Official SA 8000HD DVR Users Thread

[louisd13]

gparris or snard -  Can either of you test this fix out?  I won't be able to try until about 8:00 tonight and am VERY curious (and maybe even a little bit hopeful)  to see if this works.  Maybe it'll save me a trip.  Wouldn't you think that if this does work that they might have given these instructions to the Customer service reps (at least the tech support guys should have known).  Well here's to hoping this works!!

[swells6]

I cannot get regular SD programs to come in clearly off the 8000HD DVR.  The HD ones are fine.

The old HD box used to send an SD signal out the coax to a different video input.  This one seems to be dead.

It says you can program it but doesn't say how.

Any ideas?

[swells6]

I cannot get regular SD programs to come in clearly off the 8000HD DVR.  The HD ones are fine.

The old HD box used to send an SD signal out the coax to a different video input.  This one seems to be dead.

It says you can program it but doesn't say how.

Any ideas?

[jamisonweber]

Originally posted by swells6

The old HD box used to send an SD signal out the coax to a different video input.  This one seems to be dead.

It says you can program it but doesn't say how.

Any ideas?

TWC has all other A/V out puts disabled.

I sent TWC an email asking when all the video and audio ports on the HD DVR be enabled.

There response was as follows:
The DVI and S Video ports are not yet enabled or supported :bang: . I'm sorry, but we don't yet have a estimated date when they will be.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please contact us.

[louisd13]

Houston we have lift-off!!!  Bless you RS922!!  If you do this simple operation it'll switch between sd and hd seamlessly!  and for those of you who want to pipe it to another tv, just hook up to the Coax/RF out on the back and when you aren't using the HDTV just switch to SD mode and the RF cable out is functional.  Not the most high tech solution, but not too shabby.  In cased you missed it thanks again to RS922 this is how to switch  between sd and HD:

while settop powered on, press "channel up" button and hold for moment, then press "volume -" . After pressing "volume -" release both buttons.
This will toggle the mode back and forth.

[Snard]

Originally posted by louisd13
gparris or snard -  Can either of you test this fix out?  I won't be able to try until about 8:00 tonight and am VERY curious (and maybe even a little bit hopeful)  to see if this works.  Maybe it'll save me a trip.  Wouldn't you think that if this does work that they might have given these instructions to the Customer service reps (at least the tech support guys should have known).  Well here's to hoping this works!!

Quick confirmation here - it worked for me too. My box is now happily recording the 2002 Winter Olympics! (what the heck, NBC?!? I thought this was 2004!)

[gparris]

I will try the first HT setup that is easier to undo-AGAIN.

Right now, I am going to be cautiously optimistic, that's about all.

It was not right for TWC to have these in our hands without proper documentation and the boxes not set up right...not right at all.:mad:

Thanks for the information. I really want to do one HD DVR box per HDTV  set and thats all....

I think what with the NEW service charge of $6.95 PER BOX instead of the original $5 per box for the SD model, it darn better work and work great!

I will keep you posted....this issue has to be resolved.

[Snard]

Okay, last night we were watching & recording the Olympic opening ceremonies with the new box. Throughout the show I was getting occasional pixelation and stuttering. Was this part of the broadcast, or was it the box? It seemed if I "paused" for a bit & then watched with a minute or so delay, that the stuttering was a bit less (big deal not seeing it "live" since the entire show was prerecorded anyway.) It will be interesting to go back and re-watch the show to see if those glitches are in the recording as well.

I am going to put the box through its paces this week; last night when I was setting it up, I went to the program guide, selected the opening ceremonies, hit the Record button, then picked "Record entire series". I hope the guide has been fixed! (I also need to check whether it added the other channels besides NBC). I know the box can't hold all that info for long, but it will be nice to be able to pick & choose the events we want to watch. The only problem with this is that it's going to be recording some program almost all the time, and that may mean more glitches. I will halt the recording while we are watching "live" and see if that helps.

[borghe]

All I can offer is that it wasn't in the OTA broadcast.. played on my Tivo without a problem. It was either TWC's feed or your box.

[The Law]

I am reporting no issues whatsoever. HD, SD all look good -recording is a snap with only the occassional audio dropout (really - just a slight blip).  Someone once posted the joy of watching programming on their own terms - not tied to the network's schedule.  I was a bit skeptical of that (being used to being a slave to their schedules my entire life), however, in the 3 days that I've had this - I feel liberated.

