Official SA 8000HD DVR Users Thread

[Mrtanner]

The start of the NFL season (it's the most wonderful time of the year) gave me my first reason to try the PIP feature.

The delay was VERY frustrating when switching between games.  It took approximately 7 seconds for the box to switch the PIP to the main screen.  

Is this common to the HD DVR or is this a personal problem?

[Bigdog]

I wish you could make the PIP screen bigger, even on the bigger of the 2 on my 65" WS it was still hard to read the score etc.  Too bad it can't do a split screen on it.

[brewtownska]

Just curious if anyone knows how the SA 8000 HD-DVR works with data on the hard drive.  On the computer side of things, we all know that for a cleaner read/write, defragmenting your hard drive is a good thing to do after a while.  Knowing this box will hold approx 20hrs of HD programming, I'm sure I've recorded enough data to fill that drive 2-3 times over since I picked it up.  Does the machine do any sort of defrag, or does it even NEED to?

The reason I ask is that over the past week or so, I've noticed a lot more audio dropouts on recorded programs (also happens when I'm RECORDING something but watching another program...even when only 1 of those is a HD program).  For instance, I watched Dead Like Me (HD) last night while recording Entourage (the SD version).  Dead Like Me was fine while watching, but when I checked the recorded Entourage, it had tons of dropouts.  Either the box is having a hard-drive pulling all the data off the drive when doing playback, and having dropouts there...or the more logical thing would be the drive is having a hard time writing all the data at a rate it needs to.

Anybody want to throw in their thoughts?  It has been a while since I've had TW out to check my line, although I remember last time he was here, he said I had a good signal level because it was coming straight off the pole to my house (only about a 20 ft length from the box on the telephone pole into my basement).  No signal boosters in my house.  I DO have Roadrunner, so I'd say there's a possibility of that traffic having something to do with it.  But most of the time, my computer has Zonealarm (software firewall) turned on to block internet traffice, so there shouldn't be much traffic happening while these recordings are going on.

One other piece of info on Roadrunner.  I find that the analog NBC (channel 4) gets video noise whenever I'm downloading stuff on Roadrunner.  Do the frequencies overlap or are they close?  Or is this a sign that my signal is a little low?  Main cable comes into the house, 1 split goes to my roadrunner (although right before it hits the cable modem, I split it again to allow a cable connection to my ATI All-in-wonder card).  I know this isn't the best thing, but I notice no slowdown in internet performance.  Then the other split in the basement goes to a 4-way splitter, where I'm sending 3 of them to 3 different TVs.  I suppose maybe there is my problem...too many splits for my own good.

Anyhow, please chime in if you had any advice.

Mike

[Andrew Grall]

Originally posted by Andrew Grall
I asked at the TW kiosk at Mayfair, and the person there told me that the DVI works on the HD-DVR, but it isn't officially supported.

True?  Or BS?

Can anyone absolutely confirm or deny this?  Thanks!  

[Bigdog]

Originally posted by brewtownska
Just curious if anyone knows how the SA 8000 HD-DVR works with data on the hard drive.  On the computer side of things, we all know that for a cleaner read/write, defragmenting your hard drive is a good thing to do after a while.  Knowing this box will hold approx 20hrs of HD programming, I'm sure I've recorded enough data to fill that drive 2-3 times over since I picked it up.  Does the machine do any sort of defrag, or does it even NEED to?

No signal boosters in my house.  I DO have Roadrunner, so I'd say there's a possibility of that traffic having something to do with it.  But most of the time, my computer has Zonealarm (software firewall) turned on to block internet traffice, so there shouldn't be much traffic happening while these recordings are going on.

Anyhow, please chime in if you had any advice.

