8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! - Page 52

What a guarantee, this coming Monday they will have the drive I returned to them for a MONTH (proof of delivery 2/13/06) and they have yet to give me a refund and I have emails saying that they will refund and even not charge me the restocking fee.

I am running SARA on Cablevision, they even sent me two drives (spent $45 in shipping them back and forth) and the recordings were unwatchable with over 10 seconds of it pausing repeatedly.

Nice way to welcome him back.

They? They? Who's "they?" DiscounTech?

Wow! What a response.

Perhaps I should clarify what our guarantee means. If our DVR drive kit does not work for an individual, it is fully returnable within 30 days. The point is that out of several hundred kits we have sold, about 3 have been returned due to peformance issues and a few for non-SARA users. There is little explanation as to why certain users, e.g. Brighton Line can seem to have the same setup as everyone else, yet two different kits caused issues. Brighton Line is the exception to the rule. (This is exactly why we've done so much testing before releasing new drives). Our guarantee means that the customer is assured that they won't end up owning a kit that doesn't work for them. It doesn't mean that we are super-human and can foresee or fix the <1% exceptional cases.

[quote=Brighton Line]What a guarantee, this coming Monday they will have the drive I returned to them for a MONTH (proof of delivery 2/13/06) and they have yet to give me a refund and I have emails saying that they will refund and even not charge me the restocking fee.

I will check on your refund status. However, our accounting department can be a little slow sometimes. Apologies for the delay. However, this delay is just a delay, nothing more, nothing less. Frankly, as an organization we put more effort (and money) into ensuring on-time delivery and product testing, than into accounting functions. So accounting processes are sometimes queued. Not to mention the fact that credit card companies and banks are MUCH faster at taking money than returning it.

[quote=GilWave]Just two:

1) Where the hell have you BEEN?!?!

Super, super busy! (and not wanting to post, without having more to share).

2) Why, after all that time, the PREFUGLY external case?

I presume the "PREFUGLY" means "very ugly". Honestly, I think the cases are pretty good looking. Of course, this is a totally subjective issue. Frankly, I think we have the best compromise of a case out there, but that said I wish it were better. Basically there are $100-300 cases, and then there are $20-60 cases. No-one will buy a kit where the case add $100-300 in cost. In the $20-60 range, they all have pros and cons. We've tested all of them (as far as I am aware). And felt that this is the best middle ground. That said, if you have a better suggestion, please send me a link. We always want to improve.

Indeed Brighton Line (B.L.) is referring to us (DiscounTechnology). For no apparent reason, the kit we sent B.L. AND the replacement kit, both had compatibility issues for this customer. So we setup an RMA which is pending full refund, as part of our compatibility guarantee.

The strange thing is the fact that we have other customers on the same cable system, that are working fine. I don't have an explanation as to the issue.

Just the other day we had a customer working perfectly with our 250GB kit, he upgraded to the 400GB which caused the same issues B.L. had, but when he went back to 250GB it worked fine. However, B.L. had issues with the 250GB kit. All capacities of kits work pefectly for almost everyone, and then we come across a handful of people for whom one variant works and another doesn't. Explain that!!!! =)

This brings me full circle to the fact that we have seen different brands and models or drives being installed by Scientific Atlanta in various 8300HD boxes. We currently suspect that in some instances this has an impact. If anyone has an insight, or similar experiences, please let me know.

[quote=Brighton Line]What a guarantee, this coming Monday they will have the drive I returned to them for a MONTH (proof of delivery 2/13/06) and they have yet to give me a refund and I have emails saying that they will refund and even not charge me the restocking fee.

Ironically enough the next refund in queue was B.L.'s. I asked accounting to issue the refund pronto as it is an issue for the customer. It has now been completed.

B.L. sorry it didn't work for you, and sorry for the delay.

Well, I'll say one thing - you sure aren't afraid to answer posts, even the most hostile.

It is "rumored" that Pioneer/Aptiv is on the verge of releasing a Passport version that supports SATA. How much time will you need before you feel comfortable selling your kits for Passport. (Heh, you might as well expose yourself to abuse from the remaining 8300HD users.)

Thank you for the update, which was much better then "the boss was on vacation" previous emails..
I just related my experience with the unit, the extra shipping costs and overall frustration from JANUARY when I made the inital purchase until now with the refund.

I have an external 250gb working fine. there are 16 HD recordings totaling 26 hours. when I check useage it tells me 62% used. Is this normal ,I thought I saw less % used last time I looked.

If your 8300HD has a 160GB internal, then it accounts for ~20 hours of HD recording time. Your 250 gigger should hold ~32 hours. The total capacity should therefore be 52 hours. Twenty-six hours of HD content is only 50% of your total, but there is a fair (unfair?) amount of drive space taken by access tables, buffers and other "overhead." So 62% usage does not seem out of line. I can't address your "I saw less the last time" comment though. Someone else?

thanks for the response

yup come to think of it ?? its CBS shows that are doing it ?? although had a wierd one cut off like last 8 minutes on another channel ??

also tried to reboot even did the complete erase and reformat thing

but that might explain why the CBS shows are cut off at exactly 15 minutes from the end

thanks again

CBS-5 here in Phoenix, not CBS the network, though there may be other places that are testing multicasting for March Madness besides Phoenix. Right now they appear to be done with testing and no more problems. I'll have to wait and see what happens when they flip the switch on the 16th to activate the 3 SD channels and take our HD away for the early rounds.

