Scientific Atlanta DVR / Passport Tips & Tricks

[Mark Strube]

I grabbed this from a useful thread over at the AVSForum. If you guys know any more tips & tricks, or if any of this is incorrect for our local software, feel free to add the information!


Slow Motion - Quickly double-tap the PLAY key. To resume playback hit the PLAY key once.


Slow Motion - Hit PAUSE first, then hold down the Right Arrow key and it goes into Slo-Mo.


Frame by frame advance - hit PAUSE first, then repeatedly tap the Right Arrow key


Swap from one tuner to the other - Press the Pip's SWAP button only (don't press Pip)


Recording Options - after selecting a show to record, press SELECT again and a menu pops up where you can change settings for that particular recording (like save until manually erased, record entire series, start early/late etc)


Commercial Advance (sorta) - When you're FF'ing through a block of commercials,
hit PLAY as soon as you see the show resume, and the unit jumps back to the right
where the show resumes. Takes practice and quick eyes to get it just right :-)


Jump Ahead to 15 minute marks - When in FF mode you can jump ahead to the next 15 minute interval by pressing the Right Arrow key.


Jump Backwards to 15 minute marks - Hit the Rewind key then press the Left Arrow
key to go backwards. Handy when joining a show in progress and you want to skip
back to the beginning.


Create Manual Recording - Press REC and a menu will pop up giving you an option to Create a Manual Recording. Press SELECT and you'll be able to navigate around and create your manual recording just like you did with your VCR.


When in the Guide, see a particular channel listing by entering the direct channel
number using the number keys (like 7, or 200, or 1182 etc).


Another way to quickly skip through channels in the guide is to press the FAV button. It will jump directly to the next channel on your List of Favorite Channels and is actually more useful than when watching live TV. Faster in the guide at least.


When in the Guide, hit the A key to skip ahead 100 channels at a time.



When in the Guide, to quickly scan hours or days ahead, press and HOLD the Right Arrow key and it starts advancing through the hours really fast and you can see the days advancing too. When you get close to the day you want start watching the hours again and take your
finger off the button which will dump you close to the time you're looking for on that day. If you go more than a few days ahead you'll probably see "No Data" for a few moments while the new data loads. If you go too far ahead it will not load new data (i can go forward about 5-6 days typically, but sometimes only 3 or 4 days).


When in the Guide, to quickly skip several days ahead, press a number key then quickly press the Right Arrow key. Use number 2 to scan two days ahead, use 4 for four days, etc. Same No Data rules apply as above.


To search by Theme, bring up the Guide normally then hit the B key to bring up the
list of Themes.


While searching by Theme, you can either scroll down by hitting the Down Arrow key or hit the B key to skp to the next group of Themes (like Sports, Lifestyles, News, Family, etc) then use the Down or Up Arrow keys to scroll through the subheadings in that group. When you've highlighted a Theme you want (say, Sports) Right Arrow over into the Programs section the pressing the B key again skips down one page at a time. Zero in on the show you want using the Down or Up Arrow key.


To search by Title, bring up the Guide normally then hit the C key to bring up the A-Z column. Then to search for a particular title, you can either scroll down through the A-Z alphabet to the letter you want, or hit the C key to advance to the next page of letters. Once you settle on a letter, Right Arrow into the list of Programs then either scroll down with the Down Arrow key or hit the C key to skip down to the next title group. When you land on the show you're looking for, hit the Record key and a menu will pop up giving you the option of recording that particular
showing or Recording the entire series. You can then go into your Series Manager and fine tune the settings.


To make the Bar Graph or a Menu disappear no matter what you're doing, just hit the EXIT key.


You can change the way the DVR changes channels. If you press the * key this switches to a mode where you will have to press the SELECT key to complete a direct channel change or to skip to a specific channel in the Guide. So now you have to press 4 then quickly press SELECT to complete the channel change. This is to prevent you from accidentally hitting a number key then losing your existing show's buffer when the channel suddenly changes.
I hate when that happens! This mode eliminates that problem :-) To restore normal
operation, press the INFO button to bring up the progress bar, then quickly hit the * key.
Or reboot the DVR - that also resets this back to the default.

If you just purchased a ppv event, press the "A" button to bring up a window which allows the user to cancel.

On the 8000HD DVR only... press CH+, hold for moment, then press VOL-, then let go of both. This changes output mode to standard def and activates RF out. Also changes format of one component output to composite, which allows user record programming to VCR or DVD burner. Press same key seq to return to normal output mode or power off and back on to reset.

[RS922]

Mark,

That's a pretty good list.  A few additions I can think of....

On first generation HD DVR, press CH+, hold for moment, then press VOL-, then let go of both.  This changes output mode to standard def and activates RF out.  Also changes format of one component output to composite, which allows user record programming to VCR or DVD burner.  Press same key seq to return to normal output mode or power off and back on to reset.

I think the button "C" search by title is only available on 8300 models now, but rumored for the other model types in the near future.

If you just purchased a ppv event, press the "A" button to bring up a window which allows the user to cancel.

When watching a VOD event on the DVR, press FF once, followed by right arrow. This tells the VOD server to jump ahead 10 minutes.  Use RR once followed by left arrow to jump back 10 minutes.  Works on all VOD channels.

[oz]

Commercial Advance (sorta) - When you're FF'ing through a block of commercials,
hit PLAY as soon as you see the show resume, and the unit jumps back to the right
where the show resumes. Takes practice and quick eyes to get it just right :-)

I don't understand this one.  Why would you not hit Play as soon as you see the show resume?  So you can miss some of the show?  What other way is there to do it?

[RS922]

Not sure the "name" for this feature, but when you FF at the fastest speed and you press play, the DVR will back up the program 20 seconds.  This is to compensate for the time it take the average viewer to see the program starting and press the "play" button.

TIVO has the same feature, but I haven't timed that one to see if it's the same adjustment.

[Mark Strube]

Thanks RS922, added your tips to the main thread.

[tekdredger]

Does anyone know how to do Frame by Frame Reverse?  Pause then left arrow doesn't do it.

[MDR]

pause left arrow works for me, somewhat erratic but it does single step.

[kevbeck122]

Works for me too.

[tekdredger]

Well it does back-step but it's more than a single frame.  If you rock back and forth you will see that if you single step forward the steps are much finer than in reverse.

[Mark Strube]

You can do single-step reverse, but the first several times you push it, it'll be more than one frame.

[tekdredger]

You can do single-step reverse, but the first several times you push it, it'll be more than one frame.

That seems bass ackwards to me.  Most transport controls that I'm familiar with increase in speed or step size upon repeated pressing, not decrease.  I stumbled into this while watching some of the college bowl games and wanted to do my own "instant slow-mo replay" and the controls were very frustrating to say the least.  It made it hard to find that critical frame or two and loop back and forth.

I'll try the multiple button press and see how it works for me.  Maybe I just need some more practice...Hmm, NFL playoffs anyone.