumed it was from the constant drive head activity when on line. But it still bothered me!

Existing drive Western Digital WD250 SATAP/N:WD2500JD-00HB0
in a External SATA enclosure from Newegg (E-Power EP-301SA).

Today I installed a new drive Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L300S0 SATA 7200rpm/16MB (ZipZoom $126.50 delivered) After going thru the BOOT and format sequence on the 8300 all seemed OK, Capacity used 7% with estimated 10 to 15 hrs/HD material remaining on the internal drive. The list menu shows all of past total recordings, but obviously many were on the removed WD drive. The ones on the internal drive played fine, the ones I tried playing that were physically on the old WD (approx 6 2hrHD movies and 6 ½ hr shows) it just prompted me to return to the LIST.

For fun? I removed the new Maxtor from the case and reinstalled the older WD and went thru the BOOT, the screen showed up saying external drive was good to go as is. Then all titles on it played fine, just as before.

I then reinstalled the new Maxdor and re-ran the BOOT. All seems fine without having to run any formatting.

NOW, the question remains ARE (1 at a time) MULTIPLE EXTERNAL DRIVES ON THE SAME 8300 POSSIBLE? I had read earlier in this thread that is was an Urban Ledged, and also to the contrary that someone had multiple drives structured 1-sports, 1 movies, 1 specials etc.

From todays events it would sure seem possible. I will report when I get a few new HD movies on the empty Maxtor External drive and go thru the swap procedure. I have set it to record quite a few HD movies so I should be into the external drive in a few days.

Has anyone else done this? Fact not Urban Ledged?

The Maxtor is also much more quiet that the WD.

Steve
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post #1053 of 8986
12/7/05 at 9:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pepar View Post

The format used by the 8300HD is not a PC format, so PCs cannot "read" the drive. It would look unformatted to a PC. Furthermore, even it a PC could read the files, they are heavily encrypted.

Like MikeAlletto said: "No."

I'm afraid you are mistaken. I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY recorded content from my DVR disk to an Apple "Titanium" PowerBook (the very original powerbook running at a paltry 500MHz). The laptop correctly recognizes the 8300HD as such, and i use a program called iRecord to record the stream while it is playing. Apple has other capture utilities that are described elsewhere in these forums. The stream i get is purely MPEG2 unencrypted. In fact I played the file on my powerMac using VLC with no problem. I hear others are doing the same with PCs. The process seems to be slightly more complex but it works!

Cheers and good luck.
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post #1054 of 8986
12/7/05 at 9:53pm
Gavroche,
It seems like you are speaking of a firewire connection between a powered up SA8300HD and your computer. Your success story may be appreciated in this thread.

I believe pepar was speaking to connecting an external drive (with content recorded to it from the 8300HD) directly to a computer without the SA 8300HD and accessing the data on the drive like any other computer data.

There were scattered reports of success in examining some data on an internal HHD from 8000HD, but no algorithm was ever produced to read more than some text strings.

v/r,
C-F
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post #1055 of 8986
12/8/05 at 4:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by davehancock View Post

Tom_NK,

Welcome, but how about adding your location (city) to your profile. It makes a difference here as different cities in Time Warner systems have different versions of Passport (or SARA). None of the Passport systems have it yet.

The Maxtor Quickview drives seem to be in limited distribution. But you can easily build one yourself (it really is easy) or buy one on the internet. However, about the only place you will find out that your cable system has the new version is right here on the AVS forum (check out the passport thread). Your local TW system is not likely to tell you (from SARA experience).

Thanks for pointing out that oversight Dave. I've updated my profile accordingly. I'm in Norwalk, Ohio which is covered by Time Warner - Northeast Ohio.

I know they use Passport, but not sure of how to find out the version of Passport software. I guess I'll just have to deal with not saving the movies.

I signed up for the HDTV tier and HBO, which has two HD channels.
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post #1056 of 8986
12/8/05 at 5:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BT1 View Post

I have been using a WD250 SATA drive borrowed from my HTPC for about 2 months. I had noticed from the start that the WD drive produced a slight clicking noise when the 8300 was on/or recording. The drive had made no (not noticeable) sounds when used in the HTPC for over a year, so I assumed it was from the constant drive head activity when on line. But it still bothered me!

Existing drive Western Digital WD250 SATAP/N:WD2500JD-00HB0
in a External SATA enclosure from Newegg (E-Power EP-301SA).

