Originally Posted by
pwjone1 
I'm late to the thread, but I just received an 8300HDC for a 8300HD that quit (hard drive problem, unit was getting very hot so maybe a fan (if there's one in there)). Here's the differences I've seen so far (Time Warner Cable, New York (Poughkeepsie)):
1.
Boot is much slower
(Looks like the software is different, there's some stuff about OCAP, Esmeric, Java, then a Mystro count down that lasts a very long time. The diag screen (hold the select button until the mail+wing icon flashes, then the down key on the remote) shows EISS in it's header screens, not SARA or similar). Says Mystro for varying amounts of time, but they're all longer than the older unit.
2.
Fast Forward or Back Skip 15 minutes functions no longer work
On the older unit, if you pressed the right arrow by going FF, you would skip to the next 15 minute interval. That does not work on the 8300HDC. Supposedly, if you hold the FF key for 2 seconds, it will go forward 15 minutes, that similarly does not work for me.
3.
Unit now shows capacity left (%)
This is kind of handy, and I don't remember it on the older unit.
4.
Picture quality seems to be a bit better
Might just be different boxes, but the unit does seem to do a little better at showing pictures, almost like they're clearer, in some instances. Yes, I know it's digital. This is through HDMI to an AVR and a 52" LCD.
5.
However, Picture will sometimes show artifacts, or temporary lock ups
The picture, in general, seems more lock up or error prone. I'll see occasional blocks of bad data, or even the screen will stop for a couple of seconds, usually when I'm first tuning into a channel.
6.
Time to move from channel to channel and see a picture is way up
I have to say this is maybe a bit hard to describe, but the info bar, if anything, comes up more quickly, whereas the picture itself can take 1-2 seconds to come up properly, it's black during that period. Audio usually shows up first. But scanning channels is much impeded on the newer units.
7.
External Drive Problems
I have not been able to sort out how to hook the external drive to the 8300HDC yet. I had one that worked fine on the older unit, but the newer one, although it sees it, doesn't seem to want to format the drive. Locks up and reboots attempting to do it.
8.
Remote Problems
This one is a bit hard to describe, so bear with me. I should note, that even though I brought in the remote for the old unit that had died, they gave it back to me. I found that kind of odd, I work in the computer industry, we usually swap out everything, but anyway the remote had been working OK, and I use a Harmony most of the time anyway, so no big deal. However, what I do notice is that when I use the remote, the 8300HDC seems to be some odd combination of more sensitive or maybe more accurately lagging in responsiveness. If I hit the channel up button, and wait for the unit to display the next channel, it frequently switches up 2 or 3 channels. If I just hit it once quickly, and wait, then the unit just switches one channel. And so on.
Hello. I was just wondering if anyone has any information regarding the differences between the 8300HD and the 8300HDC boxes? I know that the HDC supports the new Cable Card mandate by the FCC and that the cable card in the box will handle the decoding of premium/digital channels.
