Howdy05
@adelphia.net
| reply to MapleGuy
Re: Adelphia's DVR (Digital Video Recorder) Statio
Hi all thanks alot for the info.
Have a qustion: It seems I have some bad sectors on my dvr's disk, and I was wondering if the thing goes into any sort of auto-diagnostic that might quarantine them, or if perhaps there was something I could do about it.
Thanks!
-Howdy05 |
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ej1007
@rr.com
|  Firewire possiblilty.
I Just thought i'd add something to this forum.
I recently pulled apart my explorer 8000 out of curiosity and found something kinda interesting.
(btw, if you cant get the security torx off, a pocket knife works well to break off the security pin :P, and an allen wrench will fit)
but anyway, once i got the box opened... i noticed there was an added jumper wire and a definately aftermarket resistor.
i could not find the info on the chip the resistor was on, though the jumper wire went from a resistor near what looks like the main tsop to the firewire controller chip... (34ANJCt)
maybe a lock?... i desoldered them both and taped them off... hoping this may have been an afterthough added by time warner to try to avoid dvd-r piracy. (cause it was that ghetto looking)
upon reboot, everything seems to work fine..., though no dice on the firewire.... at least not from what i could tell.
i do not have a big->big firewire cable though, so i was unable to test it in premiere or other capture programs as of yet, but on the dv camera nothing came up.
hopefully ill try another cable soon, and see if i have results, but someone feel free to beat me to it.
also, im too poor to care about new developments in home theater technology, but i did read something about them using firewire to xfer video in the future instead of vga, dvi, rgb, etc... so that one cable can do the work of 5 or 6... might be worth looking into how this works to see if it can be adapted to a computer.
anyway, good luck, let me know if you find anything. |
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Vchat20
Landing is the REAL challenge
join:2003-09-16
Warren, OH
clubs:  | reply to gelbelt
Re: Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000
I know this has been beat to death, but has anyone found out how to add a bigger Hard Drive to this thing? cuz ours easily runs out of space within a weeks time and having a much larger one would be a big help. |
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gothos
@mindspring.com
| GOOD NEWS for those seeking to increase HD size. I just had to have my 8000 swapped out due to stuttering replay of digital recordings. This new unit, which was fresh out of the box and not recycled, has a 160 gig HD. Result is about 70 hours of recording!!!! Thus far I have about 50 hours on it with no warnings of capacity limits. NIIICCE. AFA PC connections, still trying to figure this one out. It should be noted that most of the problems I have seen mentioned in this thread are NOT related to the boxes themselves, but to the cable headend. I have had 8000's in two different regions. In Maine, the system worked PERFECTLY. Never a hiccup, never a crash, never a freeze. Here in the Tampa area, I am on my 3rd box in 5 months, and it seems that they finally got it right.
The USB ports are a no go. They are for a future capability for the unit to serve as a high speed internet unit (WebTV on steroids) though most cable companies are balking at this, opting for the full leaded high speed PC modems. Currently, the front USB port is enabled for manual "tweaking" by field techs for Sci Atl. Requires a passcode, but can be done with any USB PC keyboard.
Hacking is being SERIOUSLY resisted through software (encryption of the data). Unlike TiVo, we don't own the boxes, so they don't want users messing with it. TiVo requires the box to be purchased, and THEN you pay a subscription for the thing to sing and dance, so they could care less what you do with it once you have bought it.
All in all I love the 8000, especially since it takes one phone call to repair/replace a deffective unit, and doesn't cost anything. In short, if it breaks, it aint my problem.