Today I installed a new drive Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L300S0 SATA 7200rpm/16MB (ZipZoom $126.50 delivered) After going thru the BOOT and format sequence on the 8300 all seemed OK, Capacity used 7% with estimated 10 to 15 hrs/HD material remaining on the internal drive. The list menu shows all of past total recordings, but obviously many were on the removed WD drive. The ones on the internal drive played fine, the ones I tried playing that were physically on the old WD (approx 6 2hrHD movies and 6 ½ hr shows) it just prompted me to return to the LIST.

For fun? I removed the new Maxtor from the case and reinstalled the older WD and went thru the BOOT, the screen showed up saying external drive was good to go as is. Then all titles on it played fine, just as before.

I then reinstalled the new Maxdor and re-ran the BOOT. All seems fine without having to run any formatting.

NOW, the question remains ARE (1 at a time) MULTIPLE EXTERNAL DRIVES ON THE SAME 8300 POSSIBLE? I had read earlier in this thread that is was an Urban Ledged, and also to the contrary that someone had multiple drives structured 1-sports, 1 movies, 1 specials etc.

From todays events it would sure seem possible. I will report when I get a few new HD movies on the empty Maxtor External drive and go thru the swap procedure. I have set it to record quite a few HD movies so I should be into the external drive in a few days.

Has anyone else done this? Fact not Urban Ledged?

The Maxtor is also much more quiet that the WD.

Steve

I had initially hoped to do this and in fact bought an enclosure that allowed me to easily swap out drives, each drive simply requiring its own caddy/tray. But, alas, I never tried it because I was fearful of losing the movie collection I had amassed. It would certainly be welcome news to me if this worked without losing the existing content, however, in the end it doesn't seem that workable at the present time unless they modify the software to cope with the multiple drives nicely; i.e., I would find it a severe pain in the a$$ not knowing which movies in the list were on which drive, etc. It would be nice if it either identified the recordings in the list as to which drive they belong (but that doesn't seem like a good solution either, I think it would be a mess), but it would be ideal if the 8300 simply did not show recordings in the list that were not physically present...it should recreate the list/catalogue each time a new drive is detected.

Short of being able to swap drives, the next thing would be an array of drives and I think a few in here have been investigating this but up until now it is cost-prohibitive and hardware is not that easily acquired to do this...
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post #1057 of 8986
12/8/05 at 7:42am
BenDover,

I agree that the menu listing issue would become unmanageable if you had more than 1 or 2 additional drives. I do not have a good plan on how to label the extra drives and see it as the biggest issue. With the price or HD storage falling, it seems like a reasonable value for now if we can find a convenient way to label the drives and cross-reference the 8300's recorded list.

The array of drives idea has been addressed here earlier and the costs for the server type interface for the array to be seen as 1 logical drive looks very costly.

Hope that others will chime in on this menu list / drive catalog issue, until we can find some way to stream the files to a PC and then archive to dvd as MPEG or?. It looks like others are on track with the Mack, so I hope that a work-around for the PC is near.

Steve
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post #1058 of 8986
12/8/05 at 8:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gavroche View Post

I'm afraid you are mistaken. I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY recorded content from my DVR disk to an Apple "Titanium" PowerBook (the very original powerbook running at a paltry 500MHz). The laptop correctly recognizes the 8300HD as such, and i use a program called iRecord to record the stream while it is playing. Apple has other capture utilities that are described elsewhere in these forums. The stream i get is purely MPEG2 unencrypted. In fact I played the file on my powerMac using VLC with no problem. I hear others are doing the same with PCs. The process seems to be slightly more complex but it works!

Cheers and good luck.

Nevermind that a Powerbook is not a PC, was the material hi-def when recorded and, if so, was it still hi-def on your Apple? I find it difficult to believe there would be such an obvious hole in the content providers' DRM as you being able to move HD content off of the 8300HD and play it elsewhere.

And yes, the context of my answer was attaching an external drive to a PC. But I'll expand it to include ANY computer.
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post #1059 of 8986
12/8/05 at 8:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BT1 View Post

BenDover,

I agree that the menu listing issue would become unmanageable if you had more than 1 or 2 additional drives. I do not have a good plan on how to label the extra drives and see it as the biggest issue. With the price or HD storage falling, it seems like a reasonable value for now if we can find a convenient way to label the drives and cross-reference the 8300's recorded list.