Mike

I wondered the samething myself it if does need to be defragged every so often. I know it is 159G Maxtor drive in there and I have like 49GB used so far but not sure how continious that data is on there. As for Roadrunner even running flat out it should not even make a blip on the bandwidth of the over the coax. A DVD is movie is chewing up 2X or more that Roadrunner does maxed out so I don't think that is affecting it. I have dropouts on mine as well. I know the hardline has to be replaced and they are awaiting permits from the town (has to go under a road) but  network performance is also suspecting it may be a bad box and told me to keep an eye on the QAM BER. I had some dropouts yesterday during the game and it error rate was at 0 so

[borghe]

andrew - DVI did NOT work when I connected DVI-to-HDMI on my buddy's panasonic.

brewtownska - fragmentation is meaningless on the DVRs (Tivo or TWC). The way these filesystems work (proprietary database filesystems) it is virtually impossible for fragmentation to ever get bad enough that it actually affects A/V performance.

The problems you are having lie with the software... which other people are having as well.

[oz]

Originally posted by brewtownska
One other piece of info on Roadrunner.  I find that the analog NBC (channel 4) gets video noise whenever I'm downloading stuff on Roadrunner.

The same thing happens on my NBC channel (504), but only when I use my laptop with my wireless connection.

[jimbop99]

Well, I got my cable installed yesterday and I'm not a happy camper. The HD channels look very nice but the analog channels are just terrrible (very grainy). The installer thought there might be a problem in the line outside so he said he would call it in. The SA8000HD is another subject. I tried to record two HD channnels at the same time but the show on ABC kept pixelizing and studdering and tearing, it was awful. The other show on FOX turned out just fine. I'm hoping this gets fixed or I'm going back to D*. Is the SD DVR any better? I would be willing to go to that as long as it was stable, until they work out the bugs with this HD DVR.

[summerfun]

If you had problems with ABC and not FOX, then I would guess it was the station and not the box.

Yes, the analog stations look grainy compared to the HD channels. I don't think it would be better with the SD DVR. It is just the nature of analog channels on a digital TV. The bigger the TV, the worse the analog will look.

I have noticed some increase in pixilation in the new HD DVR over the SD DVR, but not enough of a problem to loose the HD recording capabilities.

[Bigdog]

Get used to the grainy pic on the analog channels, I have had several techs (including a supervisor and a network performance tech) tell me there is nothing they can do about it...

I've also noticed a lot more tiling and blocking with this HD DVR as well including with the audio. Hopefully when TWC installs the new hardline and rebalances out the pedestal (that has a secondary amp in it for the time being) that will improve.

[borghe]

locals don't look any better on the SD DVR. the grainyness is actually MPEG2 compression artifacts. Seen as though the HD and SD DVRs use the same MPEG2 encoder the results are the same.

The problem is two fold. They are using CBR single pass encoders and running them on content that is frankly already shoddy to begin with. Hence why analog channels on the DVR look awful.

The real answer is to get rid of the analog channels. Though it will probably be at least a few years before that happens.

[Bigdog]

That is why I am tempted to take one of the free outputs on the 8 way splitter and run it to the TV as a seperate input, bypassing the box totally. The TWC tech suggested to use the VCR outputs on the DVR and try that, I don't think that will help much.

[summerfun]

Running a seperate line the the tV set may help, but I would not want to deal with he hassle of changing inputs everytime I wanted to watch an analog channel.

Best answer, watch only HD......:bow:

Nothing that great on analog anyway.

[Bigdog]

Unfortunately the wife would tend to disagree, she watches Animal Planet a lot plus TLC, weather channel, court tv, etc. so we still watch a lot of the lower channels.  I agree having to switch inputs on the TV (even if through the menu) is a pain in the rear as well.

[summerfun]

Originally posted by Bigdog
Unfortunately the wife would tend to disagree, she watches Animal Planet a lot plus TLC, weather channel, court tv, etc. so we still watch a lot of the lower channels.  I agree having to switch inputs on the TV (even if through the menu) is a pain in the rear as well.

That's why you get her a second non HD TV. With TWC, you can hook as many analog sets up for free as you want. She can watch her analog channel programs with pretty good PQ, compared to watching them on the HDTV and you get to watch what you want on your HD set. Everybody is happy. Also works great for kids too. :rock:

We have two HD sets and five analog sets. No waiting or arguing, everybody can watch what they like.