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tjjws
02-27-2005, 01:16 PM
Received an 8300 today from the Mayfair store!

I took my SA8000 in today to swap for a new one, since I was getting the infamous hard disk error, and much to my amazement, they starting giving out 8300's today. Rep said they had just gotten them in yesterday.

It definitely reacts faster to channel changes, especially between the HD group of channels. The 8000 used to take a few seconds to adjust to each channel, but the 8300 is almost instantaneous.

There are also a number of other output choices, although I don't know if they're enabled or not. Got into the diagnostic menu and it has a 150g hard drive, just like the 8000 (was hoping for larger). It does have a SATA port for an external hard drive, so maybe there's hope.

[After further testing, I did not encounter the problem referenced in this paragraph. tjjws 2/28] Unfortunately, I had a weird problem with it already, where it rebooted as I was walking through the SD channels. Thought maybe it was because I had enabled 480p along with 1080i. I didn't want to mess with it any more today, so I disabled 480p and left it to record the race. I've always included 480p, so my 4x3 PTV fills the whole screen for SD channels, and then I get the black bars top & bottom for HD channels. If I don't do this, I get bars all around for SD channels, kind of defeats the purpose of the big screen.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know they were available, and I guess I'll need to change my signature ;)
Mark Strube
02-27-2005, 05:09 PM
Wow, nice!!! I'd love to go in tonight and get one but it's almost 6 now (closing time) and I've got a couple shows that I need to watch on my box. So, I'll probably go in sometime tomorrow. I'm especially interested if the DVI is active and if you notice any picture quality improvement on the component output?
mhz40
02-27-2005, 09:05 PM
Wow, nice!!! I'd love to go in tonight and get one but it's almost 6 now (closing time) and I've got a couple shows that I need to watch on my box. So, I'll probably go in sometime tomorrow. I'm especially interested if the DVI is active and if you notice any picture quality improvement on the component output?
It does not have a DVI port... it's HDMI.
Gregg Lengling
02-27-2005, 09:18 PM
HDMI is just DVI with digital audio you can use an adaptor cable to connect a DVI input from an HDMI or ViceVersa...however you will only have Video no audio.


Just a Note:

DVI...digital video interface
HDMI...HighDefinitionMultimedia Interface
tjjws
02-27-2005, 09:50 PM
Well, we've watched the entire race (5 hrs), and I'm impressed, but even better, so is my wife. I can put up with some dropouts, but it drives her nuts.

I only remember a couple of video pixelation/freezing, and audio drop-outs during the whole time, which is about what the 8k would do in 10 min. Needless to say, my wife hated the 8k.

Granted, I'm not recording anything else while watching the recording, which is where the 8k was just miserable.

BTW, I can't answer the DVI question, since I don't have any device that supports it.
Mark Strube
02-27-2005, 09:57 PM
It does not have a DVI port... it's HDMI.

Ok? Doesn't make a difference to me since I'll be using an adapter cable converting to DVI anyways. My question stands. Is it active?
wireblsam
02-27-2005, 10:21 PM
Is it safe to assume this is the 8300 HD and not the 8300 MR-DVR (multi-room)?

It seems our Twin Cities friends are ahead of us on that one.
tjjws
02-27-2005, 10:35 PM
WOW! The PQ on the SD channels is just as good as straight through to the TV. I can actually watch them through the DVR from now on. I used to bypass the box for the SD's, as long as I didn't care about the audio, since the PQ was so bad through the 8k.
tjjws
02-27-2005, 10:37 PM
Is it safe to assume this is the 8300 HD and not the 8300 MR-DVR (multi-room)?

It seems our Twin Cities friends are ahead of us on that one.


You are correct.
Rence
03-01-2005, 08:15 AM
We had only recently gone to TWC and gotten the 8000HD and were disappointed that the HDMI port was not active. We had heard that it was active on some 8000HDs but TW wasn't supporting it. After talking to TW a week or two ago, they said that if it was active on an 8000HD it was pure luck. Our only way to get one with it active was to just keep trading units until we got lucky.

After reading this thread we called and asked about HDMI/DVI on the 8300HD. Of course initially no one even knew what we were talking about, the folks on the phone hadn't even heard about it. FInally got through to a tech guy. He said it wasn't officially supported, but he did tell us that every unit he has tried, it was active. He also said that he has not yet heard of a unit where it was not active. So while not coming out and saying it was officially active, he implied that to the best of his knowledge it was active.

We arranged to swap our 8000HD for an 8300HD last night. We don't have the correct cable yet, so we can't test HDMI yet (we will in a day or two). Picture quality is definately better and so far in what little we have tried it out, we have had no video or audio problems like we occasionally had with the 8000HD.
Mark Strube
03-02-2005, 06:01 PM
I think this thread should be locked or merged with the 8300 thread in the recording forum... less confusing.
Gregg Lengling
03-02-2005, 06:23 PM
Stand by a day or so we are considering creating a new group for DVR's.
Mark Strube
03-02-2005, 10:30 PM
oHH.... cool! :D
Paul S.
03-03-2005, 07:38 AM
Stand by a day or so we are considering creating a new group for DVR's.


Gregg has a magic 'wand' lmao :p