The array of drives idea has been addressed here earlier and the costs for the server type interface for the array to be seen as 1 logical drive looks very costly.

Hope that others will chime in on this menu list / drive catalog issue, until we can find some way to stream the files to a PC and then archive to dvd as MPEG or?. It looks like others are on track with the Mack, so I hope that a work-around for the PC is near.

Steve

The 8300 is just NOT designed to have swappable external storage.
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post #1060 of 8986
12/8/05 at 8:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pepar View Post

The 8300 is just NOT designed to have swappable external storage.

It would seem to be something that could easily be addressed by software/firmware upgrade...but that would require the desire to do so on the manufacturer/provider end.
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post #1061 of 8986
12/8/05 at 8:47am
pepar,

I fully understand that the 8300 is not designed to support multiple external drives, BUT is it not the purpose of these forums, to find uses for and get the most out of our toys?

I will keep trying to work out a reasonable solution to the listing / labeling issue and hope for the best.

Steve
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post #1062 of 8986
12/8/05 at 9:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenDover View Post

It would seem to be something that could easily be addressed by software/firmware upgrade...but that would require the desire to do so on the manufacturer/provider end.

Given the lack of interest* demonstrated by the providers in the external drive capability that is already there (on SARA systems), it is unlikely that they will request that SA address this "feature".

*I have not yet heard of ANY cable system actively promoting this great (external Hard Drive) capability. At best, they will acknowledge the capability but clearly state that they do not support it. I'd sure love to hear of examples of where ANY system is really promoting this.
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post #1063 of 8986
12/8/05 at 9:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenDover View Post

It would seem to be something that could easily be addressed by software/firmware upgrade...but that would require the desire to do so on the manufacturer/provider end.

As they seem to have been dragged kicking and screaming into adding external drive capability in the first place, how motivated do you think they are to expand the capability to swappable external drives?

Someone even raised the memory issue in keeping track of material on the internal drive and a large external drive. The poster seemed to think the 8300 would have trouble with anything over 300GB (added on external). Plus, we have the issue of fragmantation; the more fragmented a file, the more space needed for the file allocation table, AND the more churning it has to do to stream the file. The larger the drive, the more fragmentation can occur. We have no defragging utility, which would need to be built in to the 8300HD and it's software, so at the top of MY wish list would be defragging.
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post #1064 of 8986
12/8/05 at 3:59pm
I agree, the likelihood of us getting *any* of these features is remote at best.

i'm not sure how big of an issue fragmentation would be given the very large file sizes.

i've got a 400gb external in my setup and i haven't had any issues with memory and keeping track of material...i've been near full at one point on both internal and external drives.
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post #1065 of 8986
12/8/05 at 6:05pm
I very much agree with BenDover and pepar regarding any chance of getting the support we are suggesting.

If that is truly the case then I will sit tight and deal with a pair of 300g drives and wait until the cost of the 500's come down and go with just the 1 bigger drive.

OK by me, but I can dream can't I

Steve
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post #1066 of 8986
12/9/05 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pepar View Post

Nevermind that a Powerbook is not a PC, was the material hi-def when recorded and, if so, was it still hi-def on your Apple? I find it difficult to believe there would be such an obvious hole in the content providers' DRM as you being able to move HD content off of the 8300HD and play it elsewhere.

And yes, the context of my answer was attaching an external drive to a PC. But I'll expand it to include ANY computer.

I have spoken with some of the TWC engineers and they told me that everything that is recorded on the HD is encrypted specifically so that the analog output is the only available option. They indicated that the encryption is keyed to the (serial number?) particular box such that a HD from a failed box can not be inserted in another box and retain useable data. Ditto the external SATA drive. I feel that Scientific Atlanta should be able to set up some sort of software to reauthorize an external drive to a different box through customer service (to authenticate the use), but they apparently have not even considered this possibility. Actually, TWC (San Antonio) has to send the box back to Scientific Atlanta when a HD fails as only they can set the replacement drive up...they must have more in shipping costs than the cost of the box the way these things fail.

As I have a Mac I will try to set aside some time to try this to see what happens, but it will be a while before I can get enough stuff off the Maxtor 300 GB drive so that I won't be hurt too badly if I have to reinitialize the drive for some reason.

Any other Mac users feel free to speak up.
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post #1067 of 8986
12/9/05 at 9:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by davehancock View Post

Given the lack of interest* demonstrated by the providers in the external drive capability that is already there (on SARA systems), it is unlikely that they will request that SA address this "feature".