FWIW, w're on Cablevision Northern Westchers, NY running Sara version 1.88.15.3. We had glitches with a Seagate 400GB drive we bought and returned. I just tried a Discount Technologies Netegriti 400GB drive and had the same glitches PLUS 4 lockups of the box (requiring reboot) in the space of 1 hour of viewing (with NOTHING being recorded at the time).

I am exploring what to do next with Discount Technologies customer support. Not sure if it's their problem, or the box's problem. I'm posting the technical details here for the record so that people can see if there are any common details to when/where problems occur.

Well, also FWIW, you can't watch live TV without *something* being recorded--that's how the "rewind live TV" function works.

I think he means a "scheduled" recording.

I have Cablevision, the latest version of the firmware from what I've read here, and I am about to buy a Vantec NST 360SU enclosure (here):

http://www.vantecusa.com/p_nst360su.html

and pair it with a Maxtor DiamondMax 11 6H400F0 400GB hard drive. The enclosure is supposed to come with an eSATA to eSATA cable. Does anyone see any potential problems with this setup? Does that hard drive make sense, and does anyone have experience with either the hard drive or the enclosure?

I strongly suggest you read more of this thread - even if it's just the last few pages. In short, there is NO way for anyone to answer your question about potential problems because many, many posters have problems. And they've all got a wide array of gear. Setups that work for one don't work for the next. There is no logical pattern.

Is there ANYONE here successfully using an external eSATA drive with a Moto 8300HD on COX CABLED in Santa Barabara CA ?

I'm aware of that. We very rarely watch live tv. We almost always watch stuff recorded earlier, and that's what we're having problems with (only for stuff recorded to the external drive though).

What method do you use to determine which drive a given program was recorded on?

FYI, the 8300HD is made by Scientific Atlanta, not Motorola.

I see... Anyway, has anyone here used the VanTec NexStar 3 enclosure, and have there been any problems in terms or overheating, or during general use? Also, have people been successful using Maxtor DiamandMax 11 hard drives, especially the 400gb models? I noticed that particular model was used in the setup offered by DiscounTech, and they guarantee compatibility with SARA equipped units. Perhaps there will be a higher success rate with this drive due to its more recent implementation of native command queuing and the SATA standard and its purported inclusion of similar content streaming commands utilized by the QuickView 500 series of Maxtor drives. I saw one problem an individual was having with the DscounTech solution, has anyone else had either success or failure with this unit?

FWIW, the 8300HD does not support any of the SATA II streaming commands or NCQ, which is more of a multi-tasking/server feature anyway.

Program recording date. All programs recorded while the external drive is attached get recorded on the external drive since it has more free space than the internal drive.

BTW, EVERY show recorded to the external drive suffered numerous glitches. This now includes 6 episodes of American Idol over the space of 2 weeks.

We have not seen a single glitch on shows recorded to the internal drive.

I have to agree that I have observed more glitches, i.e. sound drop offs since returning to the Maxtor Quickview.

It may be too early to proclaim a solution to my problem of partial recordings, but in the last 8 days I have rebooted every day (both drives) and I have not had a partial recording of any HD or SD shows during prime time (or anytime for that matter). Prior to trying this I was getting 2 or 3 partial recordings on HD shows during prime time per week.

I wouldn't tell anyone else a this point that this is a solution, nor would I recommend anyone who has a problem with dropped shows to try this. I'm merely sharing my experience as I go along here.

I would be directing queries to Maxtor as the Quickview Extender is specifically designed for and approved by SA for this purpose. With SA the status is technically "approved, but not supported." So, Maxtor needs to be brought into this.

Just my $.02.

And your entitled!


I already have. I RMA my other unit, I have returned my SA 8300 for another. What else can they do?

I think the problem is that I'm the only one who is experiencing this issue with this external hard drive.

Anyway it is working OK now, glitches aside. I'll just continue my daily reboot.

I don't think you are the only one. I haven't been keeping score, but I seem to remember others with Quickview drives that have stuttering, freezing and listed, but un-accessible recordings. If so, and neither SA nor local cableco has an answer, it should fall to Maxtor.

We're still trying to determine what percentage of users this "glitching problem" affects. It doesn't appear to be unique to Maxtor. We've seen many models of drives cause these issues (hence we don't use them). However, even our "approved" models cause issues with a small percentage of users. It is definitely under 4% on our 160GB/250GB kits. We don't have a large enough sample of 400GB users to measure.

Can the people experiencing the glitches report the brand/model of INTERNAL drive they have in their 8300HD in addition to the SARA version, and cable system?

Thanks!

Jesse.