Hope this helps ya'll. |
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mike_san_diego
@rr.com
| It is your problem if you had anything on the hard drive you wanted to watch or keep when the box dies!  I just had 2 out of my 3 SA8000 boxes crap out totally today. The first lost the ability to connect to the head end and could not be turned on. The second had a hard drive failure. Time Warner just picked up both boxes, as they couldn't get them to work either. I lost over 80 hours of carefully selected programming from the last 6 months! That is now 5 out of 6 SA8000 boxes that have failed in just the last 9 months, each time taking all my recorded programming with it. At least with my 3 TiVo's, except for an initially bad hard drive out of the box, I have never had a unit fail. Quality control and you get what you pay for. The Guide data from Time Warner pales by comparison with TiVo's Guide data. Viva TiVo! Hasta La Vista SA8000!  |
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redawgc1874ever
@rr.com
| Well all of you trying to figure out how to record off of the box the mystery has been solved well first of you have to have the following hardware A tv tuner card w\ video and audio in simple enough heh you just plug the line inputs using your cable remote you play the programs you want recording the programs to your hard disk and then fire up your favorite DVD burning software makes perfect copies everytime if you a large enough hard disk you could just play all in your list of saved movies recording them to your hard disk using video editing software take out the trash commercials or whatever you don't want. PS those of you who might want a free 80 gig hardisk this can only be done if you have an old hardisk to put in it's place you simply take the box apart take the disk out and replace it with an old one then call time warner and tell them the error you are getting when trying to access your dvr |
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davedo2
@ctc.com
| reply to maartena
Re: Extra info
You can grab the video output to whatever you want post box. It comes out as straight data. It's only encrypted on the way in, and stored on the box. The fact taht you can watch the digital video on a regular tv means that you can rip it to whatever you want off the coax out. get a video converter and rip it to DivX -- fit an entire season of the simpsons on a single cdrom. Just think of it this way: you can also rip any audio files you want no matter what kind of DRM or encryption that have -- just plug the line in of another computer into the line out or headphone jack on the player. Not rocket science. That's why it's a joke that companies are going to all this trouble with DRM. The fact that you can hear or see the output means that you can capture it somewhere. Last time I checked people can't process encryypted signals. |
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mreed_911
@rr.com | reply to mike_san_diego
Re: 160GB Maxtor Hard Drive
I've got 160GB!
I swapped out my SARA/8000HD today due to a problem, and I've got a 160GB HD! VERIFIED BY MODEL NUMBER - 4R160L0
Woo hoo!
Mike |
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mike_san_diego
@rr.com
| Yes, the 8000HD is the only box with an option of a larger hard drive, if the cable company wants to spring for 160GB instead of 80GB. Lucky you! 
The cable companies won't install one unless you have an HD ready television, as they are in limited supply and you pay an extra $10 per month for the 8000HD over a standard 8000 box.
Still, its cheaper than a $500 HD tuner!
If they turn out to be as unreliable as the 8000 boxes, you will be losing twice as much, every time the box fails!
Apparently, you already have one failure under your belt! Start archiving anything you can't live without today! |
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Rondadon
@rr.com
| reply to gelbelt
Re: Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000
We've had an 8000 for several months now, through our cable company. And I have to say that although I love the ease of recording, this machine SUCKS. We are on box number 7. As a matter of fact, we just picked a new one up yesterday because the old one decided it just didn't feel like recording Alias or anything else that starts with an A. The new one just flaked out tonight. So it's back to the cable company tomorrow. ARRGHHHH. I wish I wasn't so damned addicted. Maybe it's time to go TIVO. But I'm worried that the TIVO or REPLAY or whatever will have the same problems and then it'll be coming out of our pocketbook when we need to replace it. What to do??? |
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sandman4ever
join:2004-04-09
Columbus, OH
| reply to sure
hello world,
i have bought a Medion Harddisk-Sat-Receiver "Medion HD 3540 F" here in germany, and it seems to be the same problem as with yours:
if i plug the disk (20GB) out of the recorder, and plug it on my pc the bios corect accept the disk, but windows and linux does it not.
i have try some harddisk-tools to get some informations from the partition. the partition-type is AVFS, and there at least zwo partitions.
since today i have not found any driver or possibillity for windows or linux to get access to the partitions.
the sourceforge project "AVFS" is a linux-tool to mount zip and tar-archives as disks, ergo no solution for us.
in my "Medion HD3540 F" device is an (hardware-unused) common-access-module slot for deencryption-modules like irdeto or seca.
my theory about the "encryption" is that there is no other encryption as the abowes irdeto or other transmitted stream-encryption. but, all informations like EPG or multi-chanel sound are present in the recorded files, so i think the box record a raw format of the data.