*I have not yet heard of ANY cable system actively promoting this great (external Hard Drive) capability. At best, they will acknowledge the capability but clearly state that they do not support it. I'd sure love to hear of examples of where ANY system is really promoting this.

Dave,

That has been precisely my experience with TWC-San Antonio. The people I spoke with about the matter acknowledged that the SATA port was active and that an external drive could be attached, but continued with disclaimers about what drives & etc might or might not work. Frankly, I think that they have not really tested things as they probably will be buying drives & cases from Maxtor and will rely upon Scientific Atlanta and Maxtor to certify the operation of the drives.

There are so many other issues that have gone unresolved that I doubt testing SATA cases to tell us which ones work is a priority.

The short answer to your question is, no, they do not promote the external SATA drive capability at all. I have never heard anything that is distributed to the general public.

Cheers,

Richard
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post #1068 of 8986
12/9/05 at 9:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin1 View Post

There are so many other issues that have gone unresolved that I doubt testing SATA cases to tell us which ones work is a priority.

The short answer to your question is, no, they do not promote the external SATA drive capability at all. I have never heard anything that is distributed to the general public.

Oh, it IS a priority with them; it is at the TOP of their list of things they will NEVER do.

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post #1069 of 8986
12/9/05 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscounTech View Post

Our testing of the "drive going offline intermittently" problem seems to suggest that the issue is a function of the firmware. There's been no indication that this is a cooling issue. For competitive reasons I'm not at liberty to share all our findings. But suffice to say, we've never found a Non-Maxtor drive that truly works 100%. So currently the limit is the fact that Maxtor aren't making 400 or 500GB drives. We've primarily tested Maxtor, Western Digital and Seagate.

Have the Hitachi 500GB drives been going offline at all? If someone who uses one can confirm that they've never seen it go offline, we'll bring in all the Hitachi models pronto and perform integration testing. Aside from our products, you have no idea how much I want a gigantic drive at home! =)

Low level formatting of drives, or surface integrity tests can indeed remap the drive so that bad blocks are ignored. Bad blocks can indeed cause drive performance issues. My feeling is that 3 simultaneous streams are literally at the edge of the performance envelope for a 5.4K RPM drive. 7.2K drives can acheive a higher sustained throughput and alleviate the drop out issue. However, users may well be seeing a mixture of both variables.

I have a Maxtor (16 MB) 300 GB 7,200 RPM drive attached to my SA8300 and I have simultaneously recorded two programs, run a "Record to VCR", and watched a previously recorded program. As near as I am able to make out the drive has been up to the task.

Like the others, I just don't think the 5,400 RPM drives are the way to go.

I have not seen any specific information about the Maxtor 500 GB drive availability, but they supposedly have them coming. Part of the problem with any new drive is that the supply of them goes to the OEM customers first.
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post #1070 of 8986
12/9/05 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pepar View Post

The drive will generate heat. And being "on" 24/7/365, its life could be short if it is not kept cool. We've had this debate on this thread before and I am in the "why take the chance" camp. Here's an enclosure at Newegg that is popular with some posting on this thread. It has a SATA connector on the back, so you'd need to get the appropriate cable.

Here's the case opened.

Thanks for the informative pix of the case. I noticed that yours is gray rather than the beige one shown in the link. I may have missed an option for the color. Could you explain?

Thanks
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post #1071 of 8986
12/9/05 at 10:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin1 View Post

Thanks for the informative pix of the case. I noticed that yours is gray rather than the beige one shown in the link. I may have missed an option for the color. Could you explain?

Thanks

Actually, I bought it on eBay minutes before someone posted a link to what appears to be the identical enclosure on Newegg. I paid a few dollars less on eBay, but WAY overpaid for shipping (as is often the case on eBay). My best guess is that there is an Asian manufacturer who's OEM'ing them for everybody by the thousands..
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post #1072 of 8986
12/12/05 at 11:31am
I have the same Maxtor 300GB drive that many here have reported no problems with. I always have problems -- either short skips or long freezes (10 seconds or more). These problems seem playback related because rewinding and replaying the same section works fine.

I took out the drive, connected it to a PC and used the MaxBlast program to do a full low-level format. Then I formatted the drive under Windows XP. Then I reconnected the drive to the 8300HD. STILL I have the same problems on playback.

Any suggestions on what to do next? Should I reformat the internal drive as well? Try a different drive (even though many people have reported success with this one)? Stop watching TV?

