TWC Explorer 8300HDC Problem

The issue may still be signal levels. The tech. svrc. should be able to determine what the up and down signal levels are. Otherwise swap it again.

TerryB

Normally installers have customer service activate new STBs with a phone or radio call. Maybe it's an inexperienced CS rep, so perhaps someone else in the know can activate the box number. Wouldn't think reboots would help unless the computer has activated your STB. Often new STBs have the opposite "problem"--all channels, including those not being subscribed to, are activated for a few days or less. -- John

The Explorer 8300HDC is just awful.

I recently traded in my old 8300HD DVR and got an 8300HDC box in return ... got a similar error message: after a reboot "this box is not set for cable service" ... called Time Warner, and after unplugging the DVR for a moment, it seems to be working fine.

The software on this new box is crap. Slow, difficult to read fonts, and the DVR functions are not always available.

Several times, with the cable on the same channel for anywhere from minutes to hours, "DVR function is not available, please try again in a few minutes..." Meanwhile, the recording buffer is empty, and you can't rewind live TV.

When you look up 'crap' in the dictionary it says "see picture of Explorer 8300HDC at left".

Seriously, I have been struggling with this box for 3 days. I have yet to get it to record reliably.

And "slow" does not begin to describe the leisurely interface response this unit provides.
In the era of multi-core, multi-gigahertz CPUs one wonders what they used in this thing -- an 8-bit 8088 perhaps?

Back to TWC this thing is going ...

Have you guys found that you can change out your 8300HDC for the older 8300HD? I just moved today (within NYC) and the tech gave me the 8300HDC. I have the same problems as everyone else - sluggish interface, hard to read on-screen menus, plus when I switch to an HD channel, it's black for a few seconds, then for the next second or so it plays the past few seconds in "fast forward" - I get about a second of accelerated video, I guess catching up to real time.

I have to need for a cable card-enabled device and would love to swap this out for the 8300HD with passport software. That thing wasn't perfect either, but much better than this one.

I just had to switch my cable billing from an ex roommate to a current one, and we ended up getting th HDC. It is without a doubt the worst cable box that we have had yet from TWC. The menu is slow as sh*t, the SD channels are very muddy, the interface is garbage, my unit consistently turns on on channel 5 and 480i, thus not syncing with my plasma hooked up to it via HDMI and I have to to a remote macro redo every time I turn on my AV system. The DVR FF/RW/Playback is awful, and the recording options suck. I am not sure if there is a way to swap out the HDC for the HD, since it seems like TWC is gravitating towards all Cable Cards, but if it is possible it is def getting done this weekend.
Just a horrible decision by TWC. But that last statement is comparable to saying the the sky is blue.

I'm with you chung - going to try to get it swapped out this weekend. What a disaster.

The new cable modem they gave me is also weird. It's like a 5in x 5in x 3in box... I've never seen a modem this thick. The last one was more like 5x6x1 and could be stood on its side. The new one is just bulky and ugly. Gotta love cable...

...Tivo.

Which you now buy for $299, BTW.

Hi, I've been having trouble with the Scientific America 8300HDC from New York Time Warner for several months now. I can't make the bloody machine record a series anymore, and I believe it is the software being installed in the box from the central office that's causing the problem. Has anyone else had any experienced with this problem?

I had gone through several boxes thinking that swapping out the boxes would solve the problem, and subsequently, I agreed to have a tech guy come over to my place to check my box in situation. The day before the scheduled service call was made however, TW's tech people called me and said that the visit would not be necessary because TW had resolved the problem from its end. I checked, and sure enough, I was able once again to record series.

Well, the ability to record series was shortlived. During the following weekend, the box was automatically rebooted by TW, and once again, I wasn't able to record, for example, "Special Report with Brit Hume" for the entire week.

I called tech support accordingly, wrote emails, etc explaining the problem. The tech support people had me do the usual reboot, but it did not make a difference. I told them many times that it must be a problem from their end, but they said that this was impossible. In response to my e-mails, I received computer generated responses saying thank you for writing and if the problem is not resolved soon, call tech support.

Well, I bit the bullet after a few days, called Tech support yet again, and agreed to have another guy come over.

When the tech guy came, he said it was not the box. There was nothing he could do except swap out my box for a new one but that would not rectify the problem. The tech guy said that there were all sorts of software problems with the box, and TW would never admit to as much to its customers. I asked him if he could at least tell somebody higher up about my case, and he responded by saying that he was so low on the totem pole, it would not do any good. He said all I could really do is sit on my hands and wait until TW gets around to fixing the software glitches.

Anyway, he left without doing much of anything, and I opted to call TW one more time to explain the situation and complain. I figured if TW could fix the problem before from their end, they could do it again. After all, I had proceeded just as they had advised, and this time, I could tell them what the tech service guy had said. The person on the other end of the line thanked me for my input and told me that they would monitor my box for 3 days. 3 days had come and gone, and I am still not able to record series.

By chance, I bumped into the tech guy that visited my apartment in the elevator on his way to another service call. I told him about my last call, and he said nothing will be done. He said if I call again, they will probably just schedule another appointment for me. When the next tech guy comes to my apartment, he will tell me, as he had done that its not the box. He will just offer me a new box, and nothing will be fixed.

Anybody experienced anything similar? Anyone have a suggestion about how I might fix my box by myself and regain the ablity to record series again? It's not the signal strength or anything because the tech guy who came had checked.

hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and signed up looking for help with all the problems going on with my new tv, from the tv going off and coming right back on while watching........a constant "searching for signal", to black screen with a small picture in corner, to slow menu (just to name a few things).


After reading a lot on this site about the problems withExplorer 8300HD I unplugged mine from the tv and ran the tv without..... it worked fine! I took that piece of junk back to TWC and got a new one, Explorer 8240. I'm told this is a newer model, so far it's been 2 days of watching with the new box and not one problem.

The 8240 is the same as the 8300HDC. Just no Analog tuner. There is a replacement for the 8240/8300 but TWC is working on it right now. The new box will have 1GHz tuning, a faster CPU, More memory, MPEG-4, but the same hard drive size, and it might have multi room capabilities.

I have an Explorer 8240HDC and i have the same problem. But i cant be sure what my problem is because it worked for months before the problem started. Then it gave me the message, but jiggling the cord into my Bravia AW10 projector fixed the problem. Now the message stays up no matter what i do. It seems like a loose connection at the back of my projector but searching around it seems like it could be the cable box. Would a bad connection cause the same message?

(I have no message displayed through the HDMI input of the projector, but i get the message over the component input when the HDMI cable is plugged in.)

I've got the same problem except it's a little worse. Not only does the box sometimes forget to record a preprogrammed series, it will also completely remove the recording setting from my list. And, it will occassionally forget to record a manually scheduled program too. I'm on my third box from Charter and the problem only seems to be getting worse.

I have an 8300HDC and I can tolerate it. It uses 2 RISC CPU's at 250 MHz with a 133 FSB. The Samsung DVR uses a dual core Broadcom SoC rated at 350 MHz.