Milwaukee HDTV User Group

I got my update last night. Actually, when I got up and was reading the paper, the DVR was repeatedly rebooting. Eventually, it occured to me that the external hard drive might be causing a problem. I removed it and, after one more reboot, all was fine.

Then, of course, I'm worried about reconnecting the external drive. After going through the standard drive add procedure, all was fine. I did not lose any of my recordings.

Version is listed as 2.4.1-92, Jan 14, 2008.

Comments - so far -

Bad ...

It is a bit slow ...

Doesn't fill a 16x9 screen with the Explorer display.
Has problems differentiating "new" recordings from "old" .. I may have to check scheduled recordings more often to cancel duplicates, or be more careful in scheduling settings.

Good ...

The reading that shows percentage of available space used is nice. It does include space on the external drive, but doesn't show separately space on the drives.

The ability to list recorded shows by date or title.

I'm a little late on jumping in on this .. but I have had significant issues with CableCard installs.

I recently purchased a Sony KDL-52XBR4 and a Tivo Series 3. I bought the latter because the price had fallen to about $360, after rebate, and I've always been captivated by its capabilities, mainly including the ability to record HD OTA, as well as from cable.

I called TWC to install the  2 CableCards on the Tivo, attached to the new set, and another CableCard on the set that it displaced. I attached my SA8300HD, at least temporarily, to the new set.

I relocated my old 'main set' and had a CableCard installed on it. I also have a CableCard on another HD set.

The Tivo was an issue to get setup .. eventually, after the tech left, I figured out that the signal strength was insufficient to get all channels. I fixed this issue by adding a booster that I happened to have in stock.

The other CableCard install went smoothly, except for the channel issue detailed below.

On all of my CableCards, there are missing, or wrong channels. I do subscribe to the missing channels since they do appear on my SA8300HD. Here's the story ...

440 Sundance     No Signal
528 ESPN2 HD    TWC Preview Channel
532 UNIV HD       No Signal
534 TBS HD         TWC Preview Channel
537 HGTV HD       TWC Preview Channel
542 A&E HD         TWC Preview Channel
545 MOJO HD      No Signal
547 HDNET          No Signal

I've gotten reset 'hits' as part of a couple of service calls. It does seem like the CableCard authorizations are out of sync with the 8300HD authorizations. I can't seem to get this across to the TWC folks, who seem to be woefully unfamiliar with CableCards, so any help would be appreciated!

Thanks ...

I also have had reboots on the SA8300HD. Mine is a couple of years old and I have an external 500GB Seagate external HD.

We all want to get the most for the least, of course, and TWC has lagged other suppliers in providing us content ... Hopefully meaningful competition from satellite and AT&T will generally drive prices down or restrain increases ...

However, BTN and many other channels, like ESPN, BRAVO, etc, despite being advertiser-supported, want to charge the cablecos to carry their signal. To me, this model is faulty. In a perfect world, I would require that advertiser-supported channels must provide their signals to cablecos for free ... and don't get me started on the OTA channels, receivable free by antenna, yet who charge cablecos to carry them ...

Since this practice seems entrenched, for now, the best approach for the cablecos, and the average cable consumer, is for cablecos to insist on some tiering of services. If a provider provides a channel of wide interest at a reasonable price, it goes into a standard tier. If a provider demands a high price for a more limited audience, it goes into an optional tier.

I hate to say I'm sympathetic with TWC on providing us the BTN, but the system is broken and someone has to take a stand.

Quote from: Rence;35880Just to let folks know - we have an older 8300, had it for over a year.  I got the 500GB External Seagate drive, hooked it up as described and its working fine.

I realize that we're taking a risk with the new software update coming out, but we hae other uses for the drive if it stops working with the DVR.

=======

I've done the same, 500GB Seagate eSATA on an older 8300HD .. Working so far and, if that fails, I'll install the included PCI board on one of my PCs and use it as an external drive.

But ... I do have some issues that are puzzling ..

1. Got a message on the LIST command that one of my recordings would expire in 2 days ... though I had plenty of space after adding the eSATA. It disappeared, of course, after I watched the show. So far, hasn't returned.  Theoretically, I shouldn't get such messages for quite a while.

2. Given that all my new recordings will be to the eSATA for a while since it has more space (that's the protocol), everything I've recorded in the last week should be going to eSATA. When I try to watch something that is still recording, I've had some glitches, including losing the remainder of the recording. I'd be curious if any of you have had such problems. If I wait until the recording is over, there is no problem watching the recording.

Quote from: Mark Strube;35764Well tonight I picked up a 2nd HD-DVR for the theater room, I'll only be recording HD movies and some trailer shows on that one.

I also picked up an external Seagate 300gb eSATA drive... and it works with the 8300HD!

It will say there's a problem when you first hook it up (make sure the drive is turned on), but then I just did a reboot of the 8300HD. Once that was finished, about 10 seconds later a screen came up asking me if I wanted to format the drive. Works like a charm!!

This is a major event! ..

(1) How do you know if you're getting a new 8300HD unit that will work with the external drive? .. or has software update enabled all of them? My diag screen does show SATA as "SATA status  Authorized" ...

(2) Will this work with any external eSATA? ... Seagate has a 500GB eSATA for $300 at Provantage.com.

Thx.

This is my first post, though I've browsed for a while.

Has there been a discussion of connecting external SATA drives, like the Maxtor QuickView to the Explorer 8300HD?  I realize that the Passport OS won't handle this drive. Is there a technical reason why Time Warner uses Passport and not SARA? I see from another post that SARA may have issues.

I go through reboot episodes every so often with my 8300HD, but it is fairly stable.

Sorry if this is covered in a thread that I haven't discovered