Help . . . if you can. . . .
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post #1073 of 8986
12/12/05 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RaveD View Post

I have the same Maxtor 300GB drive that many here have reported no problems with. I always have problems -- either short skips or long freezes (10 seconds or more). These problems seem playback related because rewinding and replaying the same section works fine.

I took out the drive, connected it to a PC and used the MaxBlast program to do a full low-level format. Then I formatted the drive under Windows XP. Then I reconnected the drive to the 8300HD. STILL I have the same problems on playback.

Any suggestions on what to do next? Should I reformat the internal drive as well? Try a different drive (even though many people have reported success with this one)? Stop watching TV?

Help . . . if you can. . . .

Are you getting the same behavior with material streaming from the internal drive?
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post #1074 of 8986
12/12/05 at 4:48pm
Maybe try something other than maxtor...I have a great western digital and no problems whatsoever. I have also had TWO external Maxtor drives fail on me completely now, so am losing trust rapidly in that company. Just my personal experience though!
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post #1075 of 8986
12/12/05 at 5:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RaveD View Post

I have the same Maxtor 300GB drive that many here have reported no problems with. I always have problems -- either short skips or long freezes (10 seconds or more). These problems seem playback related because rewinding and replaying the same section works fine.

I took out the drive, connected it to a PC and used the MaxBlast program to do a full low-level format. Then I formatted the drive under Windows XP. Then I reconnected the drive to the 8300HD. STILL I have the same problems on playback.

Any suggestions on what to do next? Should I reformat the internal drive as well? Try a different drive (even though many people have reported success with this one)? Stop watching TV?

Help . . . if you can. . . .

Sounds exactly like a memory buffer fragmentation (not Hard Drive fragmentation) issue. Have you done a HARD reboot and forced a memory clear and rebuild? This will reload all OS data from the Headend and rebuild the virtual catalog files from the main drive.

vegggas
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post #1076 of 8986
12/12/05 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegggas View Post

Sounds exactly like a memory buffer fragmentation (not Hard Drive fragmentation) issue. Have you done a HARD reboot and forced a memory clear and rebuild? This will reload all OS data from the Headend and rebuild the virtual catalog files from the main drive.

vegggas

vegggas - Would that be a way to swap external drives? Could you just shut down and swap, having the 8300HD rebuild the list from what it saw on the drive, and then do it all over agian with a different external drive when one wanted to access that material?
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post #1077 of 8986
12/12/05 at 6:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pepar View Post

vegggas - Would that be a way to swap external drives? Could you just shut down and swap, having the 8300HD rebuild the list from what it saw on the drive, and then do it all over agian with a different external drive when one wanted to access that material?

NO!
The list is built and maintained on the internal drive only. If the list in memory gets corrupted, the mpeg files will still be there and the space will still be used, but you will not be able to access, or even see them. This is common when the second tuner is no longer available - the ram memory buffers become corrupted for that tuner buffer and the STB thinks it's already in use and not available to view or record. You also see this when your storage space is quite large, even though you have no programs recorded. The files are still there, but your (corrupted) ram image thinks they are gone, until a rebuild is done.
Rebuilding the list by reading from the main drive refreshes the RAM image that you navigate with. This is why I stress that with a lot of activity and added storage space, the ram memory will become fragmented and need to be rebuilt from the stored Hard Drive data. The larger the drive(s) the bigger the ram cache needs to be to hold all the data, the greater the risk of possible curruption.

vegggas
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post #1078 of 8986
12/12/05 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegggas View Post

NO!

Oh well . . .

Thanks!
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post #1079 of 8986
12/13/05 at 4:16am
vegggas - To accomplish the rebuild - you only need to do a hard reboot (unplug and then replug the power after a little time) ? Is there some addtional step to take ?

Thanks
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post #1080 of 8986
12/13/05 at 7:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegggas View Post

Sounds exactly like a memory buffer fragmentation (not Hard Drive fragmentation) issue. Have you done a HARD reboot and forced a memory clear and rebuild? This will reload all OS data from the Headend and rebuild the virtual catalog files from the main drive.

vegggas

If by hard reboot you mean holding the power button while plugging it in, then yes, I have done that several times.

I'm at wit's end here ... I'm afraid I may have to re-format the INTERNAL hard drive as a last resort to solve this. But I still haven't watched the final season of Six Feet Under
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