however. i think you can increase your searchrange about avfs to my device the "Medion HD3540F" with the same partitiontype and problem
greetings from cologne/germany,
and much more sorrys about my english
Rene´ alias Sandman4ever |
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stevelogin
@rr.com
| reply to Vchat20
Re: hdtv
I just purchased a new TV and also paid the extra money to get the HDTV receiver. We have several HDTV channels in this area and anyone who has seen HDTV knows, the picture quality is outstanding. Anyway, the problem I have come across is that when I select anything in HDTV for viewing, the picture is reduced to a much smaller screen. I purchased a Sony 32" TV and when I view HDTV it is very clear, but now I'm viewing a 19" screen. My question is, am I missing a step in the HDTV conversion process? Is this normal? The reduction in the viewing screen is very obvious and I was wondering if everyone else had experienced the same problem? Please provide any help or comment on this matter. Thank you. |
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Ravnwolf
Forge Your Own Path
join:2001-03-24
Tifton, GA | reply to dukie1993
Re: Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000
SA says there will be a firmware update that addresses the issue of recording ALL occurences of a program. Currently, however, if you tell it you want to record all occurences of say, Miami Vice, it will - even if the show comes on 3 times per day. |
|
Ravnwolf
Forge Your Own Path
join:2001-03-24
Tifton, GA
| reply to Raul Roman
When we first deployed the units last year around September, we first noticed the delay in changing channels. SA knew about this problem and was testing a firmware update to address the problem. We pushed that firmware out in January and it helped, but only a little. Then we became aware of another problem where all of the scheduled recordings were disappearing from the menus. SA rushed out an emergency firmware update due to a leap year bug.
Overall, the 8000 series is a pretty good unit, but not the best. The fact that it is a dual tuner unit for the cost is pretty good considering that DISH offers their dual tuner unit for about $500 - $700. DISH offers the single tuner unit free with select packages and contracts. IMHO, the DISH units are better than the SA 8000 units, but then again, the fact that digital typically works on a 2way cable system is a plus (whereas sat still requires a phone line connection to push the PPV buys, etc. back to DISH or DirectTV).
SA did with the 8000 what they typically do with their units; they put non-functioning ports for "future" expansion. Also be aware that the 50 hour recording time is if you record nothing but digital programming. We discovered that since we have an analog tier (channels 2-99) that our customers get with all digital packages, when recording analog channels, it requires twice the capacity on the DVR, effectively reducing the recording time to 25 hours sometimes.
Most of our customers are happy with the DVR once we finally were able to get over the training hump and make them realize the advantages.
Our next step is to start rolling out the HD versions of the 8000 units as we have more and more customers that get our HD programming, but also want the ability to record it.
Anyway, just thought I'd post our experiences in regards to the 8000 units. We are a small municipal system and sometimes we can deploy the newer technologies faster than the big MSOs because we don't have to test it to death to satisfy internal policies.
--
(Work):Telecommunications Superintendent, Municipal Broadband Cable System; (Home) 3 Windows XP PRO workstations, Windows XP PRO Laptop w/ wireless nic, Windows Home Laptop w/ wireless, RedHat 9.0 Server, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise, Wireless PDA |
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AceManAcer
@cox.net | reply to Rondadon
I Have A tivo And only one Problem. Every time It Goes To Connect With Tivo. (every night or So) It Freezes Completely I Have To Unplug it to reboot it. For It Has No Direct Power Button Every Night. (Only Thru The Menu) |
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WA8YCD
@adelphia.net
| reply to KevinG79
I have connected a USB keyboard to the USB port on the
Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000. It sorta works.
I can use the arrow keys and numeric keys (gotta make sure
NUM LOCK os on for keypad to work! Duh! )
That's about all the functionality I have found.
Looking for further successes?????
Cheers,
...Bob rlwest@wa8ycd.net |
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rich_is_bored
@rr.com
| reply to gelbelt
Capturing video straight from the COAX or RCA outputs requires that you have a PC with a capture card. But being able to capture video with your PC kinda defeats the point of having a DVR altogether doesn't it? I mean, why wouldn't you just use the PC to capture the TV shows in the first place?
Besides, if you want to capture from the DVR at full NTSC resolution you have to get an expensive capture card and install it into a fairly high-end PC. Otherwise you'll spend weeks, if not months, trying to tweak settings so that your captures don't drop frames. Either that, or you settle for low res captures that are nothing close the the quality of the original capture on the DVR.
Not to mention most affordable capture cards only capture in AVI format which means you have to re-encode the video into an MPEG format so you can burn it to disc and watch it in a set top DVD player.
The solution isn't to recapture the video from the DVR. The DVR does an excellent job of capturing video as is.
The video is already sitting on the DVR's hard drive in MPEG format. It may be encrypted, but it's there and all we need is a way to access it.
All I can say is I hope a disgruntled SA employee sees this thread.  |
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