The rewinding, pausing, recording of my beloved soccer games - the fact I don't have to watch reality (non-sports, that is) tv anymore.....

This is well, worth the price of admission.  I also guess I'm one of the lucky one's with no issues, etc.

My one question - has someone figured out how to check to see how much "time" is left to record - i.e. - how to know if it's going to get filled up - or if sthg is going to be deleted.

cheers

[RemoreKnight]

Found on another forum(works on mine):

Press the + (Select) and EXIT buttons on the front until the unit chimes (about 3-5 seconds). The front panel display will then show "diag" for a few seconds. You can then tune to channel 611 and access all the diagnostic information. The unit will stay in diag mode until you press the power button, etc., AND you can leave the diagnostic mode on and simply move it to the background by changing back to the channel you were on before pressing 611 (Use the LAST button on the remote to toggle back and forth). Useful if you are trying monitor how much space you are freeing up by deletion, or using up during a recording.

Thanks for sharing. If you go to the next to last menu item, DVR AVFS, after pressing 611 in diagnostic mode, it will give you Audio Visual USED and FREE SPACE to better manage your hard drive consumption. This is great stuff! Happy monitoring!

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark%2C8409126

[gparris]

After taking time to look at what snard and louisd13 tried, it worked for me.
Actually, the assistant at TWC tried to ask for me to do that almost as if it  was what they had read in our forum to do!

I said I did do that already, that it had worked, but I lost INHD and HDNET channels on the HD-DVR and not the HD box downstairs, which I had not yet changed out, so the box itself has to be "hit" by the cable operator to force the programming to come up.

First thing:  I left the power off on the second one to force it into HD operation as leaving the power on,  it went back to SD mode (black and white) even doing the channel-up-and-hold-then-hit-the-volume-down-and-release thing. So try what works for you.
VERY Different from the upstairs box and VERY confusing.

Second thing:  To change the TV type (aspect ratio of screen), the buttons on the box did not work as the instructions said these would, so even when I tried to do it,  the only message that came up was "push cbl button" and no setup information came up at all.
 So I thought: What?  No cable button, unless they meant power button for the cable box, and that didn't do anything at all.

Confusing and frustrating,again.

SO the solution was to go to the remote control and hit the
"Settings" button and I could select the 16:9 widescreen set with 4:3 stretch,  as well as selecting one of the HD channels to go on with power start, checking, too, for 1080i output.
Then it all seemed to work without using the stretch button for 480i channels, except for the 1080i ones that are 4:3 shows my Mitsubishi sets cannot stretch these for me.

NOTE: She asked me the number on the back of the box (great to write it down first BEFORE you install it in the HT Cabinent, folks!) so she could "hit" the box for programming.
Fortunately, it was the easier HT cabinent upstairs and later, about an hour or so later, I got a call back from a really nice person named Lori asked if it finally came on after she gave me time to setup the second HD-DVR box in the main HT room.

So I have colour, all my channels back and so far, same functionality as before, only with HD channels. I haven't tried PIP much yet, but I got an analogue channel in the window on my HD channel playing, so I guess it works.

NOTE: I had to write down my favourite recordings and input them back into the DVRs, but it wasn't too bad.
Most are in reruns for summer, anyway. Just remember that if you had a SD DVR before you unplug and switch out boxes.

Great service, TWC, your CSRs finally came to my aid.


(Just have our forum re-write your users manual, okay?)

[brewtownska]

For those of you who have the TWC SA HD-DVR, anybody notice if we're still able to set up REMINDERS for shows?  On the non-DVR boxes, you can go through the guide and hit select on a show in the future, and it'll ask if you want to set up a reminder.  Say it was Noon, I'd go ahead and look to see what movies/shows were on that evening that I was interested in watching, then set up reminders for them.  Granted, now I could really RECORD all of them, but in many cases I don't want to do that...I just want a reminder to pop-up on the screen at the start time so I can switch over to watch it.  From what I've seen so far, the HD-DVR only allows me to RECORD the show, no reminder.  Am I missing something, or is this just how the new boxes are set up?

Mike

[mhz40]

Reminders are gone.  The only thing you can do is set it up to record.
I think the drives are 160gig, with 10 gig unavailable for the OS and probably the 1 hour playback buffer.  This leaves 150 gig for recording, or at least 18.96 hours of storage @19.2 mb/s.  Most content runs at a rate less than 19.2, so an exact number in every case tough to figure...

[summerfun]

Is there any way to change the sidebar from "grey" back to "black" like the Pioneer HD box had?